AuthorHouse
Phonics, Rhythms, & Rhymes
Level B Program Overview
Teacher's Editions
Student?s Textbooks and Workbooks
Assortment of  Consumable and Non-Consumable Teaching Tools
This material, together with a complete table of contents and other important information, will give you the essence of Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes.
Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes is a success-oriented program that enables most students in a heterogeneous class to develop a solid foundation in phonics and thus become successful readers.  In keeping with the Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes' philosophy, the phonics series builds on prior knowledge and learning.  New learning is presented in increments, and each increment is reviewed throughout the year.  This provides every student with the exposure needed to achieve success.
Phonics is a method of teaching beginners how to read by learning the sounds each letter and letter cluster makes.  It is only after this understanding of the sound/letter relationship is achieved that successful, independent reading can occur.  Throughout the program, a controlled vocabulary is used, which means that students are only exposed to words containing those letters, letter clusters, and sounds that have been taught.  This ensures that students will experience continued success as they learn to read.
Please note that the Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes phonics series is a supplemental series and may be used with any other reading programs.  Hence, the objective is to provide students with the information they need to be able to read independently now or in the future, whenever they are developmentally ready.  There has been no attempt to include the type of quality literature most first grade teachers use to further their students? desire to read.  Again, the goal is to provide students with the basic skills and strategies needed for learning to read phonetically.
The teacher's manual has been carefully written to provide activities with language appropriate for students at the kindergarten through fourth grade level and beyond.  Many of the Rhythms, and Rhymes lessons are scripted (like parts in a song), because it is important for students to like the lessons in order to be successful.  The script provides questioning strategies that enable students to participate actively in the learning process.  No previous knowledge of phonics is required in order to implement this program successfully, though we do recommend that you read the introductory material carefully before beginning phonics instruction.
Each teacher's manual contains more than200 lessons, and two pages for each lesson.  Each lesson book contains a list of materials, pre-class preparation instruction, the scripted lesson, and versions of applicable student material.  Each lesson is designed to be completed in one class period.  Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes lessons are taught daily, and include assessment activities.
LESSON COMPONENTS
Alphabet Activity: The phonics lessons contain a mixture of daily components.  They learn facts about those componants and  respond with letter-to-sound correspondance, write the sounds they hear and recite, alphabetize, practice identifying the accent on words, and learn syllabication.  Rhythms and Rhymes are also used to help the students practice accenting without the added task of sounding out new words. Rhythms and Rhymes is a daily component designed to provide review and reinforcement of the previously sound-blending techniques.
To benefit from the instructional content in this program, students must have attained a level of conceptual development called phonemic awareness.  Phonemic awareness is the awareness that words are composed of separate sounds, and the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds. Phonemic awareness is taught in isolation during the lessons and is embedded in the lessons thereafter.
During the spelling sounds activities, students learn and apply the rules for spelling.  Spelling rules and phonics rules are interrelated; rules for spelling help reinforce rules for phonics, and vice versa.  On most days, a guided practice sheet is distributed.  Students use these sheets to record words made from sounds after a lesson to assess newly taught skills.
Worksheets provide independent practice to reinforce concepts taught and to track students' progress on a daily basis. The assessments occur at specific intervals so the students have time to learn, and assimilate new material well before they are tested on it.  For those students whose assessment scores are lower than desired, remediation instructions are suggested.
The presentation of the lesson read by the teacher will start after the book indicates in bold letters the word Say.  The teacher can best guide the students through the lesson by following the lesson as written.  However, the teacher is expected to add creative and teachable moments to help make instructions interesting, enjoyable, as well as beneficial to the student.  The teacher should repeat, and review any part of a lesson or the entire lesson before moving on.  The order and procedure in which the information presented is tried, and tested in order to ensure success of the purposeful goals aforementioned. In all lessons the teacher must check visually, and auditory for the student's proper oral enunciation production.  The focused vowels and homographs should be repeated by the teacher until the student is able to articulate the sounds, before continuing into the lesson on Rhythms & Rhymes.  Once the student has mastered Rhythms & Rhymes with the teacher repeating the first part, the next step (optional) is for the student to read both parts to the teacher as she check for correctness of reading and articulation.
Review:  Means that the teacher should review this information while asking questions, and use the provided answers for oral and written assessment or future lesson plans review. At the end of each chapter the student will be required to write rhyming answers as a review or test on Rhythms & Rhymes.  The teacher should first allow the student to brainstorm for answers before helping or giving clues.
In most cases, we start with the a sound first and maintain an alphabetic ascendancy in vowels, and consonants as students attend each.  In using this procedure we are teaching students to master practical consonant, and vowel sounds at the same time. In effect students are learning to recognize syllable sounds, which will subsequently help in decoding polysyllable word decoding skills.  This program requires the prerequisite skills of the student knowing the alphabets, and how to write them.  If the child does not, then you may want to teach these skills intermittently.
Manner of Articulation (sounding-out) for consonants, and diblends, are presented throughout each chapter.  Diblends (consonants blends) are words coined by the author to shorten and simplify the number of words used to describe consonant combinations.   These consonants and consonant blends are introduced at the beginning of each lesson wherein they are used to formulate words.  The teacher should repeat them as often as needed, and check for correct sound reproduction of the sounded(bu), and unsounded(b') consonants.
Home