How the Special Offspring Phonics Program works....

Word Family Fun Activity Page 1 identifies the target word family.  To isolate and focus on an identified phonogram, a previously mastered word is presented in a pair with each new word created within that word family.  For example:  man-can; man-pan; man-ran.  It is imperative that the student be able to both hear and see the similarity between a known word and a new word created by simply changing the beginning letter.  Due to a reduced repetoire of language labels, it can never be assumed that the student is familiar with new words. 

Word Family Fun Activity Page 2 introduces word family words with a corresponding picture and a context clue sentence.   These components provide meaning for each word label.  Never assume!

Word Family Fun Activity Page 3 lists all of the introduced words for a word family and offers an entertaining short story.  Each story is generated from previously mastered sight words and word family words.   Activity Page 3 also contains an illustration with directions to color specific word family labels.  Typically, these word family labels are those most likely to be unfamiliar to the student.

Word family skill mastery in Word Family Fun may not be applied to other reading materials.  Many developmentally delayed students experience an inability to transfer and apply word family skill mastery to other reading selections.  Each Just Stories workbook is a companion book for the corresponding level of the Word Family Fun workbook.  Just Stories corresponds directly to each word family as it is introduced in Word Family Fun offering the student an immediate avenue to apply emerging phonetic skills to the reading process in new and different text.  Just Stories is based on word families introduced, practiced and reviewed in the corresponding level of the Word Family Fun workbook.  It is essential that students begin to see patterns in words for emerging phonetic skill development and to comprehend that these patterns and their sounds transfer to other words.  Transfer of learning is a very difficult skill for many children experiencing developmental delays.  Repetitive exposure to multiple word family patterns in reading, spelling and leisure reading offers targeted remediation for both emerging phonetic skills and the independent application of word attack skills to the reading process.  As the student effectively transfers mastered word family skills to all reading situations, known deficiencies in long-term and short-term memory will also diminish.