What Steps do you Follow to Teach your Child Systematic, Explicit Phonics Instruction?

The majority of American school children are not taught to read with systematic, explicit phonics instruction.  Little Billy was a typical example of a little boy with all the talent and brains in the world, but he was never taught systematic phonics.  By the time Billy reached the 4th grade, his self image was in the mud and so were his grades.   Moreover, Billy was fully aware that he couldn’t read.  In fact, he hated reading!  

Billy’s mother was concerned, very concerned.  She had watched her son anxiously for three years as he failed one school subject after another, turning more and more inward, avoiding eye contact with his teacher and with his friends, dreading school, choosing the wrong friends, and falling farther and farther behind in his studies.  Billy’s mother strongly suspected that the real reason for Billy’s low math scores, history scores and grammar scores was because of his inability to read and understand the words in his textbooks.

When Billy’s mother first contacted me, Billy had just begun the 4^th grade.  Her question to me was direct and simple, and I’m so glad she asked it with such a determined resolve to obtain a workable solution. I was only too delighted to inform her that in order for Billy to gain good, strong reading skills, skills that would enable him to read every word on every page, he would need to start over again in his reading education and follow the natural progression of a COMPLETE phonics education. 

I shared with Billy’s mother these four steps of action that  any child must take in order to gain good, strong phonics skills.  Those steps are:  

1) Moms and Dads reading books to their children.  

Reading books to your little one WILL NOT teach him how to read.  However, reading stories to young children does increase their hearing vocabulary and it does encourage them to, someday, desire to read those stories for themselves.  That motivation should be followed up by giving a child “phonemic awareness.”

2) Phonemic Awareness  

Phonemic awareness is a systematically-learned group of skills children learn that give them the ability to manipulate the sounds that make up our spoken language through the use of rhymes, multisensory helps, fun with rhyming syllables and words, and beginning word sounds.

For example, when a child learns that the beginning sound of the word “sand” is the letter s, and that the letter s sounds like the hissing of a leaky flat tire or an angry snake, that child can then determine in his mind that the written letter s, when spoken, is associated with a particular sound. 

Children who learn to read quickly have built up that “sound association” with every letter in the alphabet at an early age.  However, learning the letter sounds is just the beginning.  Children must now learn to “blend” those sounds together from left to right, blending all the way through a word; and that’s where “phonics skills” enter the picture.

3) Phonics skills  

Phonics skills are gained when children learn the relationships between letters and sounds, how to recognize those relationships in print, how to blend together phonograms, and how to spell words when they are audibly heard by using the knowledge of phonograms, spelling rules, and syllables. 

All of these skills are gained through the use of a systematic (linguistic) phonics program that uses a step-by-step progression of teaching. A systematic phonics program should cover all the major sound/symbol relationships, including consonants, blends, short and long vowels, consonant and vowel digraphs, diphthongs,  and the most common but tricky sound-symbol relationships.

A systematic phonics program should include spelling rules along the way, plenty of practice for each lesson’s topic through phonics review and phonics drill, various types of written poems, written dialogue, written story openers and story readers to expose children to a wide variety of written expression.

An example of the order of a systematic phonics presentation such as Candy 4WAY Phonics is as follows:

a)   Children learn the short vowel sounds and all the letter sounds.   

b)   Children learn to blend a consonant with a short vowel and then tack on a third letter to form CVC (consonant-short vowel-consonant) words. 

c)    Children learn to blend consonant digraphs with a short vowel in the same way.  

d)   Children learn the long vowel sounds to form CVC(e) (consonant-long vowel-consonant-silent e) words  

e)    Children learn blend all the rest of the phonograms into words working with one phonogram at a time, mastering one lesson before proceeding to the next. 

d) A complete phonics program should contain no more than 60 sight words.  Daily phonics lessons should be sprinkled in the correct doses at the correct times with  left-right reading practice, spelling rules, prefixes, suffixes, syllabication, compound words, rhyming, and alliteration, and varied types of excerpts including poetry, story openers and dialogue.  It should also include daily lessons that contain daily phonics drill, phonics charts, and daily phonics review.

Only after adequate phonics skills are gained (including a measure of fluency) should a child be expected to read for meaning.  To expect a child who cannot read every word on every page to read for meaning will most likely frustrate him beyond belief and quite possibly bring him to tears. 

4) Reading for meaning 

Reading for meaning includes more than just being able to answer Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?  Reading for meaning involves learning to make inferences. 

