Development of the Series
The letters are large in the first readers to help the child easily recognize the shape of each letter. They become smaller in size as the series progresses. Each reader is a little more difficult as there are more words on a page to match the increasing reading competency of the child. The child seems unaware of the increasing words per page.
The langauge in each reader tries to match that of the child's language, not the formal English of a textbook. The child can then naturally anticipate what the next word will be. The English sentences of the first readers are very simple as the child has so few words that he or she can recognize.
The articles "the," "an," and "a" are purposely left out in the first two readers to make easy reading possible. For some reason these articles cause more reading difficulties than other words when learning to read.
The first two readers assumes that a child can't recognize letters so helps the child to recognize 13 letters and 12 words. The child who can recognize the 5 letters I, B, D, J, and O will read BEES rapidly.
Phonetic system
Every word in BEES was chosen for a phonic and psychological reason.
There is a definite phonic system for the series which is based on phonograms (family of words).
Each new word usually a phonograrn is printed separately at the top of a page, starting with ED. The word is separated into two parts by a hyphen. This is to teach a child that most words start with a single consonant although there are some words that start with double or triple consonants. After the hyphen comes the digraph (two letters such as "ed" in b-ed) or trigraph (three letters such as 'ike" in Mike) in this series.
Digraph means for this series to write two letters, one a vowel and the other a consonant. A trigraph, three letters, may have two vowels and a consonant or one vowel and two consonants.
Digraph is defined in phonics as two letters to indicate a single sound.
Starting in BEES and throughout the series the outlined letter indicates no sound for a consonant or a vowel or takes onthe sound of another letter. This teaches a child that some words are not phonetically correct.
To teach a child to analyze a word it is important to teach the child the difference between a consonant and a vowel. This is easy as there are only six vowels and the rest of the alphabet is consonants.
As soon as a child knows all the sounds for each consonant, the child then knows how to begin any word that begins with a single consonant. In the reader series the child learns the sound of the consonant as he needs it.
There are only 12 vowel sounds. Since 5 of the vowels use their alphabet name, there are only 7 more vowel sounds for the child to learn.
As each word in the readers begin with either a single or double consonant followed by one or two vowels, more than half of a word can be recognized instantly by the reader. When the child has mastered the sounds
for single and double consonants, and single and double vowels, he can immediately recognize the word.
Word Game
To teach a child to recognize that most words begin with a single, double or triple consonant and to learn the sounds attached to the consonants, I created a word game which consists of a strip of single or double consonants that is pulled through a digraph or trigraph block. This you will first use in ED.
The child also learns that by changing the consonants before a digraph or a trigraph many new words , phonograms , are created. This teaches him how to recognize many words by looking for the digraph or trigraph. I depend upon the parent or teacher to teach the simple phonic knowledge necessary for these beginning readers. Later in the first grade the child will get a more formal training in phonics.
Requires No Training of the Parent
Children are not equal in their ability to learn.
This is very evident in learning to read. The Dr. Wise, LEARN-TO-READ SERIES is based on this truth. A child can start reading at age 3 or may have to wait until age 7 to start. This series gives the parent the opportunity to start the child reading when he is ready. This series quickly detects the gifted child. Most children can read at age 4, but not all children.
Your child will, with a few exceptions, learn to read this series before entering the first grade. If he can't read BEES by six years of age, you can be sure that he will be reading shortly thereafter. Many teachers of remedial reading have used this series with older children with great success.
We guarantee reading success. We can't tell you at what age your child will begin to read. We do know, however, that when a child can say all the letters of the alphabet this child may he ready to read. We definitely know that when a child can begin to recognize the letters of the alphabet, this child is ready to read. Some children are ready to read at age 3.
Reading is easily taught at home with this series. An 11 or 12 year older using this series can teach a four or five year older to read.
This is the only series that is available to parents that helps the gifted, the average, and the slow learner to learn to read at home.
Any child who is ready to read can learn to read BEES in 15 to 20 minutes. After that, it is a matter of gradually increasing the number of words that a child can recognize. BEES, the first reader, teaches the child to read. All the other readers increase the number of words that a child can recognize. There are 20 readers in the series and each reader is progressive.
