Advanced Program

Basic Program

In Units 1-18 of the Advanced level, lessons are structured as the Basic level, Units 9-36.

Units 1-4 review the Basic level content. In these lessons, the child reviews short vowels, digraphs, and sight words. Take as much or as little time as necessary for your child to master this material. Once he or she has mastered the concepts presented in Units 1-4 and successfully completed the accompanying assessments, your child is ready to move on to Unit 5, which contains the onset of Advanced level material.

Beginning with Unit 19 in the Advanced level, the lessons introduce Spelling activities. Words of a specific spelling pattern are presented to the child on the first day, and for the next three days the child reviews and practices the spelling pattern. Heart Words, or words that don’t follow a pattern and therefore need to be learned “by heart,” are also presented.

Sight Words

Here are the sight words in the Advanced level of the PhonicsWorks program:

too, walk, talk
again, out, pull
next, my, friend
goes, anything, begin
down, know, after
brother, sister, baby
many, animal, while
other, together, people
above, here, move
these, against, now
every, neighbor, behind

mother, father, only
even, look, gone
love, very, some
none, more, held
would, could, should
once, come, about
please, follow, saw
everything, under, whether
nothing, almost, over
children, write, number
because, its, first

Getting Stronger Units

After Unit 10, Basic level, the even-numbered units are called “Getting Stronger” units. These units are designed to strengthen the child’s skills through review and practice. If your child is consistently scoring 100% on the assessments in prior units, you may choose to skip the Getting Stronger units.

If you choose to skip these units, you will need to return to the computer and mark all of the lessons in the unit as “completed.”

Should you skip ahead? Each child learns to read at his or her own pace. This variation is natural and is generally not a cause for concern. We have designed PhonicsWorks to meet the needs of a broad range of children, and we believe most children will benefit from working through all the lessons in the program.

While some children might be able to skip some of the Getting Stronger lessons, most children will benefit from the review and practice. This practice helps ensure that children have thoroughly mastered early reading skills, and that they are making progress toward achieving what cognitive psychologists call “automaticity.” That is, they are on their way to becoming skilled readers who can automatically turn printed letters into their corresponding speech sounds without having to linger over individual letters and sounds. It’s like reaching that point in math when your child can quickly add and subtract mentally without having to stop to count on his or her fingers; or, in music, when your child can play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the piano without having to search for the notes.

Most children need repeated review and practice to achieve automaticity. When you come to the Getting Stronger lessons, however, you may feel that your child has sufficiently mastered the skills taught in prior lessons. If your child is consistently achieving perfect or near-perfect scores on the assessments, and if you feel that he or she will not benefit from further review and practice, then you may choose to skip the Getting Stronger lessons and move to the next unit.