When a child learns to make inferences, it means that he can read a page and draw a particular conclusion of his own, not from information stated directly in the text, but from information he has gathered from clues or hints in-between the lines of the text.

Click here to read more about how children learn to make inferences.   

In summary, systematic, explicit phonics carries with it certain sequential steps.   The above 4 steps of natural progression for a COMPLETE phonics education should be, of course, offered to every child in America.  Sadly, this progression is missing from most American schools. 

I’m thrilled to tell you, though, that little Billy (mentioned above) was taught to read using this phonics progression, that same progression offered throughout the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program.  As a result, by the end of his 5^th grade year, Billy was able to sound out over 40,000 words. 

Each year Billy’s reading vocabulary grew as did his reading comprehension, and Billy grew up to be a responsible citizen of the United States, loving his family, his country, and his God.

It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics  

P.S. If you are an adult who missed out on “phonics,” follow the same steps given to Billy (above).  Skipping steps will only cause you to “miss out” again.  You’ll be surprised how fast adults speed through a good 4WAY Phonics program. 

Free Phonics Resources are not the only thing you’ll find at our site.  At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we believe that the purpose for an AFFORDABLE – just $7.97 – Preschool Phonics Program should be to build into children all the skills necessary for them to be sounding out and authentically reading three-letter words by the time they begin kindergarten. 

We do NOT believe that children should begin their reading adventure by memorizing words from the Dolch Sight Word List.  We believe that children as young as three years old, given ample, systematic phonemic awareness training,  are capable of emerging into readers who will confidently know that they can read every word on every page.

Therefore, we want to enable you to work Systematic 4WAY Phonics into your Preschool Program.

So for just $7.97 you can have an INSTANT DOWNLOAD of the Candy 4WAY Phonics PRESCHOOL Program which includes:

1) Candy’s 31 Multisensory LARGE A to Z Wall Cards (with multisensory vowel helps)

 2) Candy’s 82-page eBook: How to Teach Candy’s Systematic 4WAY Phonics

 3) How to Follow Candy’s 4WAY Phonics Preschool Program

 4) Multisensory Vowel Helps to teach preschoolers to distinguish between the vowel sounds

 5) Rhyming Alphabet Phonics Charts that carry a child right up to the Daily Preschool 4WAY Phonics Lessons

 6) 25 Step-by-step Daily 4WAY Phonics Preschool Lessons – Click here to see samples of our Preschool Step-by-step Daily Phonics Lessons.

 7) Sequenced Preschool Lesson Drill Sheets to provide continuous review 

 8) A Preschooler’s 1st Reader

 9) Farmer Dan’s Critters Games (these two games lead children through 3-letter, short vowel words)

10) Achievement Awards Certificates  

After completing the Candy 4WAY Phonics Preschool Package, preschool children will be “way ahead of the game.” Having gained the skills to sound out

3-letter, short vowel words, preschoolers will be ready to begin the SECOND level of the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program that will take them all the way through 4^th grade and higher reading level.

Click Here to read more about this fabulous Preschool Systematic 4WAY Phonics INSTANT DOWNLOAD Program for just $7.97. 

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

 Candy 4WAY Phonics

However, did you know we also offer 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Phonics Flashcards / Wall Cards with multisensory pictures, catchy phrases, fun words and all the possible spellings for 140 phonics letters and blends?   

What’s more, we are offering those  65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Phonics Flashcards / Wall Cards at a Special SALE Price for the months of February and March for  just $6.97 as an INSTANT DOWNLOAD for ALL 65 Multisensory Cards!!!

THAT’S CORRECT!   You can print 65 Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards, all for just $6.97.  Print as many as you want as often as you want!    

If you’re looking for a multisensory tool to help your children learn not only all the phonics sounds but also all of their possible spellings, this is fantastic resource!

Each LARGE Colored Multisensory Flashcard / Wall Card Picture appeals not only to a child’s sight, but also to his sense of touch, his appeal to colors, his sense of emotion, and his sense of hearing.

These 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards will come to you as an INSTANT DOWNLOAD in ready-to-print format. Print these as often as you like in as many quantities as you like.  If you spill something on one, just print it off again!

With these 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards your child will learn all of the alphabet letter sounds, both the short and long vowel sounds, and all those 114 common but tricky phonogram sounds. These Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards display multisensory pictures as well as tons of catchy rhymes and phrases.

This is a great resource to help young children as young as preschool with phonemic awareness all the way up to older children who struggle in reading and need to learn not only the phonograms, but all the possible spellings and sounds for the alphabet letters and phonics blends.

