Why PRIDE Reading is our Family's Favorite!

0:00 [Music] the thing that if my book if that it has like this it has fish and like it like what like what ready and here you have to trace little here that um the the L you here do here you have to trace it and this and like B one like as some like mixed up ones and this and is I think we and this

0:51 one is and things like um a f like green and and P great I like full SP because it's because when every week we do a different letter and this is about s about socks stamps and every row had starts in a different area first row starts with beginning second row starts with ending and the middle row start can start with beginning middle and in beginning or it

1:40 could just be middle or it could be middle middle middle or all kinds of different things and also Mommy will say a letter a word and I'll and I'll write down about what it makes about what letter makes the sound so one of the things that I like about this page is that um I like how you get to like memorize how I um write each letter and I I think some of them are kind of satisfying to be and it's like really fun doing like all the curse on some of them I like this game cuz like it makes it really fun to read stuff and

2:25 like it's like I like how it's like at my own pace so like nothing's too hard to read hi there I'm Lena southernland H School Mom of eight and author at your large family home school and today I just wanted to hop on video real quick and share with you about the pride reading program and why I have absolutely fallen in love with this program for our homeschool uh I originally found out about Pride reading when I was asked to do a review of it and whenever I'm asked to review a curriculum I always use it for long enough to get a feel for the program and how it works so that I can give an accurate uh review and share the pertinent details that people would need to know if they were considering this for their homeschool I don't always

3:12 continue using the products that I'm reviewing because sometimes we already have something in place that's working or perhaps it's an extracurricular that we don't necessarily have time to keep in our schedule but Pride was quite a different situation after we finished using Pride reading for the review I loved it so much that not not only did I continue using the materials that we'd gotten for free as a part of the review but I actually went back and out of pocket purchased more levels of the curriculum for other children because I felt like it was such a solid program and it did exactly what I'd always been hoping that a reading program would do but I'd never found one that would do it um I was actually homeschooled for a part of my education and my mother taught me to read using a reading program that was Orton Gillingham based

3:58 which Pride reading is and so when I began homeschooling I looked into the program that she had used and while I think it's a great program it was a little bit confusing and overwhelming and it seemed like there was so much to do every day and I had a hard time juggling all of it and essentially it just didn't feel sustainable it didn't feel realistic for me to do all of these activities every day especially if I was at a stage where I was teaching two or three children to read at one time which can happen when you have a large family and so I had tried various approaches I tried to adapt things um and I tried a couple of other reading programs that were more scripted and still it seemed like we had to choose between either um doing everything and it would take so long it would be overwhelming for me and the child it just wasn't sustainable or

4:45 we could do just a part of it which which might have been great but then it would mean that we were missing out on other aspects of language arts that I really wanted my kids to have included in their instruction so I was really astonished when I found Pride reading at how it really really covered all the things I wanted covered and it did it efficiently and it did it in a routine way where the kids began to know what to expect and to be familiar with the types of activities they were doing um and I've loved it so much we're going on using it for the second year in a row so today I just want to share with you about it because I bet you'll love it too so the official Pride reading program has five levels uh this is the book that we were originally given for review it's level one it's the yellow book uh and then there are four other levels

5:32 that come after that at this point in our homeschooling Journey we've used levels one and two the yellow book and the orange book and also I jumped back and purchased for my youngest two the beginning letters and sounds level which is kind of like a precursor to the reading program and it is made for pre-readers it's made for kids who have not yet started reading which is exactly where my youngest two were and it was the perfect setup for them one of the cool things about the pride reading program including the beginning um beginning letters and sounds level is that when you purchase any of these levels from Pride reading first of all you can choose to purchase a physical copy of the teacher guide if you want to but I found it much easier and much less

6:18 expensive to purchase the digital version so all I have to do is log into the pride reading website and I have access right there to all of my digital teacher content and I actually use it on my phone I just pull up on my phone the lesson for the day and I can scroll through on my phone as my student has the book in front of him or her it's been super convenient and helpful another really cool thing is that not only when you purchase the program not only do you get immediate access to the digital teacher resources if you purchase them that way Pride will also give you access to a teacher training program essentially so it's a program that will help you as a homeschool mom to understand how the program works um to learn some about Orton Gillingham to

