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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