These 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory / Flashcards/Wall Cards are also the perfect decor to surround a teacher’s classroom walls or a homeschooler’s education room.

Each Multisensory Card prints out on 8 ½” by 11″ paper or cardstock and each represents either one of the 26 alphabet letters sounds, one of the short or long vowel sounds, or several phonograms that all represent one sound from the 114 most common but tricky phonograms. For example, did you know that Long A can be spelled 10 different ways! Your child will know, once he has learned the Long A flashcard from this multisensory resource. 

Imagine a freezing bear inside of an ice cube representing the sound of the phonogram br.

Or a hooting owl representing the sounds of the phonograms long u, long oo, u_e, ue, ui, ew, and ough.

If you’ve ever viewed the television special about Marva Collins, you’ll remember those vintage multisensory alphabet letter wall cards that surrounded her classroom. Each wall card illustrated one multisensory picture that represented one of the alphabet letter sounds.

The Candy 4WAY Phonics 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards have been patterned after those vintage wall cards, except that each Candy Multisensory Card has been updated with this generation’s styles.

Multisensory training takes advantage of the way our senses–hearing, sight, and touch — reinforce one another as we learn. The combination of listening, looking, and moving presented in these flashcard pictures creates a lasting impression—things connect to each other and letter sounds begin to fit into place in a child’s mind.

Once again, the Candy 4WAY Phonics 65 LARGE Colored Multisensory Flashcards / Wall Cards is a great resource to help young children as young as preschool with phonemic awareness all the way up to older children who struggle in reading and need to learn not only the phonograms, but all the possible spellings for the phonogram sounds.

 Sincerely,  

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics

www.candy4wayphonics.com

Genuine Sight Words are those few words that break phonics rules, and yet, some sight words are necessary in order for children to read sentences at a beginning-reader level.  

So that children can begin to read simple sentences, sight words first appear along with short-vowel words that consist of just three or four letters. 

The question, then, is not: 

Should we teach sight words? 

Rather, the two-fold question is: 

1) How many sight words are there?

and

2) What should determine whether or not a word should be classified as a genuine sight word? 

Let me stop here and explain the Candy 4WAY Phonics reasoning behind sight words.  The very limited list of sight words used in the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is just one of the factors that separates Candy 4WAY Phonics from most other reading programs sold in America.  

Most educators agree that sight words are “those words that do not follow regular phonetic patterns and rules.”  Therefore, Sight Words are words that your child must memorize – not sound out– but memorize. 

I partially agree with this definition. 

There certainly is a list of genuine sight words that must be memorized, but that list is much smaller than most reading programs promote.  This is because of two reasons: 

FIRST, the long lists of sight words in most other reading programs include words that can be sounded out.   

and

SECOND, many words labeled as “sight words” that appear on these long word lists are placed on those lists because they are words that appear frequently in children’s books such as the I Can Read Book Series. 

As a result, words such as:  look,  away,  down,  and  jump are often taught as sight words when, actually, they can easily be sounded out.   

If you can believe it, there are actually over 300 of these UNNECESARY, so-called “sight words,” and they are taught regularly in our public schools as words that need to be memorized as WHOLE words.  These so-called “sight words” appear on millions of word walls every year and on what is referred to as the Dolch Sight Word List.  

At Candy 4WAY Phonics  we emphatically believe that words should NOT be classified as “sight words” simply because they appear frequently in popular, easy-to-read children’s books.  

This is why the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program presents a fraction of the number of sight words that appear in other curriculums.  Furthermore, we only include genuine sight words in our program—those words that actually break phonics rules.

Fortunately, children are usually very adept at recognizing which words follow the rules and which words break the rules.  If you’ve been a parent for very long you are probably keenly aware that children are very good at knowing who broke a rule, exactly what rule they broke, and everyone else who got away with breaking that rule. Likewise, children are also very adept at recognizing when a word breaks a phonics rule and which phonics rule that word broke.      

At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we teach just 58 sight words throughout our program. Only 33 of those words also appear among the 315 sight words listed on the Dolch Sight Word List. 

In other words, the Dolch Sight Word list includes 282 words that CAN be sounded out. That’s 282 words that children are required to memorize as WHOLE words that they could have learned to sound out!

