At this time, I recommend the Alphabetti books only for older children. (4.5 years old and older)
Why? Because the books start with letters that can be confusing to young children... namely., the letters d, b, g and p.
I am working on a complete revision of the books to make them appropriate for children of all ages. However, because I am also working on the phonics books and a revision of the website, etc., it will be quite a while before I can focus on the Alphabetti books. This is very sad for me because I would rather work on the Alphabetti books -- they are much more fun!
In the meantime, I am leaving the existing Alphabetti books up on the Internet for older children who can navigate past the letters d/b/g/p.
Original introductory text:
Read the book WITH your child. You read the “regular” text, and he/she reads the big, red words, sort of like reading the different parts in a play.
You can read the book on your computer or laptop, or print it out on your printer.
Help your child sound out the words as needed.
Read the book several times. This helps develop the eye muscles and left-to-right reading patterns that are necessary for reading. This also provides repetition, which is very important in achieving fluency.
Fluency is achieved when a child sees a word and can recognize it instantly. A child may need to see a word thirty or forty times before it becomes "instant." Some children may need to see a word well over a hundred times before it becomes "instant."
Tests have shown that the average child has an estimated seven to ten seconds of “working memory.” In other words, if a child can read a sentence in ten or less seconds, he/she can “get” (comprehend) the “big idea” of the sentence. However, some children have less "working memory," and developmentally disabled children have even less.
If a child has to struggle to read each word in a sentence, by the time the child reaches the end of the sentence, he/she has forgotten the words at the beginning of the sentence = zero comprehension.
There are about 220 “high frequency” words that make up 50 - 70% of almost all written sentences in English.
If a child can automatically read these 220 important words, then he/she can automatically read 50--80% of all sentences = he/she has a better chance of reading a sentence quickly enough to comprehend it. This leads to a happier, less frustrated reader .(Progressive Phonics is one of the few phonics program that incorporates these 220 "high-frequency" words into their phonics program.)
Do the handwriting worksheets and activity sheets that accompany each book. When children write what they learn, they learn it better.
This also increases the number of "exposures" to the 220 all-important sight words which are incorporated into our phonics program.
Don’t rush. Body builders don’t train in a day, neither does a child.
Don’t worry about upper-case letters or capitalizing proper nouns and sentences. Uppercase letters are taught in Alphabetti Series #4.
And most of all, make it fun. A love of reading will last a lifetime.