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Dear Parent, What if that one simple thing launched your child to success in school and in life, and cost you less in time and money than you'll probably spend at the pizza place or convenience store next week? I am giving away some of my most precious resources - yours FREE - for helping me with my bestseller goal today.
The best thing my Dad ever did for me was teach me to read when I was only 4 years old. So I FOLLOWED SUIT AND always spent time showing my children phonics cards, numbers, colors, etc., from the time they were about 18 months on. My oldest children learned phonics just fine by repetition and memorization. AND then came along my son who could not- NO MATTER HOW HARD HE TRIED- conceive of how squiggly lines could mean anything or memorize which squiggly lines made which sounds, no matter how many times we repeated them. HE JUST COULDN'T GRASP IT. It was just too abstract for him. I KNEW I had to find a way to make such an abstract concept become more logical- MORE CONCRETE SOMETHING HE COULD WRAP HIS MIND AROUND AND MANAGE to have something to link the sounds to. I felt inspired to make each letter look like something that started with its sound! First, I drew phonics cards with a plain lower-case letter and its twin that was dressed up to look like a recognizable object.
Suddenly my son had phenomenal success with learning his phonics, and quickly progressed to reading before kindergarten. Family and friends saw his success and became interested in trying my method with their children. Then I developed rules for teaching the rationales of my method, to guarantee success for other users. In a short time my sisters, cousins, friends, and church associates wanted a set of my special phonics cards. I drew several more sets by hand and gave them away. All who used them were very successful. One day my sister, Leah, asked if she could re-do my artwork for a new set of phonics cards. She said, "Shannah, I LOVE your method, but I hate your drawings. Would you mind if I re-did them?" She is the artist and I just draw colorful stick figures, so of course I was delighted at her offer! She decided to blow-up and print large alphabet letters, paint their pictures with water colors and fine details, then scan them in and shrink them back down digitally. The results were amazing! We felt that we need to get this method out to the rest of the world. All children need this. Whenever we shared it with others, including some educators, we saw so much success and felt it needed to be available for all parents to give children early success and a love of reading. Children who begin school a little ahead have an advantage that helps them feel successful. That good start carries them through the rest of their school years with good self-esteem about learning.
So my sister and I brain-stormed about what would be the best way to get the message out to the public, and we decided that the phonics cards and picture-letters needed a fun, colorful story to showcase them. We developed stories where the same subjects of the phonics cards are carried throughout the story and that the picture-letters (sound icons) are also in the text above. I am the idea person who develops the picture-letters and stories. Leah is the one who brings them to life with her colorful, detailed watercolor illustrations. The phonics cards are included in the back of every book, giving parents two teaching aids in one. We also include the special instructions for teaching The Godfrey Method properly. *THE PROBLEM: Does this sound familiar-remember thinking, "My child just can't seem to learn how to read...I've tried everything...and I'm at a loss." When you are reading the instruction page in "A Pretty Girl was Alpha Bette"...
A little girl in first grade, my niece Olivia, had a teacher who said she couldn't focus and learn, and wanted her parents to put her on ADHD meds. Her mom knew that Olivia behaved just fine at home. So she decided to use my phonics method to teach her at home instead, and Olivia took off with reading. She's not ADHD, she was just bored silly with the school's methods, which can kill the love of reading. Traditional ways of learning don't work for many kids. Some of the methods of phonics instruction used by schools are often confusing and more rote memorization. A Pretty Girl Was Alpha Bette is very different in this regard, which is what makes it so special! It even helps children with learning disabilities. One-on-one phonics by direct instruction is the only proven cure for dyslexia. Many behavioral problems and self-esteem issues in school are related to poor reading. Parents can eliminate the cause, give their children confidence, and rocket their reading to the head of the class early!
