Pinecone Reading Program
All kids want to read. They have a natural curiosity of the magic in books. If a student misses the early days of phonics, or has any of a number of learning challenges – reading can become a painful chore and quickly affect learning.
The Pinecone reading program again starts as young as three, teaching the letters through the same methods as the math – reading, saying the letters aloud, and of course, tracing – repeatedly! Kids move at their own pace with individual assistance through the phonics, or blending levels, then into simple reading comprehension and sentence writing.
The vocabulary program, beginning in first grade, creates challenging activities to advance and strengthen basic language skills. Working with a list of words and their definitions, the child engages in a variety of exercises. These booklets rotate through with the comprehension books, which build on the new vocabulary.
At second grade, the English grammar work is added to the comprehension, vocabulary and test-taking aspects of the reading program to provide a complete mastery reading program through middle school. The later levels require reading and re-reading an excerpt to extract not only information for questions, but to interpret meaning and form opinions. The vocabulary is rich and challenging and the grammar is precision-oriented — don’t forget the commas!
Like the math program, students receive assistance with their class assignments twice weekly, with brief homework assignments the other five days of the week.