The Hooked on Phonics program has been around for many years. (Starting in 1987 to be exact.)I am constantly recommending this program to others. Countless people have told me that they also preferred this program to teach their children to read. Hooked on Phonics is still effective today, and I have a five-year-old son who is a fluent reader to prove it.
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Hooked on Phonics Is It Right for You?
Does your child show an interest in books? Do you see value in getting your child into a reading program that is versatile and ever-growing? Do you want the ability for hands-on book work, but also the option for an on-the-go app? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then Hooked on Phonics is definitely worth a try for you and your family.
What You Get With Hooked on Phonics
The program starts off with a “Pre-Reader” Level. This level goes from steps 1-12, then moving on to the “Learn to Read” Level. This level goes from steps 13-30. Every shipment includes books for the teacher to read to the child. Included in the workbooks are comprehension questions. Comprehension questions help your child connect to reading, building skills that will be crucial as they grow in their reading ability.
The program covers reading skills from kindergarten to second grade. Once, when I emailed the company, they gave me the following information:
- Steps 1-6 are equivalent to kindergarten
- Steps 7-12 are kindergarten to the beginning of first-grade
- Steps 13-18 are first-grade level
- Steps 19-30 are second grade
I found this to be accurate as I progressed through the program.
Hooked on Phonics Pre-Reader Steps
The Pre-Reader program starts out with the letters a, m, t, s, i, and f, in steps 1 and 2. A particularly exciting feature, (at least to a 3-year-old) is the stickers! Reviews and readings always get a star sticker! Key features of this Pre-Reading step are letter formation, letter sounds, and rhyming. All of these things help your child gain phonemic awareness, the ability to notice individual sounds in words, and that many words begin with the same sounds. The Pre-Reader level continues on for 12 steps as your child learns all their lowercase letters. By the end of the Pre-Reader level, you will start to learn long vowel sounds and capital letters. (By “you” I mean your child of course…but hey we’re never too old to learn right?)
Learn to Read Level
The Pre-Reader program ends and now you move on to the “Learn to Read”. This is where the fun starts as if you weren’t having fun already! With steps one and two of the Learn to Read set, you will begin receiving easy readers for your child to read! These workbooks will also include short vowel sounds.
On the Go App
Perhaps you are wanting a dependable app for your child to use when you are on the go. With your monthly subscription comes a convenient app, for Android, Apple, and desktop. I will admit, however, we do not use the app as much. The app is a great resource, I am just thrilled that my son has always preferred books over learning apps. Occasionally he will use it on my desktop, or on the tablet, but most of our learning has come from the hands-on workbooks. Oftentimes we would play on the app together and I would help him through the different lessons. As time went on, he was needing less and less help from me, which is great!
Weekly emails come your way as well. These emails update you on your child’s success, and where they may need some help or guidance from you. The app is engaging and entertaining while it builds your child’s confidence to read and sound out new words and letters.
Can I Use This as a Homeschool Reading Curriculum?
In my humble opinion, yes. That is the short answer. This is not exactly what I did though. I was already committed to another curriculum, but I found they worked nicely together. I feel that if you are already using another curriculum, or have your heart set on both, they can certainly work together nicely.
When my son turned 3 I decided to use Hooked on Phonics as our preschool curriculum. Now, I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t rush your child into any kind of program until they are ready to read. This looks different for each child. Your child certainly may not be ready to read until much later, and that is perfectly fine! My son was eager to learn and devoured the books for the first few months.
We continued with the program from preschool into kindergarten when he turned 5. As I mentioned I believe this could be a sufficient reading curriculum through at least kindergarten. (Consider taking things slow, or playing more games to reinforce the skills, don’t feel the need to rush.) We are now halfway done with our kindergarten year and I have decided to pause the workbooks for now. The reason I paused is that we were getting a bit ahead in Hooked on Phonics than we were in our other curriculum. Still being in kindergarten, we were getting into the first-grade steps and it was a bit more than I felt we needed. But, this isn’t a bad thing. This just means that Hooked on Phonics had prepared us well.
Giving the Joy of Reading to My Children
Hooked on Phonics has unquestionably given the joy of reading to my younger son. In the past, I have dealt with mom guilt over not starting my older son off with Hooked on Phonics. I was dealing with significantly different circumstances with my first son, not to mention a whole different personality. With my older son, I was constantly worrying that I wasn’t doing enough to help him enjoy reading. If I could go back and do things differently, would I? Possibly, however, I know that each child is different, and likely he would have resisted my efforts. Each child will be ready to read when they are ready, regardless of what program they use.
When my son began to read to me it was amazing! The joy that was his when he would read, became my joy. We had worked together to achieve something and it was awesome.
He never stopped reading. I will admit, I always wanted a child who stayed up reading under the covers. We’re not there yet, but my sons are only 8 and 5, so I can still hold out that hope.
As I stated in the beginning I have always highly recommended Hooked on Phonics to anyone I can. I am recommending it to you today, as I credit it with being the program that gave the love of reading to my child!
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Keep Your Little One Interested With These Additional Resources
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