Ms S. is a reading specialist based in California who uses Phonic Books as part of her reading intervention programme with Grades 3-5 (Ages 8-11).
Her pupils have a very wide range of needs so she uses a wide range of the Phonic Books series for small group instruction. “I have pupils who started at the very beginning of Moon Dogs with the letter sound sets, I’ve used Magic Belt with a group and Alba. I use the Rescue series a lot and Titan’s Gauntlets a lot as well. So, I use one set within each of the different scope and sequences.
“I have a group that I used Magic Belt with when they were in third grade (ages 8-9) and now they’re in fifth grade (ages 10-11) and reading Titan’s Gauntlets and they were so excited to recognise Finn from Magic Belt, they loved that connection. Even children that I struggle to get excited about reading group love when we read Phonic Books; getting to read those series is what really hooks them.”
Ms S. uses the activity books in the classroom as well. “I make a packet of photocopied resources using the activity books. For example, with Titan’s Gauntlets, I always do a cold read at the beginning and a warm read at the end. After the cold read, I will do a word work activity with them that I created and then I do the fluency activity with them. After that we move onto the comprehension and vocabulary activities. Then anything I don’t finish with the whole group, I send the packet home with the group so they can practise their fluency or finish any of the activities that we didn’t get to. I also appreciate that there are so many different activities in the activity book, it gives a lot of options to choose from and extra opportunities for practice. I can be intentional about choosing what will work best for my students and align with their specific goals.
“As a reading interventionist, I re-use these resources a lot. This is my second time this year using the Titan’s Gauntlets series with a different group so putting all these resources together into a binder means I have a pre-made tool that I can photocopy really easily for my group.
The main reason I use Phonic Books is because of how engaging the pupils find the storyline.
“The main reason I use Phonic Books is because of how engaging the pupils find the storyline. I have another phonics curriculum that I use in tandem with these books and it comes with fluency passages, but a passage on a piece of paper is just not as interesting as a book with pictures and a storyline and more books in the series where they can find out what happens next.
“The range of books covering different phonic skills is so helpful as well, that the books go from CVC letter sounds all the way up to multisyllabic words with suffixes. For my planning purposes, it makes it so easy to grab a Phonic Books series that matches each group and gives me a lot of flexibility.
“Phonic Books works in tandem with the phonics curriculum and additional support that I use but including it as a resource gives children the experience of reading a book which is so powerful for children who are struggling with reading. When you have third and fourth graders (ages 8-10) reading Moon Dogs, they don’t have the experience of feeling confident reading a book because they’ve never had a book that they can read put in front of them before. And, not only that, because the books are set up to engage older readers, the children in the book look their age and the story is interesting for them. It’s so powerful to be able to give children the feeling of being able to read a book that doesn't look like a baby book."
That’s why Phonic Books has such a huge impact on the children: they get to experience that feeling of being excited to read and they can’t wait to start the next book, which is something a lot of struggling readers don’t usually experience.