Paradigm Company Alpha Phonics and How to Tutor Little Companion Readers

I love this tutoring tool! I have tutored children (unofficially) to read with this. Cute pictures are not included in the curriculum and it gets down to basics. Believe it or not, kids really do like to get serious. It helps them enjoy reading without having the "fluff". Actually, they will enjoy the fancy books more if they are learning from a "get down to business" curriculum. I would recommend this book and it's companion books, Alpha-Phonics and the reader, to anyone who either wants to tutor as a supplement to school learning, homeschooling, or wants to improve even on their own reading skills as an adult. I know it helped me, as my generation was taught from a sight-and-see method. As a result of tutoring others I have improved tremendously in my own reading and comprehension skills, with a resultant love of reading, therefore learning.

I'm a little on the fence with this books in as much as it has pretty poor quality graphics inside; specifically hand-drawings by a crap artist. 2nd: it's a book of individual readers bunched into one book and would've better as individual books.That said, does it do the job? Yes.Good value for money? Meh

The text is nice for children learning to read based on alphaphonics. However, the pages appear to be essentially mimeographed copies. There are black specks where the copies were made. The illustrations are also very poorly done, which makes the text less engaging for new readers. I recommend that the writers redo this set of books, type set the material more attractively, and make new illustrations that look like what really is being illustrated. I really like the alphaphonics program, but these readers need to be improved in order to be a useful part of the program.