Phonics: Grade 1 (McGraw-Hill Learning Materials Spectrum)

Rating:
Summary: Missing important letter combinations, but otherwise good
Review: When I purchased these phonics flashcards, I was doing so as a shot in the dark since there was no information listed about them other than that they are phonics flashcards.

PROS:

* 50 flashcards (slightly more than I'd expected)
* nice, simple pictures
* simple (mostly) familiar words - each card lists about 5 words on the back which all use the letter/sound on the front

CONS:

* no vowel-vowel or vowel-consonant combinations (such as au, ie, ough, and eigh)
* no consonant-consonant combinations that, together, create new sounds (such as wh or ch)

The lack of important letter combinations was a big dissapointment. There were same sound consonant-consonant combinations galore (all pointless since the consonants still make the same sounds when paired together: fl, gr, and so on) but the combinations that make new sounds when grouped were missing.

When I learned phonics as a child (2nd grade), we used flashcards and every possible sound in the English language was represented on a card (both forms of 'short a' had their own cards, as did 'long a' and so on). I was always an advanced reader for my age, but learning phonics definitely helped with spelling some of the more difficult words in the English words.

These cards are great for teaching the alphabet and the basic sounds, but the "important" sounds (the ones that aren't implied based upon the sounds the letters themselves make) aren't included. I only rank these cards so high (4 out of 5) because everything else about them is good. If you're looking for beginner cards, these are great...if you're looking for a total phonics set, you'll have to look elsewhere.