7:04 learn what are the different kinds of activities that are going to be involved in teaching this and how to use those activities there are a ton of sample videos that will tell you you know this is what it looks like when you do this activity and it's a it's a teacher and a student working together so you're getting to review this it was very thorough but very efficient and concise so it didn't take a ton of time it took maybe under an hour to go through through it but it was very easy to follow and by the time I finished the pride reading uh program training I felt very well equipped to go forward and I really appreciated that because even though the lessons are very well laid out and very scripted it was really helpful for me to just take a little bit of time before the materials arrived to prepare myself for how I was going to

7:49 use the program and I felt once I got the materials in my hand like I was completely equipped and ready to go to start teaching so let me tell you about some of the things that I really like about both the beginning letters and sounds level and then each of the levels uh in the official reading program so every one of the lessons that's included in each of the levels has four parts the first part is a lesson overview and this is primarily for you the teacher it will just give you an overview of what's going to be covered in this lesson it will give you some tips it even has an audio file to play the phonetic sound that you're working on or the blend that you're working on in that lesson so that you can hear it being pronounced correctly in case you need some help with that there are also online games that are

8:35 included with every level so whatever letter sound or Blend or syllable type that you're working on there are online games and I have my kids practice those on their own so that just gives them a little extra reinforcement that doesn't need my immediate participation with them after the uh lesson overview there are then three parts that you're going to do with your students one a day so there's the introduction the practice and the reinforce ment and you do that with every new letter sound or syllable type or blend group introduction practice reinforcement and again like I said they begin to follow a really similar pattern so kids uh are able to anticipate what's going to be coming next what they're going to do when they start out with a new letter or sound what they're going to do on the next day and then what they do on the last day with that letter or sound so let me give

9:22 you a few examples in the beginning letters and sounds the first day you're going to introduce a new letter there is a word that goes with it and then there's a a picture that goes with it and then the word of that picture and so this just gives them an opportunity to connect a picture with that beginning sound and they'll be repeating the sound the word uh excuse me the letter the sound and the word along with you and then practicing on their own um also every day they're going to have uh cards that they review at the beginning of each lesson so um they're going to begin with just the one it's just the letter B on a card and then they'll add to it as they learn more letters they keep on adding the cards that come with the beginning letters and sounds program are actually all that you'll need to use all

10:08 the way through the program it's a pretty chunky box so at the beginning you'll just be using a few and you'll add to it as you go along but you don't have to continue purchasing new sets of letter Sun cards because they're all included in the initial packet that you get when you purchase the the first program whatever whatever program you purchase first there are some other things that that they can begin to expect happening in every single uh lesson that they go through so for example in the introduction in the introduction lesson they're always going to be tracing with their finger the new letter that they're learning and then in the practice lesson they'll always be tracing the sample letters that are given and then in the reinforcement lesson they'll always be writing their own version of the letter so they they go through this every time finger tracing pen tracing and then

10:55 writing their own letters so they are used to that pattern and and the nice thing is that they're not actually this this page is not one day's worth of work they do this part one day this part the next day this part the next day so it just breaks up the activity so that they're not doing pages and pages per day they're just doing one part of a page per day and the same thing is true with this page where they are identifying sounds so it varies a little bit based on what the letter or the syllable is that they're working on or whatever but um the first day they're identifying Letters At the Beginning Sounds at the beginning of a word and then they're identifying sounds at the end of a word and then this one is called mixed sounds so it might be at the beginning it might be in the middle might be at the end and they're just finding where that sound is occurring within the word and circling it so again

11:41 this is for pre-readers so they can't read these words but they're still learning to identify where the letter comes in the word and to hear that sound in the word even though they can't read the whole word there are tons of verbal and visual and active Clues that go along with learning uh so for example usually during the practice lesson they're going to be doing what's called skywriting which is extending two fingers out tracing the letter in the sky when they're tracing the letter they say the name of the letter and then they underline it and make the sound so again it's just a whole body movement involved in shaping the letter and connecting that with the sound um there's also what we call Palm tracing so when they get ready to write some letters sometimes they will be asked to Palm Trace so you letter

