day 165: summertime—beginning reading help—PLAY ‘N TALK--phonics programs to use with struggling young readers—part ii of iv

Over the next couple of days, I will detail my favorite three phonics programs—one that is out of print, but available used; one that uses computer cd-roms and works well for dyslexics and older students as well (and has no teacher work/prep AT ALL); and one that is more laborious but contains a reader for each sound and is more kid-friendly. Each of them uses a strong word family approach with sight words included as appropriate.



                                                              Play ‘n Talk

a. Two routes to go:

(1) digitized (parts of it): http://www.play-n-talk.com/index.htm

(2) Used: will probably have to put a “wanted” out up on a used site to find one

b. Created by a true visionary who loved to help children and families; a very godly woman; many, many years ago (thirty to forty years ago); not necessarily “religious” in content though

c. Contains cd’s with accompanying books

d. Contains other practice tools, including “Slide and Sound,” an exceptional yet simple little cardstock kit in which students practice word families with various beginning sounds

e. Contains daily lesson plans that tell you exactly what to do (which cd to listen to, which book to use, which practice tools to use, etc.)

f. Fairly easy to use: without creating “extra” tools it suggests like “egg carton wells to place word cards into,” you could literally sit down and go (not all of the practice suggestions are necessary; I often forfeited the homemade ones (not wanting to add to my work load) and used real reading more

g. You do not need to know anything about teaching or have experience in teaching a child to read—it is truly all laid out as it was created for parents to use with their children, not for a school

h. One of the most comprehensive phonics programs available—does not end after a child is reading two syllable words—goes into compounds, prefixes, suffixes, and much more

i. Outstanding foundation for learning to spell later

j. Downfalls:

(1) It is only available used (except for digital portions online), so might be hard to find

(2) It does not contain readers—follow me the next few days as I describe readers for different levels; you will want to add readers to P’nT

(3) It is old fashioned looking and sounding (not “Amish old fashioned” but think early cartoons/cartoon drawings and music old fashioned—I didn’t mind this, but some might)

(4) Was not sold in pieces, so it was expensive to purchase the entire program—and if you only needed or wanted part of it, you could not get it that way; will likely only be sold as the entire set, even if you do not want all of the extras

(5) Parts are available digitized—but it looked confusing to me, and I understand the program!