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Before you go any further,if you want just the QUICK FACTS about the program, click here.
FAQS(Frequently Asked Questions)
Question: How can I purchase The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program? Answer: To find out more about how you can purchase The Candy 4 WAY Phonics Program, click here.
Question: What is 4WAY Phonics? Answer: Candy's 4WAY Phonics is just like it sounds: Phonics training in 4 different ways. Phonics 4WAYS gives children not just one pathway, but four vital pathways to see, hear, speak and practice phonics skills.
Candy 4WAY Phonics is COMPLETE phonics program containing those same four phonics pathways that were used to teach little Candy to read. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Reading Program overlaps those four strategies systematically for children ages 4 -10. They overlap at the correct time, in the correct way, and in the correct doses. Those Candy 4WAY Phonics pathways are:
1) Linguistic Phonics 2) Synthetic Phonics 3) Analytic Phonics and 4) R'sA Phonics (Rhyme, Rhythm, and Alliteration)
Linguistic Phonics Linguistic Phonics is a planned-out network of phonics instruction that teaches the English Alphabet Code in a systematic, explicit manner, working from simple to complex. Linguistic Phonics includes mnemonnics (those rules and special terms such as "silent letters," "silent e," and beginning, middle, and ending phonemes" ). Phonemes are the smallest units of speech. For example, the bl blend is made up of two phonemes, b and l."
Synthetic Phonics Synthetic Phonics takes individual phonemes and synthesizes them (blends them) together.
Analytic Phonics Analytic Phonics is phonics that begins with a whole word and breaks it down into simpler and simpler phonemes. Analytic Phonics should be introduced to a child ONLY after the child has mastered Synthetic Phonics and only after he has learned to read words and sentences in a left/right sequence. The left/right reading sequence is learned by ALWAYS beginning a word "at the beginning of the word" and then reading that word all the way through to the end of the word.
If Analytic Phonics is placed into a reading program at the correct time and in the correct way, it enables children to do two things:
a) To identify common word families in a set of words. For example: tab nab cab king sing fling Hank bank sank
b) To break down any whole word into individual phonemes. Candy's Analytic phonics always follows Synthetic Phonics teaching. Without the skill of Synthetic Phonics, a child will always have a a tad of fear when approaching a new word, because there will always be chunks within words that he does NOT KNOW, and he will NOT have the "synthetic" skills necessary to "sound out" those unknown chunks.
R'sA Phonics (Rhyme, Rhythm,
and Alliteration) of sugar helps the medicine go down," children also learn best when they are offered "fun" words and phrases. Words and phrases become "fun" when they are placed inside sentences with Rhyme and Rhythm. Likewise, Alliteration, when placed inside patterns of Rhyme and Rhythm, is "fun." In The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program, R'sA Phonics is sprinkled into the daily lessons and readers in measured doses at correct times. Rhyme, Rhythm, and Alliteration is intermingled with both simple and complex sentences, dialogue, and normal poetic selections so that children are introduced to all forms of written expression.
Question: What is Alliteration? Answer: Alliteration is a form of writing that repeats either a consonant pattern or a vowel pattern.
Examples of Alliteration:
Question: How are The Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Phonics Lessons different from the lessons in other phonics programs? Answer: A common statement heard from parents has been: "I want a phonics program that includes step-by-step, fun lessons and also includes readers." One of the unique features about The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is that it includes Story Readers mixed in with the Daily Phonics Lessons.
Moreover, the Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Lessons introduce a new phonogram with every lesson. In addition to introducing a child to the sounds of the phonograms, our daily lessons contain phonics spelling and sound rules, a sounding out guide even for the "sight words," continual practice of the phonics sounds and blends after they are covered, spiral learning of the small number sight words in the program, and word practice both inside and outside a variety of sentence structures. Moreover, The Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Lessons use the 4WAY Phonics approach. Click here for samples of Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Phonics Lessons.