EVEN MORE SAD is the fact that in far too many American classrooms, where children are subject to the Dolch controlled-vocabulary list, a student’s reading level is determined by how many of these Dolch Sight Words he can recognize.  For example, the following ridiculous criteria is used by American educators to determine the reading levels for millions of elementary students: 

NUMBER OF DOLCH WORDS RECOGNIZED      

0 – 75     -      ESTIMATED READING LEVEL is Pre-primer

76 -  120  -     ESTIMATED READING LEVEL  is Primer

121 – 170  -    ESTIMATED READING LEVEL is 1st Grade

171 – 210 -    ESTIMATED READING LEVEL is 2nd Grade

 Above 210 - ESTIMATED READING LEVEL is 3rd Grade or higher            

If you think this is a fluky, nonsensical way to determine reading level, I couldn’t agree with you more.  Look, for example, at the free 4th Grade Reading Test offered on the Candy 4WAY Phonics  website.  In that reading test, you’ll see words such as: 

canopies     scarce     silent     interrupted     potent     fervors     foliage     fierce

You’re not going to find any of those words on the Dolch Sight Word List, and, yet, children who have been assigned with a 3rd grade reading level are going to encounter hundreds of these types of words during their 4th grade school year.  A child who has been trained to memorize all the WHOLE words on the Dolch List isn’t going to have a great deal of time left over to learn to sound out  words like canopies and foliage. 

 A phonics-trained student, however, will easily be able to read words like canopies and foliage along with words such as: 

canonization        cancerous        candidacies        canoodled 

and

folklore    follicular    manifoldness  and  portfolios. 

A child who has spent his days tediously learning to recognize high-frequency WHOLE words and is stuck daily reading boring I Can Read Books that focus upon such WHOLE words, will have mastered a whopping 1,216 words by the end of 3rd grade and 1,554 words by the end of fourth grade.  

In comparison, a child who has spent his days with the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program , systematically gaining the skills to sound out every word he encounters by daily studying and learning to blend all the letter combinations that make up words, will have mastered the skills necessary to sound out an estimated 30,000 words by the end of 3rd grade and over 40,000 words by the end of fourth grade. 

Moreover, the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program  even shows children how to “sound out” the sight words.

Is it true that sight words can be sounded out?

Genuine sight words cannot be sounded out using regular phonics rules, but they can be sounded out using a pronunciation key.  The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program includes a Sight Word Pronunciation Guide explaining the pronunciation symbols given for each of the 58 sight words in the program.   

To make it even easier, the Candy 4WAY Phonics CD-Rom Program (which sells for just $19.97) includes an Audio CD-Rom by which parents can hear every letter and every word and every sentence in every daily phonics lesson, eliminating all the guesswork as to the correct pronunciation of all the letters and blends that make up words.)   

In summary, at Candy 4WAY Phonics  , we DO NOT agree with the number of sight words that most curriculums promote.  The standard Dolch Sight Word List used by a great many educators grossly overloads the minds of children with tons of needless whole-word-memory tasks!

Moreover, reading studies now show that any kind of approach to reading that does not include a strong phonics focus is risking failure for a larger percentage of our children.

Simply put, children are never going to love reading if they can’t read. 

Many children of normal intelligence are simply not capable of memorizing thousands of WHOLE words, and yet that is most certainly what is happening in one classroom after another as children are taught to memorize WHOLE words instead of learning to sound them out. 

Sadly, when children of normal intelligence cannot read, they are at risk of being labeled ”learning-disabled” and then, even more sadly, they become locked in with the label:  “special-education.” 

On the other hand, once a child has approached words from a “sounding out” process, that child will find it much easier to read every word on every page, including all the genuine sight words! 

Sincerely, 

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD YOUR CHILD SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS? 

“Why should I care if I can write down my thoughts in complete sentences.  My friends don’t mind that I send them e-mails and text messages with phrases and codes, so why should anyone else make me write in complete sentences?”   

We, of course, need to remember that the above statement is coming from a child, a child who has been deceived into believing the lie (probably by his friends) that learning to record his thoughts in complete, understandable sentences with the correct syntax is not a necessary skill for today’s world.  Sadly, many of our children are falling more and more into this deception!

The truth is, when we’re speaking about putting lasting ideas down in writing,

ideas that can change people or circumstances,

ideas than can direct business meetings or corporate decisions,

ideas that can convince, influence, or encourage with long-lasting results,

then we’re speaking about ideas that are written with complete, understandable sentences.  The lack of ability by American students to convey their thoughts with complete, easy-to-understand, grammatically-correct sentences should be a grave concern for American teachers and parents. 

We are delighted to tell you that this lack of ability that is becoming more and more prevalent among American students IS a grave concern to the folks at Candy 4WAY Phonics.   As a result, we’ve put together an affordable resource just $3.97 to enable teachers and parents with a systematic plan of instruction in sentence writing.   

