Basic Phonics Skills - A

This phonics workbook series from Evan-Moor features engaging black-and-white worksheets and fun "extras" like reproducible readers that build and reinforce a variety of phonics skills. Over 200 reproducible worksheets are included in each book, with 3-4 slightly different worksheets on each concept at a range of difficulty levels. While this would allow for differentiated instruction in the classroom, it also provides more practice for individual students who need it, or a more advanced workbook page for the student who has already "has it." Several teacher pages (bordered in gray) are included at the beginning of each book which summarize the skills taught at that level. Each section of each workbook has its own "table of contents," where worksheets that deal with a specific concept it listed. This makes it easy for the teacher to locate worksheet pages for specific phonics skills. Workbook pages include simple instructions to the student, instructions to the teacher (in Level A), and a brief description of the skills practiced within. In Level A, the focus is on readiness skills, print awareness, phonemic awareness, and sound-symbol association. 26 four-page reproducible alphabet readers are included at the end, which can be cut, folded, colored, and enjoyed. The workbook pages that focus on introducing the letters are also given in two versions; traditional and modern type (slanted). Level B introduces beginning and ending consonants, short vowels, plural and inflectional endings, and word families. To illustrate word families, some worksheets in this section offer "word family sliders" which can be assembled and used for practice. By Level C, concepts include long and short vowels, sounds of 'c' and 'g', consonant digraphs, r-controlled vowels, long vowel digraphs, the sounds of 'y', and consonant blends. Word family slider tools are also included at this level with more sophisticated word families. Level D covers variant consonant sounds, silent letters, digraphs and dipthongs, prefixes and suffixes, plural and inflectional endings, and word families. 20 eight-page reproducible phonics readers are included at the end of books B-D, which can be colored and provide reading practice for all of the phonics skills covered in that book. Answer keys are found at the end of each book. - Jess