Question: How are Candy 4WAY Sequenced, Leveled Phonics Story Readers different from other phonics readers? Answer: In addition to using 4 Phonics strategies, Candy 4WAY Phonics includes "complex connective words" in its daily sentences and readers. Connective words are those words that connect ideas within the same sentence. As early as the 1980's, linguists and educational book authors were beginning to notice that the readers used in American schools (those readers using the look/say method as well as those readers using some type of phonics method) were loaded with what they called: "popular readability formulas."
In a nutshell, this means that these readers were full of shortened sentences that purposely omitted "complex connective words." However, complex connective words help sentences become more meaningful and more interesting. Complex connective words give children sentences that can widen their expressive abilities and sharpen their comprehension skills. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program uses connective words and complex connective words (subordinate clauses, infinitive phrases, and participial phrases) as early as possible in reading selections both in its daily 4WAY Phonics lessons and in its sequenced 4WAY phonics story readers. That's because it has been shown that when children DO receive these types of complex sentence structures, they become vivid writers who are better able to express complex ideas, to paint word pictures, and to convey complex relationships. Click here for sample pages of Candy 4WAY Sequenced 4WAY Phonics Story Readers.
Question: What is included in The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program? Answer: Click here to see what is included with The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program and to see our very affordable Candy 4WAY Phonics Program packages.
Question: Does The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program include sight words? Answer: Yes. However, The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program includes a very, very small list of sight words. This is because a good share of the sight words found on the Dolch Sight Word List are NOT sight words, because they can be sounded out by children who have gone through a systematic 4WAY Phonics education. Our small list of sight words are worked into the daily lessons as needed and given lots and lots of review throughout the program. In addition, parents are shown how to "sound out" even the sight words.
Question: Does The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program include flashcards? Answer: Yes. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Flashcards are presented as "sets of four" inside 8 1/2" by 11"charts. These Flashcards are designed to be in two sets. For the backs of the 1st Set of each flashcard chart you will be given three to six BASIC practice words for each letter or phonogram that appears on the front of the chart. For the backs of the 2nd Set of each flashcard you will be given three to six ADVANCED practice words for each letter or phonogram that appears on the front of the chart. In addition to our regular rhyming A-Z Flashcards included with the program, you can buy, as a separate product, our Multisensory Flashcards.
Question:
How old should my child be to begin Candy 4WAY Phonics? 3 to 8 years of age. Some possible signs that your child is ready to learn to read are that he/she can carry on a conversation with you, he/she can sit still for 20 minutes at a time on your lap or next to you on the couch, and he/she can listen and follow your directions.
Mom, Dad, as you learn more, you will become excited about what you are learning. That, in turn, will help your child to be excited about what he/she is learning. The Candy 4WAY Phonics lessons are easy to follow and easy to understand. In addition, The Candy 4WAY Phonics Audio Sounds CD-Rom included with both the Candy 4WAY Phonics CD-Rom Program or the Candy 4WAY Phonics PLUS Program in which you will hear every blend and every sentence in every daily 4WAY Phonics lesson will take away all your guesses about what the words on the page should sound like. We recommend you begin the program by reading through The Candy 4WAY Phonics Instructional Book for parents where you will receive encouragement and step-by-step information. We hope you will be convinced that it doesn’t take a genius to teach a child to read. Teaching a child to read simply takes the correct, step-by-step, 4WAY Phonics method. Believe us when we say that "blending letter sounds" is not difficult to learn. What is difficult to learn is memorizing a "whole word" without knowing how to blend together the letters inside that word from the beginning of the word to end of the word. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program takes away that difficulty and takes away that fear.
Question: How is this program different from the computer-based phonics programs I see advertised? Answer: We realize that parents want "the quick fix" for their child, but it just doesn't work that way. Teaching your child to read needs to happen one-on-one because teaching your child to read involves building a "reading lesson" relationship with your child. What do we mean by that? If your child is working on a computer-based phonics program and you receive his "report progress sheet" you'll only know what that particular computer program logs as "needing more practice" and it will be based upon the discretion of the maker of that particular computer program. However, most of the time, it isn't "more practice" that your child needs. Most of the time there is something in a particular daily lesson that your child did not understand, and many times, he's not going to ask the question that could have helped him to understand.
