Review - Kindergarten Phonics Readers

The following is a homeschool review of "Kindergarten Phonics Readers," published by Christian Liberty Press:

This is a set of four books. I have used these with all of my children and love them.

These are paperback, small booklets. 

They are designed for Kindergarten students who have already learned the sounds and sights of all the alphabet.  They work very well along with the "Adventures in Phonics Level A" program by Christian Liberty Press (my review for this is coming soon.)   

I have worn out sets of these books and have replaced them twice. I am now on my third set.  This was for my five homeschooled children, who are now all grown up. I am currently using a set of these books with one of my grandchildren.


How I used them:


I would work on the first lesson from the first book, a few words at a time. This helped the child understand the concept of sounding out words.  The pictures go perfectly with the lesson.  To begin with, it took us several days to complete the first page.   

The first lesson had words such as:

"can"
"ran"
"Jan"

Then there would be a very short sentence.  The student gained confidence in the very first day and was always eager to continue the lessons.

We would not go on to the next lesson until the child knew every word in the first one. It would take me months to complete book one.  This laid a firm and strong foundation for reading.  The next three books went much more quickly, but we always re-did each lesson over and over again until the child could read very well.

At the end of each school day, I always had the child read for Daddy when he came home from work. My student was so excited to share how well she was progressing in her work.  Dad would also be impressed.  We often showed him, at least once a week, what we were learning in our homeschool. 

The last book in the set contained full paragraphs and short stories. By the time my children completed all four books, they were excellent readers.

My 3 different copies of Book Four in the set of Readers

In the photograph above, on the left, you will see the original copy of book 4. This was published in 1992.   Since I still have it, that will just help show you how valuable I think the book is!

The other two copies of the book, from the picture above, are the updated versions.  One is copyright in the year of 1998, with a "printing" date of 2000.  The newest one has the same copyright of 1998, but with a "printing" date of 2017.

The back cover of the original Book 4 in the set of Readers

The back cover of the updated version of Book 4 in the set of Readers

What is the difference between the original and updated versions?


The stories are mostly the same, with perhaps a few different words.  The new ones have full color pictures to go with each lesson. Both sets of books still work wonderfully. But I personally prefer the plain, original set with the simple drawings. 



Overall, These are Bible - based and a joy to read.  One of the chapters in book four is "The Best Book" about "Sam" who gets the Bible and reads it with his sister.

These books are excellent. All you have to do is sit with your student as if it is story time.  It takes a few minutes each day to teach them to read with these books.  It will help tremendously if you know the phonics rules from the curriculum "Adventures in Phonics Level A" so you can reinforce these rules of reading while you go through the lessons.


Please watch for my reviews on the following products which will work well with these readers:

1. "Adventures in Phonics" Level A

2. Adventures in Phonics: Phonics Sounds and Teaching Tips (Audio CD)

(I will add links to these reviews as soon as I am able to complete them.)


You can find this set of books at the Christian Liberty Press site.

Kindergarten Phonics Readers



  This post is the ninth in a series of reviews I am doing using Christian Liberty Press curriculum.  I hope to do 2 reviews each month as I work with my grandson for Kindergarten. To start with the first post, please see the introduction:

"24 Years of Homeschooling with Christian Liberty Press"



* Disclosure - I received this for review purposes.*