Developing Better Reading is a concentrated phonics course of 30 lessons. Students who missed phonics instruction in the first two grades would benefit from this study taken slowly through the year. Poor readers in the upper grades or adult level could also benefit.

The first five lessons present five basic understandings—the alphabet, the consonants and their sounds, the vowels and their sounds, the meaning of a syllable, and the meaning of an accent. Syllables and accents are important because many pronunciation rules are based on syllabication and accents.

Included in this course are lists of words that are to be used as oral reading tests, thus permitting a teacher to check each pupil's progress.

Definitions and rules of pronunciation, spelling, and syllabication are simply and clearly stated and distributed throughout the book to provide for a systematic and logical learning process.

The teacher's manual includes answers and detailed instructions for class procedures, review, and testing mastery of the material. Use of the phonics flash cards (from the Bible Nurture and Reader Series) is woven into this course.

Supplementary items (not included):

Table of Contents

• Instructions for the Teacher
• Exercises for Ear Training
• Flash Cards Introduced in Each Lesson

Daily Lesson Instructions

• 1. The Alphabet
• 2. Consonants
• 3. Vowels
• 4. Syllables
• 5. Accent
• 6. Short a
• 7. Short e
• 8. Short i
• 9. Short o
• 10. Short u
• 11. Words Ending With s
• 12. Adding Suffixes ed and ing
• 13. Two-Syllable Words Ending With y
• 14. Long and Short Vowel Sounds
• 15. Long Vowel Sounds
• 16. Vowel Digraphs
• 17. Consonant Digraphs
• 18. Initial Consonant Blends
• 19. Final Consonant Blends
• 20. Two-Syllable Words Ending in le
• 21. Other Vowel Sounds and Compound Words
• 22. Vowel Blends--Diphthongs
• 23. Vowel Sounds With Certain Consonants
• 24. How Some Letters Sound With Certain Other Letters
• 25. Irregular Vowel Sounds
• 26. Irregular Consonant Sounds and Silent Letters
• 27. Sounds That Letters and Letter Combinations May Have
• 28. Prefixes
• 29. Two-, Three-, Four-, Five-, and Six-Syllable Words
• 30. General Review
• Glossary of Phonetic Terms, Rules, and Sounds