As his parent, you're going to pick up on his mannerisms, his fears, his struggles, and his doubts THE VERY INSTANT they occur, and you'll be there to solve the problem RIGHT THEN, not after he has completed an entire section of the program.
Moreover, with The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program, your child is not required to have online access during teaching times. The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is installed on your computer and available to you in printable form anywhere you need it. That means that you'll have access to all of your Daily Phonics Lessons, Story Readers, Phonics Charts, Flashcards, Instruction Books -- EVERYTHING -- anywhere that's it's convenient for you -- at the kitchen table, in the car, waiting in the doctor's office, on vacations.
This single program, for one very small price, can be used for all of your children. You will never have to pay another dollar amount for additional children.
Computer-based programs will tell you that they offer your child a "simulated 'live' teaching environment." However, we have one question -- who is it, exactly, who is "alive?" A computer talking to your child is NOT "alive." A Mom or a Dad talking to a child IS ALIVE!
Let us close with this question: How successful do you think Marva Collins would have been if she had turned her students over to a computer-based phonics program?
Question: What do I do if I have a child older
than eight years old that
still needs help with reading? as if he were taking a class on "How to teach systematic 4WAY phonics." To read more about how to teach an older child to read using a systematic 4WAY Phonics approach, click here.
Question: How long should a daily reading lesson last, and how often should I give a lesson? Answer: The ideal plan for a reading program is 20 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes after lunch, and 15 minutes before bedtime. If this is not possible, we suggest that you give one 20-minute reading lesson each day, Monday through Friday. The more children hear information, the better they retain that information. Since each lesson builds upon the previous lesson, the shorter the time span in-between lessons, the easier it will be for a child to learn the lessons.
at a given time. Some children finish the program within a year and some take three years. We believe that parents can best make that judgment about their own child. How long it takes your child to finish the program is not as important as how much he masters each concept before proceeding to the next concept. As long as he/she is making progress from one daily 4WAY phonics lesson to the next – just keep going!!!
Question: How are comprehension skills
best learned?
"What clues are in the selection that could tell you what might happen next? or "Why do you think that happened?
*Comprehension is learned when a parent stops often during the reading selection and asks pertinent questions of the child like: a) "Does this part of the story remind you of anything that has happened to you?" b) "How would you have handled this situation?"
*Comprehension is learned each time a child retells what he has heard read.
*Comprehension is learned each time a child stops reading a small section and voices aloud, in his own words, what he just read or stops to express an opinion about what he just read.
*Comprehension is learned when a child gives logical reasons to back up his opinions based upon other parts of the story or text he has read or based upon other parts of past literature he has read.
*Comprehension is learned when a child simply tells, in his own words, what he believes is the most important idea from a selection.
The best thing you can do to help your child's comprehension skills is to listen to your child read his text aloud to you, and then to discuss openly with your child what he read. The sharing together of reasonings and "backed up" statements increases comprehension, discernment, a sense of values, independent thought, and decision-making skills.
At Candy 4WAY phonics, we believe that it is important for parents to read to their children. But we believe it is even more important for children to read and share with their parents.
Question: Can my child learn to read if I read to him? Answer: No. Your child will learn to read when he has learned the sounds of individual letters, how to blend those sounds from left to right, and when he has practiced reading sounds inside words, words inside sentences, and sentences inside paragraphs. However, we strongly encourage you to read to your child so that he will become familiar with more words, his comprehension skills will grow, and so that he will develop a love for reading.
