Alpha-Phonics Flashcards

I have used Alpha-Phonics to teach all my children to read. Some took longer and needed a more gentle approach. Some knew their phonics naturally, before I ever opened the book, but we went through it anyway, to reinforce what they had picked up along the way.

In the beginning I created a set of flashcards, based on a Readers as Leaders program that I borrowed from the library. I adapted them to suit the Alpha-Phonics program. I thought others might be interested in using them.

Alpha-Phonics Flashcards in pdf format.

They are designed to be printed double sided, on card stock, and then cut into individual cards. You may need to play around with your printer to figure out what will work for you.

A Quick Overview of How We Use Alpha-Phonics

Everyday (well, every day that we “do” school) I sit down with the child that is learning to read and we practice the flashcards. We usually have about 5 cards on the go at once. We will review cards the child has already mastered about once a week. After the flashcards, we snuggle on the couch and read a lesson from the Alpha-Phonics book. If the child reads the majority of the words correctly, with only a little prompting for me, I make a check mark at the top of the lesson. (Each lesson now has four check marks at the top - one for each child in my home that has learned read.) Then we read one of the Bob Books, or a selection from the McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers.

If a child cannot seem to get through a lesson without help, we put the book aside for a few weeks and just practice flashcards. With our oldest, she had great difficulty when we began introducing the sound of /e/ (in lesson 24). I would put Alpha-Phonics on the shelf for several weeks, pull it out and try again. This went on for over a year before something finally clicked and she passed the lesson.

LittlePage1 finished the Alpha-Phonics book after her seventh birthday. LittlePage2 was just over six. LittlePage3 will be almost nine by the time he finishes, and LittlePage4 is about halfway through at age six and half. I find that about two-thirds of the way through the program, they can beginning reading some short chapter books on their own. Some of the early books my children have read are:

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat
Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink
Mother West Wind Stories by Thorton Burgess
Henry and Ribsy by Beverley Cleary (although not all of Cleary’s book pass muster in our home.)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (although not all of Cleary’s book pass muster in our home.)
Nature Readers by Christian Liberty Press
The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting

…to name a few.

We tried to stay away from all those early “introductory” readers at the library which are more twaddle than literature. To find quality, age-appropriate literature for your children check out:

The Sonlight catalogue offers excellent readers for each grade level. I do not use their curriculum, but I do order literature from them.
Simply Charlotte Mason offers some excellent suggestions, as well.
Ambleside Online offers a complete curriculum based on living books, most of which are available free for download from The Baldwin Project. We print many of these off and add them to our shelves. Some of them are truly lovely books that we cherish. I would offer a word of caution. Not every book is suitable for every family. We do not read any mythology and limit fairy tales. Please use prayer and your own discretion when choosing books for your children. When in doubt pre-read!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask away.

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MrsPages presented a seminar at the MACHS conference today on how we approach the early years of education. It was based on the Bluedorn’s approach to Classical education, as presented in their book “Teaching The Trivium”. I was so proud! She was awesome!

MrsPages presented our take on the Bluedorn’s model. We’ve rearranged the 10 things to reflect our priorities, and basically made them our own.

In a nutshell, get your children’s hearts close to God and close to you, let them explore their world, and expose them to great literature as much as you can. If you do that before they are 10, then you really don’t have to do much else. Once they turn 10 (or 11 or 12) then moving into formal schooling should be a breeze.

Here are the notes from the seminar, as we promised the people who came after we ran out of printed copies.

Thanks to the 50+ people who attended (you can’t see the other half of the room in the picture) and stayed afterwards for questions and discussion!

10 Things To Do Before Age 10 Handout in PDF format
10 Things To Do Before Age 10 Handout in OpenOffice format
10 Things To Do Before Age 10 Handout in Microsoft Word format

Our Family Schedule in PDF Format
Our Family Schedule in OpenOffice Format
Our Family Schedule in Microsoft Word Format

One child with a Lego horn stuck to his forehead, held on by colourful elastic bands that leave ugly red marks across the skin: “I’m a triceratops!”

One child strumming on the old, antique, in-much-need-of-tuning-and-a-few-strings autoharp, belting out America the Beautiful to some unknown monotone tune that might get us arrested or worse south of the border: “I’m singing an American song to my very own melody!”

One child madly ploughing through stacks of paper looking for a lost recipe book to try and make lunch which is now at least one hour overdue, with a pantry and fridge devoid of flour, milk, meat, eggs and other such essentials: “Maybe we can have sandwiches?”

