UPDATE: Added new pictures for “sh”, “ch” and “ng” stories!
(click here if you are on email and can’t see the video!)
Thanks for all your fantastic help last week!
In December I’m heading back to Africa to teach 1,600 kids how to read.
Last time, in January, we had fantastic feedback ( “At the beginning of the course they couldn’t read a single sentence, but now they can read a book” and this was in six weeks) but we went to do better!
So for the past several months we’ve been working on…
Genki Phonics 2.0: Insane reading!
Based on all the feedback, we’ve tweaked the teaching order.
Most importantly in order to make the jump to real books even easier,
instead of just example words we thought it would be cool to have the kids reading real sentences.
Right from the start.
And then even better, why not make those sentences into real, fun, funky stories?
That the kids can understand.
And *only* using the phonemes studied so far.
This is what makes it magic and is totally unlike any other phonics material out there.
After only 35 minutes the kids are totally “reading to learn” instead of merely “learning to read.”
It is amazing. And lots of fun. 🙂
We need you!
There are still a few images to go in yet, but all the text so far should be there up to the “ee” story.
But ….. as with anything new, mistakes always slip through, so I would love it if you could help me proofread what we have so far before we send it off to the printers for the kids.
Things to check are:
1) Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation mistakes/typos
2) If we’ve accidentally included a phoneme in a story that we haven’t taught yet!
As a thank you for your work you not only get to help the kids in Africa, but you also get to keep your copy of the course, which will become a paid for download once it is completed.
If you find any mistakes, or indeed if you don’t and have any words of praise for the hard work we’ve done so far, please write them in the comments – it has been exhausting and I’m sure you now know why I’m so far behind on emails.
You can also check out the development thread in the VIP forum.
A huge “Thank you” to Margit for working on these stories for so long, Gumby for giving us so much feedback and to Alyssa for such great pictures!
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. I wouldn’t recommend teaching Genki Phonics 2.0 unless you’ve taught the regular Genki Phonics (either the “5 Minute Phonics” or the full course) at least once, otherwise you’ll end up terribly confused!
P.S. The day before I fly out, Nov 18th, I’m going to be doing a live presentation on Genki English & Genki Phonics 2.0 at the ETJ Conference in Osaka. Hope to see you there!
P.P.S. Well done America! You did have us worried for a little while there! 🙂
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
This is wonderful!! I love it! I only wish I had done phonics 1.0 last year so I could use this course now:) It makes so much more since teaching the sounds so that directly they can read a sentence.
I just quickly skimmed over the worksheets and noticed the last stories don´t have pictures yet. I assume that´s in the works:) I´ll look more in depth and let you know if there are any mistakes or if I have any recommendations.
Keep it up! You are amazing! I love teaching english with your program.
Amy
Looks great! I just had a quick flick through the document, but I’ll go through it in detail with a nice pot of coffee over the weekend. I’ll get back to you once I’m through…
I’m using the classic phonics workbook at the moment with my classes, but I must say this looks even better. Can’t wait to switch over…
Hello Richard, just found your request and I read until page 60 but as you can imagine it’s a bit late here so I will pick it up again by tomorrow. It’s a great idea, and until now I found one spelling mistake on the first page: recognise i/o recoginse…
Send you more tomorrow when I’ve read the whole workbook.
Hello again just another remarque on page 73 you forgot to add er after air.
On page 74 you forgot to add ure after er…
That’s all I found but I need some sleep so I’ll work on it again tomorrow…
Thank you!
Thanks for your hard work Richard.This is great!
I’ve had a quick look through it and will do so again later in more detail.
It looks great! I love the idea of the stories to read so quickly. Reminds me of the “Bob” books. Excellent!
On page 81 you expose students to the zh sound in the words treasure and pleasure, but nowhere do you teach that sound. It should be an alternate pronunciation for the letter s. Measure and leisure are other common words with that sound. I’m no expert on British English, so I could be wrong; maybe this sound is only one we use in the US; maybe you pronounce it a different way (no idea what that way would be).
On page 55 you teach th and show words with both of th’s sounds (that and with) but you don’t cover that in the same way that you do, for instance, the letter c; for c you cover both its k and its s sounds. The two sounds of c are covered on separate pages but the two sounds of th are on the same page, which de-emphasizes the importance of the difference in the two sounds.
The only other English sound you missed covering (that I’m familiar with) is a minor one that maybe not all people use (and it may not be in your dialect). That is the hw sound (spelled wh). Sometimes wh is pronounced as a plain w and other times as hw. For me, this would be the difference in the pronunciation of the wh in when (w) and what (hw) or wheel (hw). You did here essentially the same thing you did with th, you used words with two different pronunciations of one spelling on the same page. The difference here is that it really varies a lot from person to person which words are pronounced with a w sound which with a hw sound. I thought I’d point it out because these really are two different sounds even though it isn’t easy to clearly determine exactly which words have which sound.
