When you help your child to read, you just get a phonetic reader with little words in it, right? Wrong.
Just because a word is little does NOT mean that it’s easy to read.
English is such a complex language with so many rules, sight words, silent letters and strange letter blends. How do you help your child figure it out?
Pure phonetics.
Hello! I’m Wendy Pedersen of Miss Wendy’s Books. I’m a Montessori trained reading teacher who has taught for over 35 years, and I’m the author of Miss Wendy’s Favorite Phonetic Books.
When I started teaching, I wanted to add books to my reading unit that had pure phonetics in them. The problem was, I couldn’t find any! Not one book for children that didn’t have a lot of sight words, confusing letter blends or silent letters.
I kept finding books that had words like, “was” and “of”. When your child has just learned their letter sounds and is ready to start reading, they would expect those words to be spelled, “wuz” and “uv”.
Those kinds of books would just confuse and frustrate the young emerging reader.
I didn’t want to set my students up to fail!
So I created a set of books that were phonetically correct—the letters in each word “say” what they’re supposed to say, with the exception of only three simple sight words: a, the & is. Pure phonetics. So much easier!
After learning those three sight words, these books give the beginning reader an opportunity to practice their newfound reading skills without encountering extra sight words that would only trip them up and overwhelm them.
This is the key to setting them up for success!
After years of developing some creative activities and items to include in the Miss Wendy’s Favorite Phonetic Books kit…
I discovered a way to make it even more fun!
Why not add a reading phone that looks like a cell phone to the kit? The child can hear their own voice clearly in the phone as they read the stories.
The Miss Wendy’s Reading Phone is not only a fun toy that helps to create excitement and enthusiasm for reading time, but it’s also a tool that helps to increase reading fluency and comprehension skills.
It’s so great to watch your child focus on their words as they listen intently to their own voice inside the reading phone!
I have enjoyed hearing from children and parents who tell me about how the “sound-out words” in my books have helped them to enjoy the process of learning to read. Happy and relieved parents have given me wonderful feedback about how their children feel successful in this journey!
“I love that you made sure to choose words that say what they should. None of those funky English surprises!” —Camille B., 1st and 2nd grade teacher, and Mom.
“My daughter is doing really well and this is honestly helping us go back to basics. These are really helping her think rather than rush through because she isn’t getting overwhelmed.” —Carlie B., Mom.
“This was the first time I’ve ever seen him sit down and try to read something all on his own! He LOVED that all of the words were ‘sound-out words’. He also liked the stories. He read all of the books in level one.” —Meriam P., Mom.
Over the years I have found that phonetic readers, and a phonics approach to teaching children to read, has been extremely effective for a wide variety of learning styles.
I welcome your questions or comments! Please feel free to reach out anytime.
Miss Wendy