Question: How can I help my child understand what he is reading? Answer: Stop often and discuss what has been read. Help your child to see that the meaning of whatever he is reading or listening to will make sense when he can answer this question: "What does this mean for me?" It is possible to relate everything we hear or read to our own lives. And when we do that, no matter how small the connection, our understanding of what we're hearing or reading will grow. The more we can connect ideas to our own personal lives, the better we will understand those ideas, the better we will remember those ideas, and the more we will be able to relate those ideas to other ideas.
Question: Can this program teach an adult to
read? child if they follow the step-by-step Candy 4WAY Program. At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we congratulate every adult who humbly desires to learn more. If you are an adult who struggles in reading and would like to learn to read in the privacy of your own home, we advise you to purchase the Candy 4WAY Phonics CD-Rom Program priced at just $19.97. This program includes an AUDIO CD-Rom in which you can actually hear every blend and every word and every sentence in every one of the daily 4WAY Phonics lessons. The program story lines are written for children, but adults can have fun reading the story selections as well. Our rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration make reading lessons more fun for parents as well.
Question: Will this program work if my child
has a learning disability? be impossible to say for certain “which” method of reading would work for any particular child with disabilities. We do, however, feel that the 4WAY systematic phonics approach is an excellent choice with which to begin a disabled child’s reading education. According to a 13-year study by 100 researchers in medicine, education and psychology, "The Whole Language approach to reading simply does not work for children with reading disabilities. A structured, phonics-based approach is more likely to help them." (Insight on the News, Jan 31, 2000, as reported by Martha C. Brown)
Question: My child attends public school. His teacher told me that they are using phonics in his reading program. Is there a difference between the phonics used in our public schools and the phonics in The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program? Answer: There's a huge difference! Our public schools use what is referred to as a "salt and pepper phonics." This "salt and pepper phonics" is another version of the Look/Say/Whole-Word method except that it now includes Analytic Phonics, sprinkled in at each teacher's individual discretion and according to the individual teacher's ability in phonetic sounding. The Analytic phonics used in our public schools today is not explicit, intensive phonics, but, rather, embedded, implicit phonics. Candy 4WAY Phonics begins with a solid foundation of Explicit Phonics, which is Synthetic Phonics, working it's system of teaching along with R'sA Phonics, and ending at a third-grade level with Analytic Phonics. Explicit phonics is a systematic, synthetic progression. The Candy 4WAY Phonics program uses only explicit 4WAY phonics.
Question: What is the difference between implicit (embedded) phonics and explicit (systematic) phonics? Answer: Implicit phonics (otherwise known as embedded phonics) differs tremendously from explicit, systematic phonics. Let's begin by explaining implicit Phonics.
Implicit phonics begins with a whole word and works down to smaller parts. So blending and building a word (sounding it out from left to right) is NOT taught. Can you imagine memorizing 300 WHOLE words every year? Well, this is exactly what many American children have attempted to do; and, as you can imagine, many of those children have failed miserably!
With implicit phonics, the child does a great deal of "guessing." In fact, he is taught that "guessing" is the correct approach to "figuring out" what a word is. Children taught with implicit phonics are instructed to: 1) "Guess" at the word by looking at the picture on the page. 2) "Guess" at the word by looking at the beginning and ending letters of the word. 3) "Guess" at the word by attempting to recognize the word ending or any other "chunk" of the word in the middle or at the end of the word. 4) "Guess at the word by looking at the shape of the word. 5) "Guess at the word by reading the rest of the sentence to see which word would "make "sense."
Because children using the implicit method are given a "salt and pepper" phonics, their "phonics" education begins with the memorization of whole blended "chunks" within words instead of with the memorization of the correct pronunciation and blending of individual letters that begin words. With implicit phonics, the child is told to look for a whole "chunk" inside the word that he recognizes. The child often begins reading the word at the spot where he recognizes the whole "chunk" rather than to begin reading the word at the beginning of the word.
Explicit phonics begins with the smallest part of a word and builds the child through the whole word. The child first learns the individual letter sounds. He then learns to blend those sounds at the beginning of a word and then to continue blending through the word, from left to right, until he has reached the end of the word. With explicit phonics, children are taught NOT to guess at words. Candy 4WAY Phonics uses the explicit phonics approach to teach children to sound out words in the correct left-right sequence. With explicit phonics all words are read from left to right, which follows in the natural order, because sentences should be read from left to right.
