I See Sam Readers

Last year a friend of mine encouraged me to take a look at the I See Sam Readers as a solid reading program for Bugsy.  He has completed Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons but he is still a struggling reader, maybe it's just a boy thing.  I really didn't want to start another 'learn to read program' because he has the basics down.  My gut feel is that he needs more practice reading real material, enter I See Sam Readers.

After e-mail discussion with Andy at Academic Success for all Learners I decided to go ahead and purchase all 8 sets of little books.

They are backwards on this shelf.  The order is red, orange, 

yellow, pale green, dark green, aqua, blue, purple.

So far they have been a hit!  Bugsy has really enjoyed getting to know the characters which appear in all of the little books.  He loves that they are colour coded so he can see when he has moved up a level.  So far he has completed all of the red books and is three shy of completing the orange books.  The books build so incrementally he really feels comfortable with each new book.  This is giving him the confidence he was lacking.  I can see his attitude towards reading changing as the process is becoming easier.  Once the book has been read fluently he gets a sticker of his choice to pop on the back so that we know that one has been completed successfully.  There are also charts and certificates to mark off and present along the way.

A page from an orange book.

Showing off his new sticker.

Here are sample pages from each of the levels except orange, it's above :).

 red

yellow 

 pale green

 dark green

 aqua

 blue

purple

Each book contains phonics review and comprehension questions.  As they progress the font size decreases and the number of words per page increases.  Longer stories and even chapters are introduced.  I believe after completing all of the books Bugsy will be in a position to read anything he picks up with confidence.  My aim is to complete all of the books in a 6 month period although Bugsy isn't aware of that :).

Just as a side note Bugsy is still working on phonics daily.  Aside from reading he is working on Explode the Code and also All About Spelling.