Fishing With Phonics is a multi-skill program.  It is a tool designed to teach the critical reading skills of…

• phonetic decoding,
• irregular sight word recognition, 
• vocabulary comprehension, and 
• fluency

For years the author, Donald Clark, juggled multiple reading programs while trying to teach at least three grade levels of reading instruction concurrently in the same classroom.  He had a decoding program, a sight word program, a vocabulary comprehension program and a separate comprehension component.  For years he had no systematic way or plan to develop and measure fluency.  Out of necessity, because no other product like it was on the market, he created this program in order to integrate all of the necessary components of learning to read, except for the general comprehension component.  This multi-skill aspect of the program makes it  unique, very teacher friendly and easy to implement.  It helps the children see reading as one process rather than many small separate isolated pieces they have to struggle to combine. This program is like a reading multi-vitamin (multi-skill) pill that, if taken daily, will help students become healthy readers.

Perhaps the most unique and innovative part of this program which sets it apart from other beginning reading programs is that instruction can be provided at multiple levels simultaneously within the same lesson.  Every lesson contains four levels of phonemically related words. Level One words are generally one syllable words with no blends.  Level Two words are one syllable words which contain consonant blends.  Level Three words are two syllable words.  Level Four words are three and four syllable words.  Sight words are presented in two levels, basic and advanced.  (Click here on SAMPLE LESSON to see differentiated levels.)

Vocabulary, sight words and decoding skills from the primer level to the third grade level and beyond are covered in this program. This feature of multiple levels allows educators to differentiate and diversify instruction to meet the needs of all learners in the classroom without juggling multiple groups, resources, and programs. 

Students just learning to decode with one syllable words can be taught concurrently with other students ready for two and three syllable words all in the same lesson. The lower students watch and learn from the more advanced students who serve as reading models. Direct instruction can be used with the entire classroom effectively and then supported by differentiated small group work in classroom centers or stations for timed reading and vocabulary comprehension exercises at the students’ prescriptive levels.