Customer Reviews

Explode the Code/Book Four

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I homeschool my 7 year-old daughter who is at the 2nd grade level. Explode the Code was recommended to me as a good phonics workbook for her and I agree 100%. Nancy Hall makes this a very easy way to learn phonics. My daughter has accepted this book easily and readily. I recommend this book to anybody who needs to learn phonics or teach it to their child.

I purchased and have used Explode the Code books 1-4 to date. I also bought and am using the Teachers Guides as well. I enjoy the Guides as they take me through the process of introducing a skill, by offering short and effective interactive presentations or exercises. These usually take only minutes each, and with only a small amount of creativity can be extended when needed. Such activities include a short review of previous skill(s), a phonemic awareness activity, fluency, comprehension, writing, and a challenge, as well as the introduction of that unit's skill. The feedback from these is just what I need to know if its time to progress or not. The exercises also allow me to teach objectives from several angles despite my limited experience. Additional exercises are also presented to appeal to various learning styles.

My student enjoys the Student pages in the Explode the Code books. Once a student learns to do each type of exercise they can be completed with a great degree of independence. Some times we spend more time on student pages one day and more time with other activities the other just to mix it up a bit.

The ETC 1/2 numbered series offers more practice on the same skills taught in the whole numbered books.

For those on a budget, or who are not ready to commit to purchasing an entire phonics system, as well as others who only need to remediate certain objectives, the fact that these books are sold separately is nice.

While I use these as part of our home schooling day, I feel these books would be well suited for parents who wish to challenge a reader who is not being challenged in early grades at school, or who wishes to help remediate a slow or struggling reader. Explode the code is actually written for use in a class setting however is well designed and lends to any student/teacher ratio.

The progressive phonics introduction, the engaging little drawings, the repetitive tasks, the systematic skill progression, among other educational objectives, all boil down to one fact ~ THIS WORKS! I've tried several other methods to assist my special child in spelling and reading. While these workbooks are marketed more as a supplement to a reading program, nothing has been more influential in my daughter actually GETTING IT! She is always eager to pull out her Explode the Code book first. The progess is consistently steady. My friend's child who is not learning challenged feels the same enthusiam. The publisher of this series also produces the wonderful Wordly Wise 3000 workbooks which are equally successful and well-received by my students.

We have gone through all the Explode the Code books and find they all have great value in the process of learning to decode/phonics and reading skills. This book introduces and works through the various ways to divide words. The book uses a progression of lessons to go through the basics of how to divide words. It is an excellent book and a good way to help students decode longer and more complex words. The first lesson is dividing compound words, second lesson reviews common endings (ful, ing, est, ed, ness and the lessons go on from there. The book introduces the concept of open and closed syllables which is also a great help in decoding. The lessons comprise 8 pages of various activities to solidify the concept. This book is a good choice and a great value.

I have a B.A. in English education, and an M.A. in education. But I am learning from this book. I can spell fairly well because I can see in my mind how the words are spelled, but I never knew that there was actually good reasons for the ways most words are spelled. My kids are not naturally good at spelling. Oh, my goodness, no. Last year, the things I had to try to read... yikes. Even though they are in 4th- and 5th-grades, I decided to start them on Book 1 of Explode the Code... I had started using the books with my youngest, a kindergartener, and thought that the older two could benefit from the detailed, repetitive practice that forces the writer/reader to stop and THINK about HOW the word is written and WHY it is written that way. And they have benefitted! I have started another new spelling curriculum that seems to have helped them, too, so I won't say that this has single-handedly worked miracles for them, but it has certainly been helpful. As I said, even I am learning.

The first pages of a chapter help the learner break down the words into separate phonemes. Every word has a silly, scribbly picture hint. The next few pages of the chapter require the learner to start writing the words themselves with minimal assistance. Then two pages have the words used in context with other sentences that use similar words, so the reader has to be careful to sound out the words correctly to choose the correct sentence that matches the picture. On the last page, students write the word themselves.

In Book 4, students learn to read/write multi-syllable words. We teachers get excited that kids know all their phonemes, and we send them off into the world of chapter books, so they read the first few letters of a long word and make up the rest, totally unprepared for reading multi-syllable words. Well, that's what I had done anyway. Turns out it's very important that readers/writers understand how syllables work. This book is the ticket to that understanding.

I use this for review and I find that it reinforces phonics rules well. My daughter enjoys this workbook; it is somewhat fun for her. I recommend Explode the Code.