Question: Does The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program meet our government's blueprint for promoting literacy among American school children? Answer: Our government has emphatically stated that its vision for American school children is "to ensure that every child can read by the third grade." In 2003 The National Right To Read Foundation summed up a list of requirements that a good phonics program should contain. Many phonics programs are severely lacking in their fulfillment of these requirements. We believe that the Candy 4WAY Phonics Program contains those missing phonics ingredients as outlined by the National Right to Read Foundation. They are as follows:
a.) Instructors need to be educated in the alphabetic system.
Because our alphabetic system includes definite rules and guidelines for parents concerning how to divide words into phonemes (the smallest symbols used to represent sounds), children are able to learn the difference between short and long vowels spelling patterns, and how to correctly divide words into syllables.
At Candy 4WAY Phonics we realize how complicated that all sounds; but we chuckle at the same time. Our education system has taken something that should be very easy to understand and turned it into something "exclusive" and "high sounding." The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program breaks down these alphabetic terms for parents into understandable knowledge. In turn, parents learn, step-by-step along with their child, those simple, regular and irregular spelling-sound relationships, a knowledge that enables them to teach phonics effectively to their child.
The Candy4WAY Phonics CD-ROM Package also includes an Audio Sounds CD-Rom so that parents can hear every letter sound and every blend in every daily 4WAY Phonics Lesson. Parents no longer have to wonder how letters and blends are supposed to sound. Parents can hear and practice those sounds right along with the speaker on the Audio CD-Rom before they
ever introduce
the sounds to their child.
b.) Research has shown that when phonics knowledge and text reading are located in the same part of the curriculum, children learn to apply their phonics instantly.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Lessons place each bit of phonics knowledge on the same page with ample sentence/reading practice. Click here to view samples of Candy 4WAY Phonics Daily Lessons.
In addition, Candy 4WAY Phonics provides a Candy 4WAY Phonics Reader following every five daily lessons beginning with the second set of lessons, in order to provide even more practice over the letters sounds and blends presented up to that point. Click here to view selections from Candy 4WAY Phonics Readers.
c.) A proper phonics program should supply a teaching guide that includes how to assess reading progress, suggestions for assessing and correcting slow reading progress, and constant available encouragement.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program supplies phonics guides within the context of its main instructional book for parents, giving parents simple steps to assess their child's reading progress. In addition, parents will receive free e-mail support when parents remember to apply the following principle:
No question is dumb. ALL questions are smart!
(Note - Parents, we at Candy 4WAY Phonics may not have all the answers for all of your questions. However, we will freely give you whatever suggestions we have in order to help you meet the individualized needs of your child.
d.) To Summarize, here's the guidelines you need to look for in a phonics program:
-- Programs should insure coverage of the alphabetic system by
teaching phonemic awareness that includes segmentation and blending
activities, by teaching the shapes, names, and sounds of letters, and by
specifying a sequence and schedule for teaching the major letter-sound
relations.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Teaching Method:
-- Programs should teach children to read unfamiliar words by
breaking the words into letter-sound parts and blending the parts to
pronounce meaningful words.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program introduces blending early on –
lessons
that segment words into syllables and build syllables into meaningful words
and 4WAY sentences.
-- Programs should help children build a sight vocabulary by
teaching them to match letters to sounds within the words and to recognize
their meanings.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program introduces sight words within
a constant-review pattern on its daily charts.
Thus, children learn sight words as they need them
in order to read meaningful sentences.
Parents are shown directions with all of our
packages and with the CD-Rom package, parents are also given audio help
for sounding out even these sight words.
-- Programs should provide spelling instruction and practice.
The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program introduces spelling rules
within its lesson structures.