One child shouting from the bathroom, asking if it is alright to put her clothes in the bath tub: “I peed.”

One child staring wide-eyed at me as tears flow down my cheeks and giggles erupt spontaneously from somewhere deep inside, wondering if her mother has finally snapped: “Are you okay, Mom?”

Thank-you Lord for the joy and zest and abundant life that children bring into our home. Thank-you for their zaniness and independence and cacaphony. I am richly blessed. (Thank-you also for the earplugs and Tylenol!)

Lassie is a tri-colour Collie that every man in the village of Greenall Bridge, England says is the “best dog anybody could lay eyes on.” Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight is the exciting story of a dog who is unwillingly (by owner and dog) sold to the Duke of Rudling, moved to Scotland, escapes, and tries to find her way home.

Read the rest of this entry »

A young boy, Ronnie, and his Aunt Martha agree to look after a lighthouse in early December, but as Christmas approaches and the keeper does not return, Ronnie begins to worry that they will not be able to spend their Christmas at home.

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Two children decide to runaway from home and hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Along the way they try to discover the truth about a mysterious piece of art.

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In the line of thought about evangelism from yesterday

I think the ideas of transforming culture, and us redeeming the world, are very appealing. But therein lies their danger. They make us important. Following what Christ personally did, and what He commanded His followers to do, will not really help us transform the world. It’s too radical. Too crazy. Too dismissive of worldly systems. When we become followers in God’s kingdom, we’re aliens here. I don’t know, I just see so much in scripture that goes against the idea of us redeeming the world, whereas I think you have to try really hard to read those ideas into scripture. — Britt Mooney

It is far too tempting to me to desire to transform the culture merely to keep participating in the culture with a veneer of Christianity superimposed. If my choices are all Christian variations of the world around me, I haven’t made any of the difficult decisions. I get my video games, my cool music, my clothes, my stuff.

If my lifestyle is my evangelism, as I believe, then what does it say when my lifestyle is The World™ rebranded?

I don’t think Christ gives two hoots for the culture, transformed or not. We’re to transform people.

If we’d all do that, then the culture wouldn’t transform, it would collapse under the weight of its own emptiness.

Pulpit Magazine has a wonderfully challenging couple of posts by John Macarthur on how our lives are our evangelism.

To convince a man God can save, I need to show him a man He saved. To convince a man that God can give hope, I need to show him a man with hope. To convince a man that God can give peace, joy, and love, I need to show him a man with peace, joy, and love. To convince a man that God can give complete, total, and utter satisfaction, I need to show him a satisfied man. When the world sees people who are holy, righteous, peaceful, joyful, and fulfilled, they see the evidence of God’s transforming power.

I love this concept of taking the emphasis in evangelism away from getting people to say the prayer, or getting them to come to my church, or getting them to hear sermons, or giving them the chance to step forward at an altar call.

The emphasis of evangelism needs to be on living like a child of God. When we focus on our methods and our process then it’s our work. When we focus on the new life we have been given, then it’s His.

The central issue in evangelism is holy living. A powerful church is not built on its strategy, but on the virtue and holiness of its people.

Here is the continuation of 50 things I am thankful for…

21. Sunny Winter days.
22. Smiles.
23. Laughter.
24. Books.
25. The Penner Family (The family we are doing church with).
26. Spelling.
27. Making breakfast.
28. The smell of fresh coffee in the morning.
29. The library.
30. The Songs of birds.

(more continuations to come soon)

The first goal for our family in our list of What We Think God Wants for Our Family is:

1. To love God and have a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)

Now this may not seem like it has anything to do homeschooling, but the reality is if this is not the first, the most important, the whole center on which we build not only our homeschool, but our family life, than we have failed. We have failed as parents, and we have failed as Christ believers.

I once heard someone say that the only thing we get to take to heaven with us is other people. What a complete and utter failure to arrive there and know that my children will not follow me. I want to be able to say that, “I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are living according to the truth. 3 John 1:4″

Practically what does this mean though? MrPages is a concrete thinker. He wanted to know how we get from here to there. It occurred to me that according to John 15, the only way to judge ourselves and our children in this matter is to look at the fruit in our lives. Paul defines the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 and 23 as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

So we have been studying the fruit of the Spirit. We’ve been looking at what scripture says about each aspect of the “fruit” and we’ve been trying to hold each other accountable to help cultivate this fruit. I don’t believe we can make this fruit grow, but I do think we can try to make sure the branch stays stuck to the tree of Christ, and in doing so, the fruit should be plentiful.