Horizons Phonics and Reading, Levels K and 1

Alpha Omega Publications

The Horizons Phonics and Reading program is very attractively presented in full-color books throughout, but it is advanced in comparison to most other programs. It is a strongly academic program with lots of worksheets to be completed. As far as methodology, this is a phonics-based program that uses a consonant-vowel approach (e.g., ba, bi, bo) to teach blending.

The program has two levels covering kindergarten and first grade. However, before beginning level K, children should already have some familiarity with the alphabet, adequate small motor coordination for the writing required, and a general level of readiness exhibited by such skills as being able to focus and retain information. Not all kindergarteners will be ready for such a challenging program.

Lessons are written for classroom situations, but they should adapt easily for homeshool use. Each level has 160 lessons. Level K begins by introducing the letter “a” in the first lesson. That “introduction” includes learning the name of the letter, the short vowel sound, how to write both upper and lower case “a,” two vowels rules, and recognition of the sound in words. Discussion of the vowel rules strangely seems to be missing any sort of definition of vowels or identification of the other vowels.

The second lesson teaches the letter “b” as above except for the vowel rules. One of the activities in this lesson is to blend the sounds of “b” and “a”. All five vowels are introduced by lesson 11, and students are already decoding three-letter nonsense syllables (“feb, fab, fef, fof”) in the seventh lesson. Lessons continue in this fashion using a mixture of real words and nonsense-syllables to emphasize the phonetic approach. Long vowels begin to appear with lesson 41.

There are from three to six student worksheets for every lesson. Some of these require what I consider a significant amount of writing for a kindergarten student. You should not have students attempt to complete all of these in one sitting! By the end of level K, children are reading and writing sentences, even though most sentence writing is copying.

Horizons tries to balance this heavy-duty phonics approach by including storybooks so there is a story to accompany every lesson. Stories are to be read after completion of each lesson. These are primarily for reading to children rather than for children to read themselves, although the teacher handbook suggests allowing students to sound out words they have covered in lessons. It also suggests having students read stories from earlier lessons as they gain reading proficiency.

The level K set includes four teacher handbooks, four student activity books, and four readers, all of which are substantial. Student workbook pages are reprinted in the teacher handbooks with answers included. The readers are around 100 pages each and there are a total of 783 student activity pages. The set also includes a small wipe off board and pen plus what Horizons calls a “floor puzzle.” This is essentially a large alphabet poster with pictures for each letter. Horizons suggests laminating it then cutting the letters apart along the irregular lines to create individual letter cards which might also be reassembled as a puzzle.

The level 1 program has one large, 422-page teacher handbook, two student books with about 200 pages per book, and two readers. As with the level K program, there is a story in the readers for each of the 160 lessons. As with level K, the stories in the readers are meant to first be read to the children after each lesson rather than to be used for student practice. Comprehension questions at the end of each story should be used for discussion. Students can later come back and read the stories on their own as their skills develop.

While the level K teacher handbooks are essential, level 1 student books include enough instruction that you will probably not need to use the teacher handbook hardly at all. However, the back of the teacher handbook has pages for creating alphabet cards and phonics rule cards in a teacher resources section.

Level 1 quickly reviews concepts taught in level K, using a “ladder” format in the early lessons to review words in families such as ax, fax, lax, Max, sax, tax, and wax. Lessons move so quickly that lesson 12 is already introducing compound words. The books have no indexes, scope and sequence, or table of contents, so it is a bit difficult to check what is taught where. However, it appears that the program is fairly comprehensive in its phonics coverage even though I could not find teaching on the various sounds of “ough.” This makes me wonder if some other challenging phonemes might also be missing.

On the other hand, level 1 Phonics and Reading seems meant to serve as the primary grammar/language program for this level. Horizons has separate books for teaching penmanship and spelling, but not for grammar. While Phonics and Reading covers such topics as alphabetizing, punctuation, capitalization, sentences, contractions, antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms, it spends minimal time on parts of speech. This seems a bit odd to me in a program that is so advanced for the grade level even though it might be a wise choice to delay such instruction.

There are from two to four workbook pages per lesson. Workbooks have a test after every ten lessons for evaluation. Students do quite a lot of writing in this program and at an advanced level for most first graders. For example, lesson 89 requires them to write a “personal experience narrative.” Instructions say: “Have your teacher or writing partner help you write your narrative. Remember to tell what you did, where and when you did it, and why it was fun.” This sort of assignment might not be as overwhelming as it sounds if the parent works closely with the child.

While parents need to work closely with children as they work through this program, children should become more independent as they reach the point where they can read their own workbook instructions. The program is fairly self-contained. You might need a white board or chalkboard occasionally, but otherwise there’s minimal preparation and planning required.

Although Alpha Omega is a Christian publisher, I could find no religious content—Christian or pagan—in this program other than one mention of God and one of going to church.

Horizons Phonics and Reading should work well for motivated, mature students who learn easily and handle the amount of seatwork required.