The South Australian branch of SPELD have produced a huge number of free phonics readers, 135 to date. These follow the sequence of sounds learned in the Jolly Phonics system. The books use a varying number of both “sight words” and total words. There a few errors that have escaped the editors, but these are fairly obvious. They have online books, pdfs to print or for iPad and tablet, and worksheets.
As always, check that your child has learned the sounds and knows any sight words used in a book before introducing it. Also, check that there aren’t too many sight words.
There is a huge variety in Set 1. Some books just have two or three words to a page, and “a” and “the”; others have much more. Various capital letters are used. Check that your child knows the ones in each book. Some books have a lot of repletion, others don’t. Repetition is good, but encourage your child to keep sounding out the words and gradually build up speed. It is important not to hurry this process. Discourage guessing and keep “sight words” to an absolute minimum.
“Hats” in Set 2 is a very simple book which is delightful. (It is called “a hat” in the table on their website.) It only uses the most common sound of each letter and “a”, and has a lot of repetition.
“The Best Tricks to Stop Hiccups” in Set 3 should definitely be used much later. It includes these words – to, into, do, he, glass, tickled, giggle, out, tongue, then, one, day, gone, years. The letter combination, “ng”, is used extensively in Sets 3 and 4, although it is taught in Set 5.
“Bump Went the Bus” in Set 7 is an easy book with a lot of repetition that just uses the most common sound of each letter, “the”, “ck”, “oa” and “er”, equivalent to Level 6_3 in Gilead® Success with Phonics.
Choose the books that are at the right level, have a suitable number of words and will interest your child. You can always come back to the others later.
All of the books are available in an online flash version where children can click on the “next” arrow to turn the page, so it is not necessary to print the books if you have internet access. Currently there don’t seem to be any books for Set 15.
I printed out the first three sets and some from sets 4 to 6 that only used the most common sound of letters and a few sight words. I chose 20 from these for my two 5-year-old grandsons who needed more stories to practise the sounds of single letters. These use the sight words “a” and “the” and a few others. Here is what I chose that I thought 5-year-old boys might enjoy. They are roughly in order, starting with the easiest.
(1) Set 1 A Tin ____, (2) 1 A Pan, (3) 1 Ants in Ann’s Pants, (4) 1 Pant and Pip, (5) 2 Hats, (6) 1 Tan-Tan Sits, (7) 1 Pat Spat Ants, (8) 2 Ken, (9) 3 Tig Naps a Lot [Pages fixed to be the same as the online flash version.], (10) 5 Pant, Pant, Pant, (11) 4 A Cat Laps, (12) 5 Mick and Sam [+ he], (13) 2 A Tent, (14) 2 Pam’s Hat, (15) 6 Tig in the UK [+ UK = name of letters, pizza = unusual sound for “zz”], (16) 2 Stan and Sam [+ are, have], (17) 5 Up the Big Hill [+ he], (18) 6 Snap the Frog [+ he, into, with], (19) 5 A Cut on Its Leg [+ to, home = introduce silent “e”], (20) 2 The Ants and the Crisps [+ she, into, of, no]
http://www.speld-sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Itemid=182
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