 I often talk with those who have bought the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program and with those who are still in the “investigating” stage of searching for phonics curriculum.  As a result, I often hear comments like these from parents:

My daughter is in 5th grade. 
We just discovered that she is only reading at a first grade level. 
Her spelling is terrible and her sentences are all run-on sentences.
Now her teacher is asking her to write sentences each week summarizing her favorite places to visit. 

She is supposed to write sentences containing similies and metaphors. 
How can she write sentences with metaphors when she can’t spell and she can’t write a complete sentence with a complete thought? 

My son is in the 4th grade. 
He is constantly asking me to do all of his creative writing assignments for him. 
He can list many details for his stories, but he cannot put those details into complete, coherent sentences.
He has no idea how to build the sentences necessary to write the stories he has going on in his head.

My daughter is in the 6th grade. 
She cannot tell where a sentence begins and where it ends.
She has no idea what the difference is between a subject and a verb.
In fact, she does not know that a sentence needs both a subject and a verb.  

My son is in the 7th grade. 
He was just asked to write an essay containing five paragraphs.
My son cannot write a complete sentence let alone compose an essay made up of five paragraphs.  

My daughter is 12 years old and she cannot read or spell. 
When she writes, she will often compose sentences with a singular subject and a plural verb.
She has no idea why her sentences are wrong. 
Her sentences really do sound correct to her.

My son is nine years old, but he cannot tell the difference between a complete sentence and a sentence fragment.  

My daughter is 10 years old, and she doesn’t know the difference between a noun and an adjective.
How is she going to make it in high school? 

My son is 11 years old. 
The English sentences he writes for his assignments contain adjectives that are trite. 
He writes with adjectives such as:  big, little, yellow, old, terrible, tall. 
No one seems to care if his writing improves.    
Well, I care!

WE HAVE GOOD NEWS!  

At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we ALSO care! 

 We care if children can read, enough that we offer parents and teachers with a complete Systematic 4WAY Phonics Program for just $9.97.  

We also care if children can write, enough that we offer parents and teachers with a sentence building resource for just $3.97.

So many times we truly believe that our young students are capable of writing good sentences simply because they seem to talk, at times, in complete sentences. While there are some students who just seem to “naturally” know how to construct a good sentence, most children do not.  

And yet it should be “second nature” for all children to be able to construct a basic sentence complete with nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and prepositional phrases by the end of the 4th grade.

Our newest resource is entitled: Teaching Children to Write Creative Sentences

This newest sentence-building resource is an easy-to-understand, systematic teaching plan that explains to parents and teachers exactly what preliminary work is vital before a child is ready to construct a solid sentence.

This is an easy-to-understand, systematic teaching plan that illustrates to parents and teachers (with a teacher and a blackboard, and always beginning with the verb) exactly how to teach students to write consistent, creative sentences that answer questions such as Who? What? Where? When? What kind? and How?

Check it out.  Teaching Children to Write Creative Sentences

We truly believe you’ll be glad you did!

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy4WAY Phonics.

www.candy4wayphonics.com

The first fluency obstacle children need to overcome is their fear of sounding out a word, the whole word, from left to right. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program builds children into words from a single letter into blends and on into multisyllable words. The second fluency obstacle children need to overcome is their fear of approaching isolated words out of context. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program gives children one phonogram per lesson with plenty of practice blending that phonogram into words. Those words are found in lists that can be read from left to right, from top to bottom, even diagonally.  

But that’s not all.  The third fluency obstacle children need to overcome is taking words they can read in isolation and reading them fluently within real sentences.  

The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program gives sentences as early as possible within its daily lessons.  Those sentences contain only words made up of parts that the child has either already mastered in previous lessons or practiced in the present lesson. 

In addition, the 4th strategy within 4WAY Phonics includes R’sA Phonics (Rhyme, Rhythm, and Alliteration).  R’sA Phonics gives children a reading atmosphere that is “fun.”  Just as a “spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” children also learn best when they are offered “fun” words and phrases.  Words and phrases become “fun” when they are placed inside sentences with Rhyme, Rhythm, and Alliteration.   

Moreover, the sentences that children will encounter in their Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Lessons include both simple and complex sentences, sentences containing connective and complex connective words, as well as dialogue and normal poetic selections so that children learn to build reading fluency while reading all forms of written expression.   

