Cathy Duffy Approves
At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child: New Simplified Edition reviewed by Cathy Duffy reviews - the premier site for homeschool reviews
Here is an excerpt from the review:
"Mary Pecci has put together a phonetic reading program that she claims overcomes the problems of both intensive phonics and sight reading programs. Sight programs fail to teach the “code” of reading so children try to guess rather than decode. On the other hand, many phonics programs have too many rules and are sometimes complicated, making decoding a frustrating and laborious process for many children.
So Mary has created a program with fewer rules that uses a decoding strategy that helps deal with exceptions. At Last! A Reading Method for EVERY Child! begins with the introduction of the alphabet. Children first learn to identify letters by name. Then it teaches the sounds of the letters and letter combinations.
Mary reduces the phonetic code to its simplest possible terms by dividing instruction into seven categories, four for consonants and three for vowels. Individual consonants are first divided into “Good Guys” and “Tough Guys.” Good Guys are the consonants whose sounds are voiced within the pronunciation of the letter such as the pronunciation of the letter “b” as bee. The Tough Guys, “c, g, h, q, w," and "y” are not voiced, so Pecci uses pictures of key words to assist children. Before children begin to learn the sounds of vowels, they continue with two more groups of consonants: blends (e.g., bl, br, and dr) and the four digraphs: ch, sh, th, and wh.
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