Comparison of the Short Vowel Phonics 1 and 2 with other early readers [1]
| Short Vowel Phonics Series | 10 "easiest" Readers from a public library | |
| Short Vowels | yes | yes, all the readers |
| Long Vowels | none | yes, all the readers |
| Vowel Combinations (such as: aw, ew, oo, ue, etc.) | none | yes, all the readers |
| R-controlled vowels (such as: turn, barn, water, etc.) | none | yes, all the readers |
| Consonant blends | yes | yes, all the readers |
| ch, sh, th, or wh diagraphs | none | yes, all the readers |
| Consonant-le words (such as: table, uncle, etc.) | none | yes, in 8 of 10 readers |
| Multi-syllable words | none | yes, all the readers |
| Confusing font style or layout for struggling readers [2] | no | yes, in 9 of 10 readers |
| Range of number of non-phonetic sight words per story | 1 to 4 | 2 to 20 |
| Average number of non-phonetic sight words per story | 3 | 10 |
| Range of sentences per story | 4 to 14 | 0[3] to 63 |
| Average number of sentences per story | 7 | 22 |
Note:
[1]: Short Vowel Phonics books were compared to 10 different
books that had on its cover a guide to the reading difficulty of the
book. All the books were intended for beginning readers. These books
came from a public library and from well-known publishers. Several
book series are also for sale in well-known bookstore chains.
Eight of the books previewed were beginning books from book
series that offered different levels of difficulty. The series's
levels were usually denoted on the front cover. Below is the level
designations of the books that were used in the comparison.
"Level Pre Level 1": 1 book
"Level K": 1 book
"Level 1": 6 books
Two of the books had different designations than those discussed
above and did not advertise that they were part of a multi-level
reading series. But they were obviously advertised and intended for
use by the earliest readers.
"first time readers": 1 book
"first step": 1 book
A list of the 10 books can be furnished upon request.
[2]: As a tutor to struggling readers, I found that certain font styles, layouts and font sizes, used by publishers, made learning to read harder for the struggling readers. Nine books failed in my inspection because of either layout or use of a font that had the lower case "l" identical to the capital "I" or the use of the printed "a" and "g" rather than a more penmanship "a" and "g" that a child is learning concurrently with learning reading.
[3]: This book had phrases for the child to read, instead of full sentences.
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