But wait!  There’s one more way the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program enables children to build reading fluency. The fourth fluency obstacle children need to overcome is taking words they can read in isolation and in sentences and reading them in actual stories. 

The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program gives children (starting with the second level of the program) a Story Reader following after every five lessons. This is because we have heard again and again how much of a difference it makes to place sentences into stories within the timeframe of daily lessons. This is crucial because children need to know that the effort they have put forth in their daily phonics lessons is enabling them to read. 

With the Candy 4WAY Phonics sequenced, leveled Story Readers, children are regularly rewarded after every five lessons with a Candy Story Reader containing real story content — a reader in which children will never have to guess at words because each reader contains only letters and blends they have already mastered.

Parents, we can assure you that when children learn phonics the correct way, reading fluency is a necessary skill built right alongside the ability to sound out every word on every page. At Candy 4WAY Phonics we believe that’s important enough to offer parents everything they need in a phonics program at an affordable price.  

Check it out.  For just $9.97  you can purchase an INSTANT DOWNLOAD of the following Candy 4WAY Phonics items:

1)   An 82-page eBook entitled: How to Teach Candy’s Systematic 4WAY Phonics

2)  100 Daily 4WAY Phonics Lessons loaded with rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration for fun learning

3)  Candy Story Readers sequenced into the program (after every 5 Daily Phonics Lessons, your child can read a Candy Reader)

4)  Colored Alphabet Rhyming Phonics Charts with Multisensory Vowel Helps

5)  Colored Rhyming Alphabet Flashcards

6)  Colored Lifetime Rhyming Phonics Charts to give your child a lifetime of phonogram retention.

7)  Interwoven, daily Phonics Drill

  FREE e-mail coaching 

It’s simple!           It’s affordable!            It works! 

Sincerely,   

Carol Kay, President 

www.candy4wayphonics.com 

When I was eight years old, my mother decided that I needed to take piano lessons.  She signed me up, and I took lessons and played in recitals for seven years.  I had an excellent teacher, and I learned a great deal.

However, when I reached age 15, I decided that I really wanted to devote myself to the girl’s basketball team and to the school debate team.  Thus, I quit piano lessons — my mother was sooooo upset!  I didn’t touch another piano key until I was 30 years old. At that time our church needed a piano player, so  I signed up, once again, for piano lessons. 

I told my new piano teacher how “fantastic” I used to be.  She pulled out a large red book and said, “That’s great!  But you’ll need to start all over again with this book, ‘Teaching Little Fingers to Play.’ 

You see, I could remember many things from my childhood piano lessons, but I had also forgotten many things.  My new teacher knew that if I didn’t start all over again, I would have huge gaps in my piano education. 

So I began my music lessons all over again, but this time, I soared through the lessons.  Within one year I was back where I had left off at age 15. 

Teaching older children to read follows with this same logic.  I see so many websites devoted to teaching older children to read, but most of them completely skip the step that reads, “Your child will need to start again at the beginning.”  Starting over again with Lesson One is even more important to an older child who has been taught to read with the look/n/say method or with a guided reading program that mixes look/n/say with implicit, salt and pepper UNsystematic phonics. 

Have you ever seen an infected wound?  Can you even imagine what would happen if you put a band-aid over that wound without first cleaning it out and dressing it with the proper ointment?  Telling older children that they can learn to read using systematic phonics without also telling them that they will need to start over again is just like putting a band-aid over an infected wound!  All of the child’s reading problems will just grow and multiply and fester.  He will have large gaps in his reading education, and you won’t ever have a clue where those gaps are! 

THE GOOD NEWS IS THIS:  Start an older child over again using a systematic phonics program and you’ll be astonished at how quickly he picks everything up compared to a younger child.  Teaching an older child or an adult to read goes along so much faster than teaching a younger child to read.

Remember Marva Collins?  Marva used systematic phonics and she had ALL of her first graders and many of her kindergarteners reading by Christmas. Can you imagine how much faster those same lessons moved along for an older child?

At Candy 4WAY Phonics we believe that teaching a child to read shouldn’t cost parents a fortune.  This is why for just $9.97 you can change the direction of your older child’s life with our Systematic, COMPLETE 4WAY Phonics  Curriculum.

For just $9.97, you can teach your older student  how to read, all over again, except this time around, your child can receive step-by-step, systematic daily phonics lessons and sequenced readers following after every five lessons.

For just $9.97  your child can learn to read every word on every page. 

Check us out:  Candy 4WAY Phonics.

We claim to be The Best Phonics Bargain in Town, and we really are!

