Category Review

This fun, colorful and easy to use phonics program has been updated and repackaged! Each grade level includes its own small Parent’s Guide, workbooks, audio CDs, flash cards, readers, and a progress chart and stickers. The workbooks are very high-quality and visually interesting (level K is four-colored, the rest are two-colored). The books are done by different authors and illustrators (some of them award-winning) and are also very high quality both in content and form.

Level K starts with learning the letter names, beginning with the alphabet song and a nice set of flash cards. An audio CD (very pleasant-sounding lady) leads you along. After listening to the alphabet song, your child follows along through the alphabet with the flash cards, again accompanied by the audio CD. You will do this step over and over for as many lessons as it takes to learn the letter names. Your child can practice with both sides (upper and lower case) of the flash cards. Once the letters are mastered, your child will begin learning the letter sounds. This step also includes a CD and flash cards. Again, the audio CD never gets tired of taking your child through the sounds. Use this level as often as you like until your child has learned all of the letter sounds. From this point, the audio CDs will lead your child through each workbook in the program. The audio component is really a plus if you’re a busy mom, since your child can do most or all of the lesson on his/her own with very little participation required on your part. An older child could also easily oversee the use of this program.

According to the Parent’s Guides, lessons should require only 15-30 minutes. The first part is Learn – start with a review of skills, then continue the lesson wherever you left off in the workbook. This would include learning new sounds with flash cards, audio CD, and workbook or learning new Helper Words (sight words). Next is Practice, using the next workbook Review page, Helper Word cards or a Word Play game. Finally is the Read part of the lesson in which your child reads a story in the workbook or one of the books (as prompted by the workbook). At the end of each lesson, your child can place a sticker on the progress poster. Besides letter names and sounds, K Level concentrates on short vowels and learning CVC words. A good number of sight (Helper) words are also introduced. By HOP Book 5, comprehension questions are included in the workbook as well. The CD-ROM contains reinforcing letter and letter sound games and is a fun addition to the K Level. Your child can play a game at the end of each step in the level. These are cute, function well, and would make a nice reinforcement/reward upon completion of each lesson. First Grade Workbook 2 introduces and practices initial consonant blends and teaches more sight words. Workbook 3 introduces and practices final consonant blends (and digraphs), some suffixes (-ing, -er, -ly, -es, -ed) and words with two syllables. In Second Grade, Workbook 4 introduces long vowels, first with silent e, then other long vowel digraphs including ee, ea, ow, oa, ai, ay, y(as long i), y(as long e); r-controlled vowels including ar, er, ir, ur, or, ore, eer, ear, are, air; and all. It also presents additional Helper words. Workbook 5 continues with more sounds and sound combinations. These include oy, oi, ou, ow, au, aw, long oo, short oo, igh, ind. Three-letter initial blends are covered, then phonograms kn and wr. Soft c and g complete the phonics instruction. As in other levels, more sight words are included as well. After this level, you can continue reading instruction with the Master Reader set (see review later in this section).

I really like the audio CD component of this course. It is crisp, clear and understandable. Children would require little further instruction to follow along in the program. Materials are very nice, especially in quality and format. Instruction is solid. Many programs do not do enough to introduce children to letters and letter sounds, expecting that you will use some other method to teach these prior to beginning a “phonics” program. The price and “feel” of the program is similar to that of Sing, Spell, Read and Write. Materials in that program are more “rustic” and less engaging and colorful, but instruction is more complete. It also has writing and spelling components which this program lacks. HOP incorporates reading comprehension and is easier to use and less time-consuming for the teacher. There is absolutely no guess-work or training time. The CD-ROM in HOP is a nice little “bonus” for children, and a good trade-off for the inexpensive prizes in SSRW. At the end of SSRW, you have fewer remaining phonograms to cover; at the end of this program, you’ll really need to finish up with an advanced phonics book or program, or incorporate remaining phonics constructs into your spelling program. I also think the Grade 1 level of this program is particularly “light.” I seriously doubt that you’d spend an entire year on initial and final consonant blends, a few suffixes and some sight words. Normally, these skills take little time and effort for children to acquire. I would, therefore, suggest completing the entire program in one and one-half to two years, beginning as early as PK, and catching remaining phonograms with another program. Another option would be to use the K level only, since it is probably the “best” part of the program, and then using workbooks or some less expensive program to finish.

Product Review

Contains 3 audio CDs, 5 sets of flash cards, a workbook, 24 books, and a CD-ROM.

Customer Review

 
Sheryl H. from Yakima WA wrote the following on 02/25/2010:
We used the brand new version. I am not terribly familiar with the older version but the new one has a red level for pre-reading, Purple for K, Green for 1st grade, and Blue for 2nd grade. I didn't purchase the red set because my son already knew all of his letter sounds. The Purple, K, level of this program was terrific. I was having difficulty teaching my son to blend the letter sounds to make words and this program worked great to teach him that. I really liked the little purple books, and the reading in the manual was great too. My son really liked the videos. HOP also has a website where I can download free worksheets and other activities for the lessons. What I did not like about this program was the other books. The books that didn't have purple covers seemed to be just thrown into the program with no rhyme or reason. The program waits until the Blue, 2nd grade, level to introduce long vowels, but they are in these reading books as early as the K program. If your child is really good at guessing, or has tried another phonics program this might work, but my son just found it extremely frustrating. I insisted he finish the first half of the green, 1st grade, program, but it was like pulling teeth and after that I gave up. Now I have the very difficult problem of placing a child who can read short vowel words into another program when most other programs introduce the short and long vowels early on. In short, the K level was great, but be prepared to backtrack a bit into another phonics program after that.