Students who have completed our Foundations Phonics course (or any other phonics course) will be ready to start this course. Students will practice reading while reviewing trickier vowel sounds. They will also practice writing words and sentences. The foundations of writing are also laid through picture study, fostering an awareness of details and the ability to communicate them. This course was designed to be flexible. We suggest using this course in one of two ways. Complete Foundations Phonics in the first half of first grade and this course in the second half. The course was designed around this schedule but we have included an alternative schedule for students who have completed Foundations Phonics in Kindergarten and want to use this course in first grade. Both schedules are provided. Please adapt this course to meet the needs of the student. We have used two books as the foundation for this course: Not Too Small at All by Stephanie Z. Townsend and Charlie and Trike in the Grand Canyon Adventure by Ken Ham with Karen Hansel. The third book, A Special Door, is a fun book meant to encourage a student's desire to read, and is to be read near the end

the course as a reward for all the student has accomplished. All three are published by Master Books and are required. Every Friday there is a Create Your Own Dictionary! component where students are given words to write out and illustrate, primarily from the books they are learning to read. The appendix has preformatted pages (A to Z), as well as reproducible pages, so students can continue making their own personal dictionaries long after the course is over!