Explode the Code 3: Essential lessons for phonics mastery

The kids love these books!

Really pleased with advances in learning using this. Next Book please!

💜

My 6 year old homeschooled daughter is a fan of the explode the series. Great for daily phonics practice. Suits writing resistant children. She works through this book completing a couple pages a day. This book serves as a great accompaniment to our core phonics programme, Open Court Phonics. This book is the 3rd instalment in the series. So far we have not used the 1/2 books although we may go to book 3 1/2 next, if necessary. From a UK language standpoint I have not yet come across words with American spellings. If we arrive at a book later in the series that does then we'll discontinue use. As it stands the word / image that really stumped my daughter was, "pants" as the picture showed a pair of trousers so had to explain the UK/US difference but that's the only incident otherwise these books (or at least books 1-3) are perfectly useable by for UK English students.

Got for my child struggling to read. 100 easy lessons wasn’t working for her, so switched to this. Books were new, good course.

I can’t recommend this program enough! I done the first 3 books with my oldest daughter when she was 4 and we moved on to all about reading and she is an excellent reader! I forgot about these when it came time for my next 2 to learn to read! Tried several different programs and nothing was sticking they were still getting confused and forgetting the letters and/or the sounds. Remembered I done these with my oldest so I ordered them. I’m telling you these work like magic! Both my girls loved doing the work and quickly caught on so much faster than they did with any other program! Highly recommend so much so that I may just continue this program for the rest of their phonics instruction!

I was very glad I started my 14 year old with Down Syndrome on these early books even though he was above this level. It gave him confidence to do the work books and helped him focus on following directions which will help when getting to the books in the series he struggles with. Great pictures. The only issue I have is sometimes the pictures can be confusing like for the letter N the picture is a tie in a collar. The first word that came to my mind and my son’s was “tie” but I realized since we were on the letter N it must be “necktie” that seems like two different words to a young reader and there are a couple of other compound words like that which young kids and ones with learning disability might struggle with so it is important to sit with your child and make sure they understand the right word for the drawing.

These books are repetitive which is just what new learners need. These books are east enough that kids gain confidence quickly and enjoy the learning.

We had been doing a different phonics curriculum (Spell to Write and Read), which was perfect for one of my children, but one of my kids was struggling to remember the various rules (like silent e's and long vowels) the way SWR presents them (kind of...haphazardly). We needed more regimented structure and ridiculous amounts of repetition to boost his confidence. So we jumped right in to this book for my 1st grader and (remedial) 2nd grader without doing any of the others in the series. My kids love: 1. The silly sentences 2. The "tricky" choose-the-right-word sections 3. That they can jump right in and do pages without my help. I love: 1. That they can jump right in and do pages without my help. 2. The VERY methodical approach and plentiful repetition. My struggling son really needs the repetition, but he gets annoyed and discouraged when I remind him of the same things over and over. He seems to accept the repetition from the workbook more happily than from me. My not-struggling daughter doesn't really need the reading repetition, but she thinks the activities are pretty fun, and she benefits from the writing practice. 3. The pictures of the other levels on the back of the book. My kids are stoked to "move up a level" when they're done with this book. I DON'T love: 1. That there's no cursive option. We have been doing cursive since age 4 and love it, but there are unfortunately no phonics workbooks available that use cursive. 2. That some phonics rules are kind of loose. SWR (which is like the Spalding method or Writing Road to Reading method) is amazing at being thorough and closing all those dumb English loopholes, and this is a bit less intensive. But it's working for us right now.