Gilead Success with Phonics

Gilead® Success with Phonics is a logical, sequential, systematic, synthetic phonics program incorporating books, games and computer programs.

It contains most of the material in The Gilead® Success with Reading Program, Part 1, a little from Part 2 and some new material. Everything has been reworked and integrated so that a child can start at the beginning and work through the program. E.g., the most common sound of “a” is taught in several ways, then “t”, “c”, “h” and “s”. Then there is a comic strip that uses those letters, and an activity or activities.

The video below shows some of the key features in Gilead® Success with Phonics.

. .. When you have a video playing, click on the bottom right hand corner of it to watch it in full screen mode.. ……………………………………………….. If the video won’t play (or if you can’t see that there is supposed to be a video at all):  Click here
I now teach “kn”, as in knight, later in the program as the single sound /n/. Similarly for “mb” = /m/ in lamb, “gn” = /n/ in sign and gnaw, “wr” = /r/ in write …  So here is the updated section of the video above.
    • Gilead® Success with Phonics is logical and sequential.
    • It is easy to see what to do next.
    • Skills are gradually built so children can always be successful. A large variety of activities allows for choice so children can spend time doing the activities that they enjoy most and still learn what they need, or it provides lots of practice using different approaches to reinforce skills.
        • Start with the most common sound of single letters.
        • Progress to  a_e, ai, ay … er, ir, ur, or, ar … ch, sh, th …
        • and blending these – bl, cr, st, str … black, string, three …
        • Start with simple words, e,g. cat, hat sat.
        • Progress to words longer words, syllables, spelling rules, e.g. balance, action, pel-i-cans, hopping/hoping, days/cries.

The most common sound of each letter is taught first, e.g. ”y”:

    • Words starting with “y” with a /y/ sound, e.g. yawn, yellow, yabby, yak … (from Alphabet Album)
    • A visual memory aid and a rhyme help a child remember the sound.
    • A pencil draws the letter. A voice saying, “down, down,” can be turned on or off.
    • Make the letter with your body – stand and put both arms up and out to make “y” (from Kinaesthetic Letters)
    • Follow the letter with the mouse – you can only go in the right direction (from Writing Race)

Blend these letters to make words as soon as possible.

    • Comic strips (from Phonic Comics) on the computer and as printed books.
    • Print and cut out letters to make words.

There are sets of common words that only use the sounds that have already been taught. Practise these with

    • a computer game and
    • cards to print and play matching games.
    • Level 1 – am, an, and, at …
    • Level 9 – because, before, find, give, house … love, old …

Games and activities are a key feature – computer games, printed games or a combination.

    • Games to practise a few new sounds that have just been taught, e.g. a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e, ai, ay, ee, ea,  igh, oa.
    • Snap, memory etc. with printed cards.
    • Word slides to make words
    • Flip books to read words with a common ending – cat, fat, hat … brat, flat, scat, chat, that
    • Storm the Castle to practise vowel sounds – a, e, i, o, u, a-e/ai/ay … or/au/aw … oo, oi/oy
    • The Great Australian Spelling Race practises many skills.
    • Many books to read to practise developing skills.
    • Spelling books to add examples of words with particular sounds as they are learned.
    • Plus much more.

There are only three or four words taught as “sight words” so that children never need to guess or try to remember large numbers of “whole words”. High frequency words are taught logically with their sounds. “Easy plus” books have been added to version 2.0, see easy plus books. 

 on USB flash drive

Updates/corrections:

For a list of updates go to updates. If you have bought an older version, feel free to contact me and I’ll arrange to swap your version for the latest one.