12:29 writing can be frustrating especially when you're just learning to form a new letter so Palm tracing kind of gives you a low-risk way to practice uh forming that letter on your poem and then Mom can you know watch and say oh let's start it up here start up here there are also lots of verbal and visual and even kinesthetic clues that go along with learning the letter sounds and how to shape them so there will be a script that you'll read to your child as they're making a letter that might say something like around up down hook that will clue them in as to how they're making this letter um there are actual movements that go along with the letter sound so maybe like bouncing a ball and saying BBB or cutting with the fingers and saying C so they're going to connect all of those different sensory inputs with how to make the letter how to uh

13:16 make the letter sound and so forth it's really a great integration of many different learning styles um also another thing that they do a lot of is um listening for sounds so there will be a lot of times where I'm saying a word and they're listening to tell me thumbs up or down if they hear this sound at the beginning of the word or at the end of a word um they might be listening for I might give them three parts of a word like h a and they're repeating those three sounds and then blending them so even before they're looking at words on paper and reading the sounds and blending them they're practicing blending those sounds together they're just practicing that skill of blending um they also right

14:02 from the very beginning are working on sound dictation so I'm going to say a sound and they're going to write the letter that goes with that sound so it's a perfect uh Forerunner to spelling because they're already learning when I hear this sound I'm going to write this letter so I might just say C or B or F and then they're writing the letter that goes with that sound so they're already training their brain to hear a sound and write a letter to go with it at the end of every lesson they're going to sing the alphabet song and they're going to connect the capital letter that goes with the lowercase letter that they've been learning so they're primary practices with that lowercase letter but they do get to wrap that capital letter in at the end of each lesson so that they're aware of the capital letters that go with each lowercase letter um there's also a part where they're

14:48 listening to a story I read a whole story that includes a lot of whatever sound it is that we're working on and they're listening for as many words as they can remember that begin with that sound so a lot of things that they really enjoy and again you're practicing this oneel sound but you're doing it from all these different angles all of these different modality so that they really are connecting to that learning in so many different ways and theyve really have enjoyed using the program as well the yellow and orange and all of the levels beyond that continue to follow a pretty similar pattern they are more complex as children begin with actual reading and they do include a lot more instruction the beginning letters sounds probably take 10 minutes or less per day and so far our experience with

15:33 levels 1 and two it's probably about 20 minutes a day but still very doable um definitely something that you can just adapt as needed for whatever the attention span or the ability level of your child is um but once again as with the beginning letters and sounds the uh the other levels are going to follow that same pattern of a lesson overview which tells you as a parent what you're going to be teaching in that lesson and then three lessons to do with your student the introduction the practice and the reinforcement once again there are going to be similar activities that you do in each of those parts of the lesson that your students will become familiar with and they'll know what to expect and they'll know how to implement those ideas with the new sounds or syllables that they're working on so the lesson overview again it always comes

16:19 with uh online games that they can do on their own the introduction lesson is going to teach them uh a new Blend or a new uh syllable type or something like that they're also going to be reading words and one thing that's new in the uh beginning with the yellow level is that at the end of every lesson there's a new game and these are just they're really similar there's probably maybe four or five variations of the game and some of them are kind of like a Shoots and Ladders or a connect for you know uh read a word mark it with your marker and uh see who can get four in a row um simple simple instruction so it doesn't take a lot of time to learn learn how to play the game but then what varies from game to game is what words that they're practicing and reading in that game um

17:06 also new with level one is letter tiles they're going to uh have a whole little bag it's really a nice bag it's like a canvas bag about the size of a pencil pouch with a zipper and it includes all the letter tiles that you will need from beginning at level one through the end so um you'll purchase that when you begin level one and then you'll be able to use that on throughout the rest of the and the letter tiles again are just a tactile way where they can bring down tiles to spell words on the back of the book there are these spaces for words of various lengths so they'll have the letter tiles laid out on the table beside them and then they can pull down the proper tiles that they need uh to spell the words that you are dictating to them another thing that happens in beginning in level one is not just in

