Review of Seton’s Kindergarten Phonics
** Kindergarten Phonics for Young Catholic Volume 1 **
Unit one has twenty five lessons. The first eleven are Listen skills (stories and poems), Visual Discrimination (broad similarities, detailed similarities and detailed differences), and Motor Skills (straight, curved, detailed dashed, detailed straight, and slanted lines and geometric shapes). The next nine lessons are on auditory/visual discrimination. There are then three lessons on visual discrimination involving capital and lower case letters, letter identification and tracing. Then there is a another motor skills lesson and one on nursery Rhymes. Unit Two is the beginning of learning phonics. The first few lessons are on the alphabet. Then on letter recognition and identifying partner letters (capital and lower case). There is five lessons on motor and visuals skills. After this the letter lessons begin. Each lesson begins with an intro to the letter. For example, the first letter taught is "S". So for "S" there are five lessons. The first is printing. The next initial sound and printing. The third is letter discrimination. The fourth is initial sound and printing. The fifth and final lesson is final sound and printing. The next letter taught is "T". After this there is a review of "S" and "T". Every two letters they are reviewed. Every four letters the last four are reviewed. Unit Two covers the following letters: S,T,B,H,M,K,J,F,G,L, and D. Volume One is about 136 pages.
** Kindergarten Phonics for Young Catholics Volume 2 **
This book begins with Unit three. It reviews the Alphabet sound list. Then it covers the following letters: N (including a N/M discrimination), W, C, R, P, Q, V, X, Y, Z. The lessons are the same setup as in Volume 1 (as I explained above for the letter "S"). Unit four introduces the vowels. It begins by reviewing the consonants. Then it introduces Short "A". The lessons are as follows for Short "A". First is Recognizing the short sound of Aa. Then Short Vowel Aa. Then blending consents with short sound of Aa. Then Short Vowel Aa. Finally the short Aa sound in sentences. This is repeated for Short E, I, O and U. There are reviews after every two vowel sounds taught. Unit 5 begins by reviewing consonants and short vowels. Then it teaches the two sounds of "C" and "G". Then it begins the long vowels. It begins in with A. The lessons go as follows: First recognizing the long sound of Aa. Then discriminating between long and short A. Then blending consents with long A. Then again recognizing sound of the long and short A. Then it goes on to E, I, O, U long vowels. Reviews after *each* vowel. The next section teaches consonant blends like SM, CR, PL, TR, GL, ST as initial sounds. Then final sound consonant blends like CK, NG, MP, SK, NK, and ST. Then the digraph TH is taught and the difference between T and TH. The final section of volume two is about Y as a vowel. There are three lessons here involving Y with A, with E, and with I in one or two syllable words. The final two lessons are reading a little story about a puppy and answering questions for comprehension.
Available from Seton Education
Media
Reviewed by Nannette Halliwell
7/2000