First Phonics

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

This new Kids Can Learn with Franklin series of workbooks is fun-filled
and easy to use. Children will undoubtedly be highly motivated to
complete the activities featuring the delightful storybook and TV
characters Franklin and friends.

Inside the front cover of each workbook are guidelines for parents. A
detailed outline of the concepts and skills developed and supported in
the workbook, as well as suggestions for further learning activities,
are also provided. Further, every activity page in the workbook lists
the skills to be learned and the curriculum connections for that
particular activity. Adult involvement is essential, since the reading
level is beyond that of most preschool to Grade 1 children.

The workbooks focus on language arts. Activities range from identifying
upper- and lowercase letters in Alphabet Mazes (suggested for
preschoolers), to recognizing letter sounds, families of words, and
rhyming words in First Phonics (suggested for children in kindergarten),
to recognizing parts of speech such as verbs, nouns, and adjectives (not
by label, but by function), and using picture clues to determine word
meanings in Vocabulary Puzzles (suggested for children in Grade 1).

Mathematics-oriented activities include simple counting activities,
recognizing and matching numbers and words, non-standard measurement,
and addition and subtraction activities. Inserts are included such as
clocks, rulers, and counters, which may be cut out, assembled, and used
to assist the children in their number explorations.

Four punch-out collector cards—colour-coded according to categories
such as Franklin’s Family, Turtle Food, Places in the Woodland,
etc.—form the centrefold of each workbook; they serve as a strong
incentive to finish the current book. Upon completion, a new workbook
could be purchased with four new collector cards to build a collection.
The cards could be used for games such as “Go Fish” in addition to
the obvious sorting and categorizing activities.

All workbooks in the series are fully reproducible for classroom use,
and each includes a certificate of completion to be filled in and
presented to the child. Highly recommended.