Have you ever watched a child learn to throw a ball? He tries it a few times and his mind naturally adjusts his body to make the ball go higher, lower, further, and/or faster. Did he have to read a physics text book to learn to throw a ball? Did he have to know the formulas and equations for initial velocity, force, angle, distance, or trajectory of the ball? Of course not. The mind is a super-computer that makes these internal learning leaps. It's the same with reading, if given the right foundation. The Godfrey Method taps into all different types of learning: left-brained logic with the letters, right-brained creativity with the colorful, enchanting pictures, tactical-kinesthetic learning by touching the letters while saying the sounds, and rhyming- which is one of the easiest ways to remember things.
A wonderful preschool teacher, Karen Munns wrote: "I use the phonics cards in my preschool and they work great. I have been teaching preschool for 17 years and this is the best program I have used for helping the children associate and remember the sound that the letters make. I recommend that parents get this and use it with their children at home to reinforce what we are doing at school." She told me in person that with my method, her students have learned faster than ever before!
Will your kids be ready for the technology jobs of the future? Reading ability affects our kids' future and the future of our nation. We all hear reports of China and India becoming the next centers for technology and innovation. We're running behind as a nation in engineering, science, math, and technology. Meg Whitman, former CEO of EBAY and candidate for California governor says: "Being near the bottom in education is a tragedy for our kids and a threat to our future. To restore our prosperity and do right by our children, we need to better educate them in the basics - to prepare them to excel in the workforce."
My Aunt Carol used to call the time between dinner and bedtime, 'arsenic hour,' because it's such a difficult time to get kids settled down. In the old days, parents actually gave their kids arsenic and paregoric to quiet them, which is awful. There is a better way! What are the 2 most crucial things they need? It's easy to create a fun, bedtime routine with my phonics reading at the end of it. I always had precious, quality, family-time with my kids while showing them how to read.
Several adults have admitted that they were never taught phonics, and that it is very embarrassing to come on a new word, because they really can't sound it out and often must guess." My coworker Dave Lefgren was taught to read by the sight-reading method back in the 1940s and 1950s, the old 'Look Dick See Jane' method. He can read functionally, but he always struggles with new words and says a lot of 'Archie Bunkerisms' by mistake. He told me that he was an adult before he realized that the letter r stood for its specific sound. The educational system is going backwards now, teaching sight words in kindergarten. Several other commercial early-reading programs out there are also based on sight-reading. Whole Language is a fiasco. This sad scenario can be avoided by teaching your children to read early and read right with A Pretty Girl Was Alpha Bette. Boys love it, too! Prove the statistics wrong. My son River should have LD problems in school because of his birth mother's choices, but he doesn't. His IQ is 116, above average, because he learned early, which helped him get ahead- and stay ahead- in school. You don't have to read a huge manual on the mechanics of reading, either. My guidelines fit on one page. They are simple and very effective. Like my daughter- a mother herself- says, "The child never forgets!"
You don't have to be a home-schooler to teach your kids at home. I have received thank you notes from all kinds of parents.
"My 3-year-old son loves your phonics cards! He already knows all his letter sounds! This book comes with the best phonics cards ever. My kids love the cards, and the instructions for teaching beginners are invaluable. I also love that the phonics letters are in the text of the book, which teaches the kids to start looking at the text for the letters they know. The illustrations are beautiful and my kids love seeing the letters they know in the pictures on the page, too." The opposite of The Godfrey Method is my Top Ten List of Wrong Ways We Teach Reading. You'd be surprised at some of these because they seem counter-intuitive at first. Then the light bulb goes on. For Example . . . Should we teach young children the letter names, like in the alphabet song? No. Do NOT teach the letter names. It is confusing to young children that the letter name u (you) doesn't say the sound 'y', the letter name y (why) doesn't say the sound 'w', and that the letter name w (double-you) doesn't say the sound 'd'. Children easily pick up the letter names on their own later. When children use my method, it taps into many of their different types of learning: left-brained logic with the letters, right-brained creativity with the colorful, enchanting pictures, tactical kinesthetic learning by touching the letters while saying the sounds, and rhyming- which is one of the easiest ways to remember things.
