The ABC's and All Their Tricks: The Complete Reference Book of Phonics and Spelling [Paperback]

Margaret M. Bishop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0880621400 | ISBN-13: 978-0880621403

THE phonics book for teachers. Comprehensive information is given here for every spelling of every sound. For each spelling you find rules which govern it, exceptions to the rules, sample words to use for teaching the sound or spelling, etymological information, and more. Each sound is keyed to the Phonics Made Plain cards and chart. The Appendix also contains an excellent article concerning reading problems of the older student or adult.

Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Mott Media (MI) (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880621400
• ISBN-13: 978-0880621403
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource (but not for everyone), April 1, 2008

By 

Loquatious (Arizona) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The ABC's and All Their Tricks: The Complete Reference Book of Phonics and Spelling (Paperback)

For intermediate to advanced phonics, Bishop's text is a great resource, but it's not for every reading teacher. It should be particularly valuable for reading specialists, speech therapists, and anyone looking to develop curriculum material.

How have I used the text? It's helped me adapt and develop materials for a junior-high student who reads 3-4 grades below level because of dyslexia. He hates the skill-sheets that were so obviously developed for elementary students. Now I can adapt or create materials easily.

What does the text offer? It generally gives 20-40 examples for every spelling-sound pattern, and explains the situations that lead to the exceptions. Entries are cross-referenced to examples that follow similar patterns. Bishop points out differences you probably haven't thought of noticing before (for example, when the featured spelling-sound pattern is stressed or unstressed, voiced or not voiced. Each of these distinctions comes with a separate set of supporting examples.) Bishop offers clues that help readers know which pattern to follow when sounding out a word that "sounds" equally like two different spellings.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HIGHLY Recommmended for any family with children learning to SPELL!!!, February 19, 2008

By 

Samantha Smith "MoonMama" (Stuck 'n the USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The ABC's and All Their Tricks: The Complete Reference Book of Phonics and Spelling (Paperback)

This book far exceeded my expectations!
It unravels the mystery of the so-called unexplainably strange ways of spelling so many of our English words. Clear & concise format.
EXCELLENT for young children learning to read & spell...it answers any questions you might have about the rules of the way letters are put together in words & pronounced.
A must have for any home library...

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for Spelling, August 14, 2009

By 

Shark Mom "shark_mom" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The ABC's and All Their Tricks: The Complete Reference Book of Phonics and Spelling (Paperback)

Although this book is a great book to use with readers who are in need of more instruction than an average phonics program provides or to help a new reader who wants to know why certain letter combinations are sounded in certain ways. It will not be helpful to increase spelling.

In the back of the book the section on remedial readers tips off the reader as to why this might be. The author assumes that poor reader = poor speller. This is not the case. There are many strong readers who are lousy spellers. For those students this book is not a remedy.

The majority of the book is lists of letter combinations (arranged alphabetically) and the sounds they can possibly make and the words that are examples of those sounds. This format is a clear warning of the book's lack of spelling usefulness. A book that is intended to help with spelling would instead be arrange by the sounds of the English language and then show the possible letter/letter combinations of such sounds.

Take for instance the letter "g." Generally G make a hard G sound or a soft J sound. Generally it makes the soft sound before the letters E and I. But there are some words that need the hard G sound before the sounds of E and I. To get that, they insert another letter between the G and the E or I. While these letter combinations are shown in the book, there is no explicit help that can be given a poor speller. Obviously the teacher who is using this reference can come up with this on her own, but in doing so she only proves how the book does not do what it's subtitle promises.

Further, there are many places where the author notes that there is no real way to determine which letter combinations might make which sounds and that a student must try them all. Most students do just that on their own.

I also have reservations about the depth and complexity of the material. I doubt any student would be able to deal with it all. A remedial reader who went to a tutor using this book without any plan, might shut down about their ability to read more than before they came to the tutor. Although there are hints the author expects some sort of targeted plan to be created, at no point is a teacher given any kind of direction as to how to assess the remedial student's errors and proscribe a program from the book.