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics

www.candy4wayphonics.com

DOES   YOUR   OLDER   CHILD   STRUGGLE   TO   READ?  

Very soon, before the end of this school year, thousands of American parents will discover that their little third, fourth, or fifth grader is struggling to read his school textbooks.

Moms, Dads, your older child does not have to join the ranks of the illiterate.   For less than $10 you can change the reading path of your child. If you, too, cannot read, you can learn to read every word on every page as you teach your child to do the same.

I realize that it is  quite possible that this is the first time you have become aware that your little guy or gal cannot read every word on every page. Sadly, many parents are in the same boat because they have been led to believe that based upon a normal bell curve, their child has been doing “just fine” in reading.

The only problem is, NOW,  your older child has made it into the third or fourth grade or higher and is self conscious and terribly humiliated because he is expected to read lessons from higher level textbooks, answer comprehension questions, and make total sense of the facts given in each paragraph.

Moms, Dads, did you know that it’s a fact that most American students today are learning to read using Look/n/Say, Whole Word methods, methods that are mixed with just enough phonics to make everyone believe that our students are learning to decode all the words on the page.

Unfortunately, the little bit of implicit phonics that has been presented in so many of our classrooms has given way whole-heartedly to the memorization of Whole Words printed on Word Walls and then filtered into the monotonous pages of easy-to-read I Can Read Books.

Moms, Dads, children cannot continue to memorize or guess every whole word on the page after they’ve reached the higher grades.  It just isn’t possible!

Our children should be able to sound out every word on every page. Learning to read should not be a big mystery box that children struggle to open; however, that is exactly what our American public school classrooms have turned reading into.

Parents should be concerned about their child’s reading grades because, regrettably, only 70% of U.S. schoolchildren will actually graduate from high school.

It’s a well-researched, but often heartrending fact, that reading ability severely affects lifelong success?

At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we believe that children deserve to learn to read everything put in front of them so that they can move up to other necessary skills like comprehension and inferential thinking – lifelong skills that will give them jobs with adequate incomes – lifelong skills that will move them into households far above the poverty level.

Isn’t that what you want, too!   Please, check us out!  When your child learns to read every word on every page, we know you’ll be glad you did!

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics

www.candy4wayphonics.com

Does your child moan and groan when it’s time to read? 

I’m only asking because according to the National Adult Literacy Survey:

42 million adult Americans can’t read.

50 million can recognize so few printed words they are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level.

One out of every four teenagers drops out of high school.

One out of four teens who DO remain in school and actually graduate have the equivalent or less of an eighth grade education.

And, you see, every one of those teens and adults should have learned to read fluently before they entered the fourth grade.

The federal government spends over ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000) each year to fund more than 79 literacy-related programs administered by 14 federal agencies. Yet, our children are still guessing at words! 

Why do American children have such a horrible reading problem?

American children have a reading problem because the teaching of reading in American public schools is totally wrong and flies in the face of all logic and common sense.

What’s the answer?

Well, the ideal answer would be for American public schools to change their ways, but that’s probably not going to happen.

You see, that kind of change would require that our educational professionals (who for the past 80 years have been engaged in teaching children to do everything BUT sound out the words on the page) stop defending their teaching methods in reading.

Is there another answer? 

Yes, there certainly is, and it’s an answer that is Feasible, Affordable, and Reliable!

It’s an answer that enables Moms and Dads to take their children FAR beyond 4th grade level reading and to watch their children naturally progress into sounding out words at college level by the time their children graduate from high school. 

Does this sound too good to be true?

Well it’s not, and what we propose is soooooooo logical!

The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is Systematic 4WAY Phonics at it’s best.

The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program includes everything parents need to give their children (and themselves) one-on-one, step-by-step training in phonetic (sounding out) reading.

Moms and Dads, your children could be learning to read every word on every page. 

For just $9.97 you can purchase an INSTANT DOWNLOAD of the following Candy 4WAY Phonics Items:

1   An 82-page eBook entitled: How to Teach Candy’s Systematic 4WAY Phonics

2  100 Daily 4WAY Phonics Lessons loaded with rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration for fun learning

3  Candy Story Readers sequenced into the program (after every 5 Daily Phonics Lessons, your child can read a Candy Reader)

4  Colored Alphabet Rhyming Phonics Charts with Multisensory Vowel Helps

5  Colored Rhyming Alphabet Flashcards

6  Colored Lifetime Rhyming Phonics Charts to give your child a lifetime of phonogram retention.

7  Interwoven, daily Phonics Drill

8  FREE e-mail coaching

It’s simple!           It’s affordable!            It works!

