Rocketing into Phonics With Great Speed

Though my formal training was a double major in secondary education and English, I "accidentally" stumbled upon teaching kindergarten. 

It was working with kindergarteners that I was introduced to the honor of teaching someone how to read.

Wow.  Powerful.

I came to discover that there are products that work, and products that only create more confusion to an exception-filled language.  Kindergarteners like facts.  They like some predictability.  They like some structure.

Last year, Mr. Smackdown and I entered the world of letter recognition and basic sounds.  It was a horrible experience.  I was expecting my child to perform and behave like children in a large classroom instead of honoring the fact that he is my son, and I DIDN'T have to repeat familiar history.

I had MANY long conversations with the Lord about how I could share my love of reading with Mr. Smackdown, without carrying over last year's frustration.

Enter Rocket Phonics.  God heard my desperate plea.

What is Rocket Phonics?

Rocket Phonics is a unique reading program--multi-sensory and game-based--for children ages 4-10 that takes children from non-readers to 5th grade reading level in 1 1/2 - 2 years.

But Rocket Phonics is so much more than that . . .

From our experience so far, and we have been moving rather slowly, I can already tell that Rocket Phonics meets the many needs of different learners, from a kinesthetic learner  to an auditory student, to a visual pupil.

 (Can you guess what letter Mr. Smackdown is?)

You begin by becoming familiar with the sounds and letter symbols on the Play and Read game cards.

After playing a lot of fun games with your child, you can enter the book with gusto and allow the Rocket Phonics peeker to fly.  There is always great ceremony when the peeker travels to our school time.

In a short time, your child begins to sound out words.  It all happens in a matter of pages.  Herein lies the confidence boost.  After becoming familiar with the first 9 sounds, your child begins to read short words.  It opens up a whole new world that they didn't know existed. It makes them hungry to learn more.

Now, I am only going to give you a sneak peak at my truly personal current thoughts regarding this unique phonics program. Why?  I wouldn't be that believable if I said, "It's great.  Buy it!"

We are only 1 1/2 months into the Granola School year.  So, at the end of the Granola School year, I plan on giving you an extended look back at our experience with Rocket Phonics.  I will evaluate whether we continued to see huge strides being made in Mr. Smackdown's ability to read, his reading comprehension, and if he has further grown in his phonetic/blending confidence. 

Thought 1:  Off the bat I like the program because there isn't a lot of stuff.  I am finding that having to manage multiple individuals has made me less organized.  As a result, I can't handle "stuff" in the school room.  I need to see it easily and grab it quickly or it does not get used.  The entire Rocket Phonics program fits in a discreet, manageable box.  I don't even use the box at this point.  All I need is our current Rocket Phonics book (there are two), Rocket-shaped peeker and Play and Read game cards. 

Thought 2:  Mr. Smackdown likes Rocket Phonics.  It is fun for him.  He has had success.  He is my best critic of whether a program is an effective teaching tool.  He is learning and applying what he is learning when he doesn't even know he is learning.  (My logic is dizzying, I know.)

Thought 3:  I don't feel guilty about going at Mr. Smackdown's pace.  The Rocket Phonics book isn't set up according to days.  It has sections . . . but they don't make you feel like a section has to be completed within a certain allotted time.  An unseen person who doesn't know my child isn't bossing my child around about performing a certain way within a certain time period.

Thought 4:  Mr. Me-Too can easily jump in with whatever we are doing.

(Playing the game of Memory with our current letters/sounds.)

(Playing Bingo)

Thought 5:  Mr. Smackdown and I use the same book.  There isn't a teacher manual and a student workbook.  For some reason, Mr. Smackdown likes it that we are "on the same page."  (No pun intended.)  I think it makes him feel like I am learning to read at the same time as him--thus building confidence.

In summary, so far I think that the Rocket Phonics program is a well thought out phonics curriculum.  It has excellent instructions, that equip even the novice phonics teacher to teach their child.  In fact, there are provisions for possible problematic areas and troubleshooting suggestions to foster continued success for the student.

Rocket Phonics has stretched my ways of teaching reading.  I am beginning to think outside of the box, having fun with blending sounds, even if they aren't words!

The Rocket Phonics program is available for purchase for $160 or three payments of $53.34.  I would encourage you to jump over to their website, as I really have failed to do the program justice!  Also, check out what some other homeschooling families think of  Rocket Phonics!

Tot School

I am actually attempting to capture three weeks worth of Tot School in one blog post. Even though this one has yet to be completely written, I began to take pictures of Tot School for my next post today. So here goes with some highlights of The Granola Family's Tot School.

It all began with Do-A-Dots. If we are having a rough day or I need a quick, non-messy craft project to keep hands (prone to mischief--when Mom is cooking) busy, this is my quick draw. It always produces excitement and about an hour's worth of entertainment.

I bought a REALLY big coloring pad at Walmart, choosing a pad that has cartoon pictures that are simple in design, with a lot of white space. This allows them to have a large area to create Monet masterpieces.

I have been including Mr. Me-Too in parts of Mr. Smackdown's phonics lessons. We are using Rocket Phonic this year, but I pulled out my Saxon letter cards for this activity. They matched the letter tiles to the correct phonics card. This would have been a fabulous letter recognition and sorting activity for Mr. Me-Too, but he enjoyed lining up his letter tiles, much to the dismay of his older brother who wanted all of the tiles to be gently placed on their respective cards.


They have been using the balance and filling it with cars, letter tiles, and whatever small items they can find. I am not sure what goal they are accomplishing, but they really enjoying seeing the balance teeter back and forth.


Mr. Me-Too has been working on some fine motor skills by lacing alphabet beads onto a string.


We worked on patterns and colors with this Melissa and Doug sorting peg game.

Mr. Me-Too also had to match the magnet to the correct picture in the Alphabet Magnetic book. I said the sound and the object and then he looked for it. Big Brother also enjoyed helping Mr. Me-Too locate the required animal. In fact, it became a little bit of a competitive game.


The boys worked on finishing a Thomas the Train puzzle.


Using an Abeka preschool art book from last year, Mr. Me-Too cut out a lamb puppet that was perfect because it looked like Lovey Lamb from AWANA.


This started out as a educational alphabet recognition game on our front window, but it turned into art 101.


We took a big trip to see our family doctor for Mr. Me-Too's and Mr. Smackdown's yearly physical. They are both healthy and growing strong. While we waited, the boys worked on coloring their Mailbox Bible Club page.

This is our fabulous doctor doing cranial sacral on Mr. Me-Too, who absolutely LOVES it when Dr. P works on him!
On our way home, we had yet to clean the Loser Cruiser from our Canada vacation and stopped by a local car wash and gave the minivan a necessary bath and vacuum. It took some coaxing and prayer to help the boys understand that we weren't hurting our car.

And our recent Tot Time brings us to a close with the introduction of colorful and see-through counters. Mr. Me-Too individually placed each counter into a former cod liver oil container.


Later, the boys sorted the counters and cubes into colors.


The hit of the week, was when my Mother's Helper, Miss. Swan, blessed our household with her calmness and a belated crafty birthday present. The boys had a blast creating animals and insects out of pom pom balls!


And so closes three weeks worth of school. My goals are to get a bit more organized for Tot Time. IKEA here we come!

Check out 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School ideas!