The order of teaching words and sounds

What is important in the order of teaching words and sounds?

A logical and consistent order in teaching the sounds so children never have to guess. Words with three sounds first. 

I have spent the past 30 years developing resources to help children to learn to read and spell successfully, starting in the days when there was nothing helpful available (or very little, and nothing that I knew about). Everything has grown out of the needs of my students, including what might have helped them if they had had it when they were younger, and/or my fifteen grandchildren.

I have been careful to develop the order in which I have taught letters and sounds, so that children never have to guess. But, it was only a few weeks ago, sitting reading some of my little books with a 5-year old grandson, that I realised that he was having difficulty reading words with four sounds. He could read “cat” easily, but “cats” was too hard. He knew the letters and their sounds. Blending three sounds together was fine, but blending four sounds was too much. Obvious now, but I had never really stopped to think about it.

So, what to do? Should I go back to square one and rework my entire program – 20 year’s work? Or should I add an extra little book and give an alternative ordering system? I opted for the latter, so here they are. I hope you find them helpful.

An alternative order of teaching words and sounds for the printed books. Click here.

And a new book – 1/3a, free to download. Click here.  (It’s the one shown in the picture at the top.)

The rest of the set of books to print is available to download free at http://successwithreading.com/videos-children/. Follow the links for the books to print for each level. Just add the alternative numbers to the front of each book – red stars (words with only 3 sounds) or blue stars (includes 4 sounds). When your child can read all of the books with red stars easily, try going on to those with blue stars.