These inexpensive workbooks provide solid, complete phonics skills practice for the early grades. The simple, well-formatted pages and two-toned graphics leave little room for distraction, and the exercises are straight-forward, progress through concepts logically, and are variable enough to keep students interested. Each workbook is divided into several units, each focusing on a different phonics topic. Topics are matched to national and state phonics standards by grade level, and are listed in more detail at the end of this review. Each separate phonics concept is presented on its own workbook page, and each unit culminates in a “Put it All Together” activity where the skills learned in that unit are combined in a short illustrated story and activity, as well as a “Take a Test Drive” worksheet, which contains a short review of the concepts studied, presented in multiple-choice bubble format, to provide the student a bit of exposure to standardized-testing format. As for the actual phonics lesson worksheets, the stress is more on phonemic awareness, where the focus is on the actual letter sounds in the words, not on their more visual letter representation. The activity format is varied in the lessons as well, and ranges from matching letters, to writing letters, reading simple sentences, identifying words that begin with or contain a certain letter, choosing simple words to complete a sentence, and many more.

Although I can’t list every skill covered in each book, I’d like to briefly summarize the skills covered by grade. Kindergarten topics include basic skills, phonemic awareness (rhyming words, beginning and ending sounds and syllables), upper/lower case letter sequencing and recognition, and sound/symbol correspondences. Grade 1 includes more advanced phonemic awareness exercises, upper/lower case recognition, specific phonetic instruction for all consonants and vowels divided into manageable chunks by unit, beginning digraphs and diphthongs, long vowel variations, a selection of consonants and vowels and several blends. Grade 2 contains more advanced blending and segmenting, short and long a, e, i, o, and u sounds, special vowel sounds, silent consonants, and structural analysis (prefixes, suffixes, and syllabification. By the Grade 3 level, more advanced topics are covered such as decoding (segmenting and blending), short/long vowels, letter combinations, consonant blends and diagraphs, word endings, syllabification, structural analysis, and synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms. A tracking sheet to keep track of progress through the lessons and an answer key are included at the end of each book. - Jess

Customer Review

 
Stephanie P. from Spokane, WA wrote the following on 02/27/2008:
My children have utilized all of the Advantage Phonics workbooks. These books are extremely straightforward and do not require any preparation time. Younger students will need help following the instructions. If you have a child that prefers a simple, uncluttered approach to a topic, these are truly an outstanding choice. Because they are black and white, they are not as distracting as some of the more colorful workbooks. The motivational "trail" at the back of these books encourages progress/completion. One caution, these are not as complex/detailed as some phonics workbooks and some may consider them to be supplemental.