It provides practice for spelling rules by placing
words that follow each spelling rule within lesson sentences using the 4WAY
-- At the beginning levels, programs should provide reading
materials that allow children to apply the letter-sound knowledge that they
have been taught. A common approach is to provide specially written books
containing a high proportion of words that children can decode.
At Candy 4WAY Phonics we couldn’t agree more!
This is why we have provided "Candy Story
Readers” that are
systematically sequenced (one book for every five charts) beginning with the
second level of the program.
--A systematic phonics program should be regarded as one part of a
comprehensive, integrated program to teach literacy effectively.
The
Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is a systematic, explicit phonics program whose
goal is to teach children, comprehensively, to sound out segmented word
parts, and then to build those parts into bigger and bigger words, and then
into complex sentences, and then into complex paragraphs, and then into
whole stories, thus enabling parents to give their own children the
lifetime, reading skills they need to read valuable literature.
Question: Who do the people at Candy 4WAY Phonics believe make the BEST teachers for children? Answer: Without a doubt, at Candy 4WAY Phonics, we believe that "committed" parents make the BEST teachers for their own child. This is why The Candy 4WAY Phonics Program is designed for PARENTS instead of for teachers. God commanded PARENTS, not teachers, to train up their child in "the way he should go."
Learning to read is not an end in itself. Reading is one of the first tools in a child's academic education that God can use to shape the correct character into that child. More and more today, jobs are being given to the one that: a) is qualified to do the job and b) demonstrates the highest character.
Character involves follow-through, integrity, honesty, a servant heart, selflessness, and an obedient spirit. If you were an employer, wouldn't these be the attributes you would want in the person you were about to hire? It is these attributes that protect the employer.
Reading skills will enable your child to read God's Word. They will open up God's world to your child and enable him to read about God's viewpoint of the people and circumstances that surround him.
When you make the decision as to "who" is going to teach your child to read, ask yourself these five questions: 1) What materials do I want my child to read? 2) What phonics program do I want my child to use? 3) Who knows best what types of materials my child should read? 4) Who believes in my child's abilities the most? 5) Who is best qualified to practice patience with my child's weaknesses?
At Candy 4WAY Phonics, we believe that committed parents who are willing to make the necessary sacrifices make the BEST teachers!
Question: I've never bought a program on CD-ROM before. Is the CD-ROM Package easy to use? Answer: You will be shocked at how easy this program is to use! You simply pop the CD-ROM into your computer, open it, start with the top file, and proceed down the list, step by step, until your child has completed the program. When you first put the CD-ROM into your computer and open the files, the top file will tell you how to follow the program (which is basically what we have explained here). In PDF format, this program is a delight to use. It's so easy to get from one page to the next (click, and you are instantly there!)
Question: I've never bought a reading program as an INSTANT DOWNLOAD before. If I choose the INSTANT DOWNLOAD Package, what will happen after I have made my purchase? Answer: Because we like ONLY satisfied customers, we have secured the download source recommended by Paypal. Again, You will be shocked at how easy this program is to download and use! After your purchase, you will be instantly given a link to download your 4way Phonics Program. You will also be sent this same link in your email. Simply save the downloaded files to your computer. Open the download, start with the top file, and proceed down the list, step by step, until your child has completed the program. The top file will tell you how to follow the program (which is basically what we have explained here). In PDF format, this program is a delight to use. It's so easy to get from one page to the next (click, and you are instantly there!)
Question: If I purchase the CD-ROM Package, what are the computer systems requirements to play the Candy 4WAY Phonics CD-ROM'S
Answer:
Windows Requirements:
*Intel Pentium III or equivalent processor *Windows XP
Professional or Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 or Windows Vista
*128 RAM *Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or higher
*CD-ROM Drive *Sound Card
Question: What is your "Guaranteed Satisfaction" Policy? Answer: We are one of the VERY FEW Phonics programs to offer a COMPLETION GUARANTEE with your purchase. To learn more about our "Guaranteed Satisfaction" Policies, click here
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