17:53 every lesson but in every part of every lesson so at the end of the introduction at the end of The Practice practice and at the end of the reinforcement they're doing sound dictation so they're continuing to practice that but they're also doing word and sentence dictation so this is just being wrapped in right as they go with every lesson and of course it's going to include words um and sounds that are uh emphasizing what they're learning in that lesson but again they're just practicing that through dictation there's still the same Palm tracing so that they get a chance to kind of try it out before it's written on paper and you can give any guidance or correction you need to before they write it down um also in every introduction lesson they're going to be reading words in the practice lessons they're going to be reading sentences and then in the reinforcement lessons they're going to be reading a

18:39 story and with both the sentences and the story there are reading comprehension questions included in the teacher guide so it's not just you know can they pronounce these sounds out loud but are they understanding what they're reading um there's also an opportunity especially uh when they're younger in the yellow level for them to um sequence The Story So beginning middle end what happened in the story so that they're showing that they understand what they've been reading and what's happening in that story um another thing that I really like about the these main levels of the program is that there's fluency practice at the end of every lesson so there are many pages of fluency at the end of the book and they're going to go through and just

19:25 work on smooth um not speak speed reading like not speed at the cost of um of correctness but just working on just picking up their Pace being able to read smoothly and fluently um these words that relate to whatever it is that they're working on or studying at the time and then also at the end of the um reinforcement lesson the reinforcement section of each lesson there's going to be a progress check and the progress check is basically just you know have they mastered what it was that they were learning in that lesson they're going to read over it real quickly um some words some and some sentences and you'll be able to tell if they've mastered what they were learning in that lesson and are ready to move on another thing that they do in every

20:11 lesson in the U beginning at level one and on up is what's called r words and again these are the most commonly read red re e a d um words that come up the most often let's say in the English language so I don't know if you can tell on the camera or not but all of these words have kind of two check marks beside them so what they do is when they read a new red word um and there's a whole uh kind of routine that you go through we write the red word on the Whiteboard that comes with the program um we tap it out on our arm so for example if we're learning to say um let's say there t h EI i r we tap it out on our arm to spell it and then we slide our fingers down our arm to say the word

20:58 t h e r there t h r there and so that's again reinforcing both with body movements and sounds spelling the word saying the word and so once uh your child has read one of those red words they would put a red check mark by it and then after they've gone through a couple of lessons they'll go back and have what's called a progress check um or an assessment rather on their red words so then they'd go back and read over all the red words they learned up to that point and they put a black check mark over the ones they've mastered so that's why this is a book that my daughter's finished so you can see that she checked each one red as she initi initially learned it and then we went back and put black check marks I think we do um they do like sets of nine so essentially every third lesson you're

21:46 going back and assessing the ones you've learned in the past three lessons and then continuing on with red check marks until you go back and assess those um in in sets of nine as we go through and so these are again just the most commonly seen words in the English language a lot of them are those words that are tricky uh that that you know they don't necessarily follow the typical phonetic rules so they would be something that would be hard for a student to just sound out so helping them to develop fluency with those most commonly uh seen English words really helps in their overall reading fluency and comprehension as they go another thing that's included in each lesson in the uh level one and above is a grammar lesson so when they come to the end of one of their um practice lessons there's always

22:33 going to be a grammar lesson included and those have been again very simple very efficient just learning about a noun or a proper noun capital letters and periods or the subject agreeing with the verb just a little something that's wrapping in those grammar Concepts and again that was something that I found was often missing in other reading programs and I really didn't want to have to get a completely different program to work on those things especially at the younger ages when they're still learning to read I'm happy to continue using this program I'm really glad that we found it I will continue to use it until my youngest three are done and are solid readers and I would recommend it to anybody I will put a link below this video of a full post on the pride reading program so that you can see in more detail in pictures and everything um and of course

23:18 all the links and everything so that you can find out how to get this program for your family and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we have [Music] h