Fun Time Phonics {TOS Crew Review}

As part of the TOS Crew we were recently allowed to choose from some The Critical Thinking Co. products to review.  Our family chose and received Fun Time Phonics.  

Fun Time Phonics is for grades PreK-2nd.  On the cover of the book it says age 4 through grade 2.  This means that all but two of my nine children could use this book in some way which made it the perfect choice for us.  I especially was excited for this review because this company allows you to copy their pages in the book for classroom use.  This means that one book can be used to teach all of my children!

 

The Fun Time Phonics book we received is a physical book.  The physical book costs $39.99.  You can also purchase this book as a download which is $19.99 for use on 2 PC’s.  There is also a 6 PC option which is the same price as the physical book.  It has 320 pages total.  There are 100 activities throughout the book that are fun and engaging to children.  They’re colorful and have fun pictures.  My youngest daughter is two and we don’t really do school with her yet.  She loves to sit in the school room and color pictures though so I try to print off a letter a day for her to color and play with.  She loves to look through this book.  It’s come to the point that her letter has to be one of the letters that her sisters are working on in the Fun Time Phonics book or she doesn’t want to sit and color it!

I do want to say that I am a huge fan of having this in the physical book.  I love to be able to just flip the book open and find what I need.  I’m not very good with downloadable things and have a hard time finding what I need so I tend to print them off anyway!

In Fun Time Phonics they learn about vowel patterns and vocabulary building.  What this means is that they teach your child that the letter combination “ba” says baaa as in bat or bad and then they can read three letter words containing “ba” by simply adding a sound to the end.  It makes them think they’re making huge strides and reading and really they are!  They know what a letter combination says so they can read it!  Instant success and instantly makes them feel smart and special.

 

 

It does of course start with teaching all the vowels and their vowel sounds.  This part was a quick study for us as my just turned 5 year old has already gone through those in a different book and could fly through here.  My other 5 year old has not mastered these yet and so we are just redoing them over and over.  Which is another reason that I love that I can copy these pages!  She’s done each one several times.  It takes a lot longer for things to click with her.  

Also at the beginning of the book are beginning sounds that would start words.  Activity 1 covers six beginning sounds.  Activity 2 then covers ending sounds.  Activity 3 covers beginning and ending sounds.  From there it just keeps on moving!  You can redo lessons if needed or break each activity up into multiple lessons if needed.  I’ve done that with some of my kids.  I did have to find some additional worksheets for one of my 5 year old daughters as she just wasn’t getting some concepts.  Once she would get the concept then we would move on.  I don’t like to move on until they have mastered something.

I personally am loving this book for extra phonics practice.  The regular phonics curriculum that I have used with all of my kids uses this type of method for teaching phonics.  For me, it’s the only way to teach.  My kids love it.  It’s easy to use and easier for them to learn.  I love that it works for gifted children, special needs children, and all the children in between.  I have a full spectrum in my house and while it does take some children longer to reach that aha moment, they all do reach it and it’s wonderful to see the light in their eyes as they realize they just read a word!!

I can highly recommend this Fun Time Phonics book to you and really hope you do try it out with your kids.  Mine love it.  Even the kids who have already past this step in their phonics liked to do some of the worksheets when they were having trouble remembering what sound that combination made.  It was easy for me to find that section of the book and copy off a page for practice.  This book will stay in our house for many years to come and keep getting used!!

I also have to mention that at the very end of the book is a section of two pages filled with words that your child can read when they’re done with this book.  I like to show this to my kids at the beginning of the book and again at different intervals throughout.  They love getting to put tiny little star stickers next to the words they can read and seeing the list of remaining words that they don’t know get smaller and smaller!  Again, this is accomplished by copying the pages so they each have their own.

Make sure to check out the main TOS blog post for all the fun Critical Thinking Co. products that Crew members were offered as well as many more reviews!  You can also check them out on facebook, pinterest, twitter, and google +.