As my daughter jokingly says: “I’m gonna say this one more time, and then I’m gonna say it again!”

So here is what I’d like to say, “one more time“!

Moms and Dads, if we don’t do something to fix the reading problem among American School children, then over 1 million illiterate teens will quit school and continue to head for the streets every year! 

One of those teens DOES NOT have to be YOUR child! 

A child who learns to effortlessly sound out every word on every page does not moan and groan when it’s time to read!

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics

www.candy4wayphonics.com

Your Child Can Struggle in Reading, but that Does Not Mean He Has a Learning Disability, or a Speech Problem, or Dyslexia, or ADHD or ADD!

This is because so many American reading problems are a direct result of teachers using the wrong reading method to teach reading!

For example, here are ten strategies provided to teachers for their Guided Reading programs:

1) Provide wait time

2) Give prompts or clues

3) Do a “picture walk” and help children “predict” what might happen in

the story.

4) Give encouragement such as: “Try that again.”

5) Ask questions such as: “Does that make sense?”

6) Ask questions such as: “What part of the word do you know?

7) Ask questions such as: “What does the word start with?”

Ask questions such as: “Have you ever seen a word that looks like that?

9) Ask questions such as: “Does the picture on the page give you a clue?

10) Allow everyone to “whisper” the entire book to themselves (use PVC whisper phones to help facilitate)

OH, MY GOODNESS! WHERE SHOULD I BEGIN?

Whenever I review these types of whole language “learning-to-read strategies,” I get more frustrated than an eBay recipient attempting to open a Priority Mail box where the easy-to-open pull strip has been taped over with layers and layers and layers of heavy-duty, two-inch-wide, clear tape.

Just like that Priority Mail box, learning to decode words should not be a tightly closed package children struggle to open.

It’s as if we desire to give kids everything they need to learn to read except what they really DO need: a step-by-step, proven, systematic 4WAY Phonics Program.

Our children should be able to sound out every word on every page. Learning to read should not be a big mystery box that is difficult to open, but that is exactly what our American public school classrooms have turned reading into.

Children should not have to do picture walks, guess at a word from its first letter, try to remember a word that looks like the word they’re presently staring at, or decide if their “guess” is correct depending upon whether a word makes sense in the sentence.

Children should be able to begin at the beginning of a word and sound out that word effortlessly, from left to right, all the way through to the end of the word. Children do not need all that other strategic, look-n-say, sight-reading hoopla to “figure out” what a word is. Children simply need step-by-step, easy-to-understand, daily training in systematic phonics.

Guessing at words is one aspect of whole language strategy. Whole language proponents (and that’s what guided reading advocates are) also claim that children need to learn to read “for meaning.” Therefore, their whole language methods encourage students to look for meaning in the text through different types of whole-language strategies.

What’s wrong with this? The dichotomy is between learning to read vs. reading to learn.

Certainly, it’s just common sense that students must learn to read every word on every page before they can learn to read for meaning. You can’t have one without the other, and learning to read always needs to come first.

So the question now is, “What do we mean by reading?“

You might say, “Well that’s a silly question.” However, with today’s Guided Reading techniques in full swing inside hundreds of thousands of American classrooms, “What do we mean by reading?” really is the big question.

And even though we’ve turned reading into a big question, the answer to learning to read is really an easy answer.

Reading is when a child can survive in a fast-paced, high-tech American classroom, look at a page of text, effortlessly sound out every word he encounters, gain a basic understanding of what he has read, be able to accurately draw conclusions from the facts given, and comprehensively make inferences from all the details specified.

A child who can read should have the ability to read selected text accurately, smoothly, effortlessly, and with appropriate expression and meaning.

The fact is that 28 major countries in the world have a higher literacy rate than the United States. In the United States, the total number of functionally illiterate adults increases by approximately 2.25 million every single year. Even more sad, 76 percent of high school students in Detroit schools flunked out this June while other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston produced dropout rates from 50 to 60 percent.

The bottom line is this, if we don’t do something to fix the reading rate of American children, then 1.2 million illiterate teens will continue to hit American streets each year.

Moms, Dads, your child does not have to join these statistics. For less than $10 you can change the reading path of your child. If you, too, cannot read, you can learn to read every word on every page as you teach your child to do the same.

Please check us out – Candy 4WAY Phonics. It’s a simple, affordable program that can change what “reading” is all about.

Sincerely,

Carol Kay, President

Candy 4WAY Phonics