Phonics,

Student Workbooks and Teacher's Editions Combined

Author(s) Dr. Rasool D. Malik

The Special Education

Classroom and Teaching

the Alphabetic Principle

 
        Preparing children to learn to read is the top priority of Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes.  Our method is a rhyming alphabetic method in which printed letters systematically, and entirely consistently, represent phonemes.  Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes teaches children phonemes in order for them to grasp the fundamental principle of alphabetic literacy. 
        Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes makes it imperative that children acquire a degree of (a) letter knowledge, including the ability to distinguish and identify the letters of the alphabet, and (b) phonological awareness, an appreciation of the fact that spoken words are made up of smaller units of sound.  Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes illustrate dramatically both letter knowledge and phonological awareness for Special Education children to acquire the alphabetic principle.

The Special

Education Classroom

and Teaching the

Alphabetic Principle

        The Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes Reading Program was developed in the Special Education classroom to teach children to read.  We  understand the demands of the Special Education teacher's lesson plans.  The Special Education classroom typically consists of an adult and 5 to 15 students-a very different scenario from a regular education classroom.  The management demands of the typical Special Education classroom necessitate a level of conformity and control of comportment that challenges many special needs children, regardless of how accommodating the classroom may be to a child's individual nature and needs.  Our books are written using rhymes to teach reading which makes it easy to self-check.
        A child can no longer demand the attention or assistance of the attendant adult at will; each must learn how to solicit individual attention and to wait patiently while the teacher is attending to others, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the classroom's staffing.  Each Special Education student must learn to sit quietly, to listen considerately to both the teacher and other students, to communicate cooperatively, to restrain behavior to within acceptable limits, to accomplish tasks both independently and with others, to share resources, to treat others respectfully, and to try to learn and do what he or she is asked to learn and do.   Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes understand and was written to assist with these conformities.

Testimonial


The Phonics, Rhythms, and Rhymes program captivates students when they hear a story of characters that etch a lasting memory of short vowel sounds. The rhyming strategies that your reading program use has helped me to teach many children to read, and best of all, they like it . . .

Betty Johnson
Teacher
Tremont Elementary School
Cleveland, Ohio