TOS Review–First Step Reading/Classical Phonics

 

I hinted at this review in my last school post (oops, almost two weeks ago!). This is the new reading/phonics program that we are using because we love love love it! I received a copy of First Start Reading books A, B, C and teacher’s guide as well as the Classical Phonics book from Memoria Press, and I’m so glad we did.

The First Start Reading program is simple, fun, and makes sense. It’s easy to just pull the book out and start working through it or spend more time by utilizing the teacher’s guide and the additional suggestions it offers for teaching each lesson.

When a letter/sound is introduced, there is a coloring page, a place to draw your own picture, and handwriting practice. We mostly are not using the handwriting practice because we are using a different program for that, but the rest of the curriculum is fantastic.

The thing that I really like is that it gets into reading words as soon as they have three letters to blend. It works up from there so the student is quickly reading full sentences. She has enjoyed the pace of the book and has been excited when she can read the whole page by sounding it out or by sight. This has helped her confidence in other reading activities that we do as well.

The Classical Phonics book is a great supplement to the First Start Reading program. It is a small book based on a book written in the early 1900’s and focuses on word lists by letter, building in sounds the same as the First Start Reading books. The idea is that with word lists, the student cannot “cheat” by using contextual clues and therefore you can tell if they really know a sound or if they need more practice. We have not started using this book yet, but I am excited to begin. I think it will be an excellent review tool as we progress through the First Start reading books.

You can view some sample pages from Classical Phonics HERE. It can be purchased for $14.95.

You can view some sample pages from First Start Reading by clicking HERE and HERE.  The Student set is available for $21.00, the complete set with teacher’s guide is $29.95.

All purchases come with a 60 day guarantee, and any CD or DVD that becomes defective or damaged can be replaced.

If I had more stars, it would get more! 5 stars for a great product that we will be using for the rest of the school year!

See what other crew members are saying here

~S

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this product free through The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.