Customer Reviews

Making Sense of Phonics: The Hows and Whys (Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy)

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I have ten years of teaching experience, from pre-school to third grade. It has been easy teaching about 80% of my students to read, over the years. They respond well to my small guided reading groups, carefully planned literacy centers, and limited but focused phonics instruction.

But the other 10 percent%? Well, they have needed something different, and this book, "Making Sense of Phonics," is it. Isabel Beck strikes a perfect balance in this book between theory, research, and application. I read the book over a weekend after attending a seminar about how brain imaging and neuroscience is helping to make sense of the process to learn to read. Beck's research was discussed at length and quite convincing, and so I bought the book, read it, and began teaching lessons using her protocol to the 6 lowest readers in my class.

Results? After just three weeks I already note marked improvement in these students' ability to sound out words, blend sounds, and make the connection between the letters on the page and the sound they produce with their mouth. It's fast paced and simple to do, once you've taught just a few lessons. If they continue at this rate, I will be completely sold on it and plan to present to the primary teachers at my school in hopes of convincing others to use it, as needed.

I think that a parent could just as easily do this with their child as well; in fact, it could be even better because the child would receive that one on one attention. It does seem pretty important to stick to Beck's suggestions regarding how to emphasize letter sound correspondance to all parts of the word as opposed to just initial placement.

Bottom line, if your student or child is a struggling reader and you've tried lots of things and are going nuts because they know a word on one page and forget in on the next or they just look at the first letter and then make a guess, then this is the teaching strategy for you!

In this book, Beck outlines procedures for essential beginning reading activities such as letter-sound correspondences, blending, and word building. I really liked how this book focused on classroom practice, and how the author applies every concept to real students. Beck also supplies appendixes to supply the materials needed to make your own centers that were used in the classroom practice examples.

I really liked the idea for word pockets, where students place the letter where they heard the sound(beginning, middle, or end.) Also, now each one of my students now has their own set of alphabet cards. When we have free time, they are busy putting letters together to make a word.

Beck is the best at this. A super book, perfect if you want to teach anyone how to read.

I will refer to the information in this book often as a reading specialist. This book combines research proven, common sense approaches toward the teaching of reading. Finally! A usable phonics guide without a 'script' or without being a canned, expensive product.

This is an excellent resources on phonics instruction. It not only gives practical instructional strategies and activities but it also explains the rationale of why the activities are meaningful and necessary. This is a must have resource for a first or second grade reading teacher.

One of the best professional how-to books in education. I've tried the principles from the book and they work with my hard to teach students. It was also an easy read.

I discovered this book because it is part of my district's Reading First grant library. The grant itself is fairly amazing and has resulted in our having an awesome set of instructional books along with all of the teachers receiving their own Tungsten Palm Pilot. I took a look at Beck's work to get a better handle on phonics interventions in the classroom and it definitely proved useful. Early intervention is essential in the author's mind (and in everybody else's) which is intrinsic to Reading First's emphasis on explicit, systematic phonic instruction. Beck's defining of terms was of great benefit. I needed some background on the meaning of diphthongs and digraphs as I rarely encounter such lingo on a daily or annual basis. How the alphabetic principle applies to learning was also illuminating. Some of the specific methods, such as the Word Pocket and Word Building sequences, will be of assistance to teachers. Unfortunately, like most education books, this one is overpriced, but that is not the fault of the author or her subject.

Quick, easy read plus great activities to use. I shared it w/ 3 reading teachers...all of whom went to buy it too! Little expensive for a little book, but I love the activity called Sylla-Search for teaching multi-syllable words.