On page 2 (the first page in the book), there is the misspelling already mentioned, but there are also several grammar mistakes. (I’m no expert, so someone correct me if I’m either wrong or if British grammar rules are different in these cases.) 1. One student points to a letter; their partner says the sound. (Note that this sentence combines two sentences, so it requires a simi-colon instead of a comma between them.) 2. In turns, students practice sounding out each word. (There should be a comma after in turns.)If they recognise the meaning, great! If not, it’s OK for now. ( I spell it recognize, but I think recognise is correct in British English.) 3. Individually, students practice writing today’s letter. (Note that I again added a comma. It could also read, “Students individually practice writing….) 4. (I found the wording of this one a bit awkward. I would write “Teacher reads” and “Students write” or “The teacher reads” and “The students write” for style consistency. Also, the term “unsure” is pretty ambiguous. Unsure of what? Unsure if the words use only graphemes learnt so far? Also, I’m guessing that teachers who use your phonics program know what you mean by the “Reading” section words, but, if, like me, they don’t, you might have to make this clearer. Does this refer to the sight words list at the end or to a list of words that are somewhere other than in this book? I would also leave out the word “a” and just say to use the words “in random order”even though it isn’t incorrect as is.)
Page 3 The wording on this page seems rough. Here are some ideas on alternate wording. 1. (Seems OK.) 2. Any new vocabulary not in Genki English is shown with a picture; these only use phonemes studied so far. The kids are, for the first time “reading to learn English” instead of merely “learning to read!” 3. Story contains only the phonemes studied so far. Kids read to each other in pairs and will understand all they read! 4. Check box to document student’s comprehension. Prepare to be amazed!
Most of your illustrations are great, but a few aren’t so obvious. Page 7 What is that illustration on the far right? The sort of look like kiwis with faces, but kiwi doesn’t start with a p. Or are they supposed to be people’s heads? Or maybe pits with faces? Page 16 Is that a glove on the ant? Page 17 What is Baby Monkey doing or what does he have that starts with an o? I think I may have figured it out: is he “on” the “pot?” Page 55 They? Them? These? With? Page 63 That thing that might be a coat looks more like a sweater or a blouse. Page 64 If those are boots, that could be clearer. Page 69 That face doesn’t look to be in pain, but perhaps it is meant to represent Ow!
Speed Sounds Page 73 Add er. Page 74 add ure.
One more thing. Page 3 3. Story contains only the phonemes and sight words studied so far.
By the way, it looks great!
Page 2 number 4 a word or a phrase I think it should be…
Page 22 I have a dog, it can kick ans skip and spin, said Kim. I think it’s better to use it than again the dog. (It has been used already so…)
I have been using your phonics pages for quite awhile and have previously noticed on p. 55 the lack of explanation for the two [th] pronunciations.
Also on pate 70, the word, join, is written twice.
The last page with the funky words… I would think you need a period after Mr. and Mrs.
Thank you for this great set of phonics worksheets. I find them very helpful already and will look forward to using the reading practice section as well.
Thank you Richard so much!
I really like what you do. its so exited to kids and for me too. they enjoy it a lot. thank you..thank you..thank you 🙂
Great job Richard! I love the funky sight words!
I see many people commenting on the notes in red… I though it was just a way to guide us on how to use it…but they won’t be in the final on or am I wrong?
Guess I’m stepping in late..but I do agree that about the TH and WH sound which are usually the hardest to get the kids to remember.
Haven’t finished…but it looks great!
I teach in Italy so the kid know the letters and the pure sounds for the most part are similar…what children have most difficulty with is the long and short vowel…especially the i !
thanks for all the hard work!
Nena
Janice the pictures on page 7 are not kiwis they’re POTATOES..i know they’re funny looking potatoes!
nena
Thank you everyone for the very amazing (and detailed!) feedback! This is just what I needed. (You can imagine how many times we’ve been through each page so far!)
I’ve made several changes to the document:
http://genkienglish.net/clipart/phonicsworkbook2.pdf
The biggest one is to reinstate the second “th” page.
The reason I took it out is that obviously the majority of English teachers in the world can’t actually speak English and many of them cannot pronounce either “th” sound.
So having two “th” sounds in there tended to get them totally confused and hence give up on the whole idea of teaching phonics.
(Everything is always a balancing act between being “correct” and being easy to teach.)
Introducing the idea of the voiced/unvoiced, getting them to feel through throat etc. tends not to work as they cannot say the sounds themselves, so any other tricks or techniques you have for introducing these differences would be much appreciated!
Plus of course please make sure I’ve not mixed up any of the words! 🙂
Looks good, but I’m a little confused on pg 5, introducing ‘i,’ where under the igloo you only have the letter ‘t.’ Shouldn’t there be an ‘i’ there instead?
I have been teaching Genki Phonics to a group of Primary 2/3 children for about 6 months now and just love the new idea of including stories to practice the phonemes. Incorporating the funky sight words is also going to ease the way from just sounding out to actually blending the sounds into a word and then sentence. I can just see the kids laughing their heads off whilst reading! Thank you Richard!
Whilst reading through I noticed the following: Page 50: there is one blank too many before “Quack.” It may be worth including both oo sounds in the Speed Sounds just as a reminder to the kids that there are 2 ways of pronouncing 00. They always ask me why the 2nd one is missing. The foot picture on page 66 looks more like “toes.” Why not use the foot on page 20?
Thank you for all the inspiring energy you put into Genki English, Richard!