Isaac Shingleton, couldn't hear well until his adenoids were removed. By then, he was behind in his speech. So his Mom started helping him make sounds and talk with my picture-letter, phonics cards, and he has progressed very quickly! I showed my childcare provider, Kirsten Locascio, my method, and she used it with her daughters and her childcare kids. She loves it! Her oldest daughter went from struggling in 2nd grade to getting ahead. I was a single mom for awhile back in the 1990s. I was working and going to school. I didn't have a lot of money or time. But this is so simple that I was able to teach my kids even during the hardest time in my life. Imagine what you can do for your kid's education - without a teaching certificate. I would love to start a new bumper sticker that says, "If you can read this, thank your mother (or father)!" I had a neighbor whose son Preston couldn't read well in 3rd grade. Once kids start falling behind in reading, they just get further and further behind each year. I gave his mom my phonics cards, but Preston thought they were for babies. With older children, what you do is have them teach my phonics to a younger sibling, cousin or neighbor child. They will let you show them- so that they can show the younger child. By teaching a younger child, both children learn and the older child feels successful, not babyish.
My daughter taught my granddaughter Kaitlyn her lower-case letter phonics using my progressive method. Then Kaitlyn taught herself which upper-case letters match the lower-case ones by playing on the computer. Her mom opened a word document for her to play typing. All the letters on a keyboard are written in upper-case letters, and many do not look like their lower-case counterparts. So as Kaitlyn pushed an upper-case key, a lower-case letter would print on the computer screen. She quickly figured out which upper-case letters to push for the lower-case letters desired. Children make these kinds of learning leaps all the time if given the right foundation!
"The phonics cards included with this book taught my 6-year-old daughter to read. My two boys, 4 & 2, know all the sounds that the letters make and are right on track to be reading by kindergarten. With so many young children and so little time, she has experienced the gift of bonding time while helping her children learn in a fun, creative way. How many times as have we parents tried to help our kids with their homework or piano practice, only to have the whole thing end up in a fight? Your child screams, "That's not the way my teacher did it!" You get frustrated that he won't listen. Eventually one or both of you goes to your room and slams the door. Sound familiar? The Godfrey Method insists that you diffuse this scenario before it starts. One of the cardinal rules you'll learn in The Godfrey Method is to have no control issues and power struggles. Never force the child to perform, nor use punishment, criticism, anger, or shame. Stay calm. If s/he wants to quit partway through the cards, then STOP. Pick it up again later. Keep it fun! The "Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow" is you get to walk away with the tools and knowledge to help your kids step up to a brighter and more fulfilling world of learning. A Sneak Peak Inside . . .
Best Phonics Cards Ever!
- Frank Startup (La Habra, CA USA) Great for teaching children the beginning steps to reading! "Teaches phonemic awareness. Really fun for teaching young children phonemic awareness. The artwork is particularly good. Letter sounds are depicted by pictures (that begin with the same sound as the letter) that help the child remember the symbols that make up written language. Fantastic way to teach young children to read!!!" Here's the FREE Gifts I'm Waiting to Give to You... worth over $400... YOURS FREE!
What More People Are Saying . . . Teach Your Kids to Read Before Kindergarten Here's all you have to do in quick and easy steps!
1. Order A Pretty Girl Was Alpha Bette 2. Send me an email with your confirmation number at shannahbgodfrey@gmail.com 3. You'll receive your e-bonuses by email. I am giving away some of my most precious resources -- Yours FREE! -- for helping me with my bestseller goal by doing just one thing.
I can't say thank you enough for your consideration and help!
More info at http://godfreymethod.com/default.aspx Site updated: 3 Nov 2009 |
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Children who struggle will come up to speed.
I made them colorful. Then I began teaching my son with the new method by saying the sound and then the picture-letter name, such as, "a - apple." The second 'a' on the phonics card looked like an apple with a stem and leaf. 
I found that by teaching phonics with picture-letters, children learned easily to read, and were able to decipher new words. They also learned which words needed to be memorized due to some odd spelling, and created their own ways of dealing with these 'sight' words. 
You'll discover how to redefine your definition of the word 'Reading'...you'll learn reading is not the same for all children...
My sister Leah
Simcah Reid, 
