User Feedback

"I have the cards, the posters, as well as some worksheets. I was able to get training from my predecessor. I tend to use a blended approach to phonics teaching that incorporates Phonics Q, as well as the Lindamood sounds chart (based on the LiPS program). I find that the Phonics Q vowel combo cards can be conveniently categorized onto the Lindamood sound chart."

Rhonda Hilpert

"This is an excellent program! I highly recommend it. Emily and I saw it last year and immediately requested (and received!) materials for our classroom. How many times have we all drawn a visual for a student that couldn’t remember the sound of a letter?? Well, here they are with supportive materials so every child can visualize that sound!!"

Classified Staff that works with any language students

"Just love the PhonicsQ! I will spread the word!"

Cathy Boeringa, Reading Specialist
Portage, Indiana

"I love your program. It has really helped some of my students."

Jennifer Larson, Learning Specialist
Portland, Oregon

"We have been using the system this year and it has been a great help. I hope we will get to buy another kit in the spring for another class to use. We have shared everything this year."

Marty Kiser
Tallahassee, Florida

"The program is awesome. It was wonderful to see my kids look at the charts while completing end of the year DRA reading levels. My spelling and my reading grades are higher than last year. Thanks again!"

Deanna Dove
Orlando, Florida

"I am extremely excited to see how well PhonicsQ is working with my struggling readers. I am working with 12 of the lowest 1st graders and they are all hanging on to vowel combinations, etc. better than their peers in the classroom!"

Christina Chan,
Los Gatos, California

"I recently attended the ASCD conference and saw your booth. I have used PhonicsQ before. I used to live in WA and taught at Tillicum Elementary in Lakewood, WA. It is great! Now, I am in Wyoming and the Director of Curriculum and Staff Development for my district. We are in the process of looking at materials for phonics instruction…"

Dana Laycock, Director Of Curriculum & Staff Development
Laramie County School District

"Yes…I would like to receive your newest brochure. I just love your program!"

Connie Cramer
Bluffton, Ohio

Shirley McCune from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction showed PhonicsQ to over a 100 primary teachers at a reading conference ESD101 hosted on 10/2/98. People loved them.

Karen Estes, Coordinator for the Center for School Improvement Education Service District 101
Washington State

Project RIMES at the University of Arizona continues to prepare K-3 and special education teachers. Our teachers are so pleased with the materials that you have already provided, that I’m sure they would like seeing and providing you input on your newest component."

Candade Bos
University of Arizona

"How the Q helped me was that I didn't know how to read real good and when I came here I started to read much better and maybe when I grow up I may teach my kids about the Q and they will improve their reading. How the Q works is that how it sounds like teeth the main letters are ee they help me real well and when I'm in high school, middle and college I will use them."

Koi, 5th Grader, ESL Student

"To Whom It May Concern: The letters up on Mrs. Herzog's wall helped me on alot of words. When I read I look for letter combinations that I cannot understand and look for it on the wall and see how it's pronounced. I really hope the letters help other kids."

Brian Harriger, 5th grader, Resource Room

"I think that PhonicsQ helps me in spelling and I remember almost every Q in PhonicsQ. I am very good at it. It has helped me alot these three years I memorized them I even have a whole set at home and I like it a lot. I hope I can remember all of them for middle school and high school. Ms. Herzog is the best teacher in Sanislo."

Jason

"This is how I used the Q. First I tried to sound it out and if I can't I will look at the Q and I tried to find the right sounds of it. I think Q helped me alot today. I think my reading and my spelling and writing is great because of all PhonicsQ."

Mali Keo, 4th grader
ESL & LD Resource Room

"When I read and I get stuck on a word first I sound it out and if I don't get it I will think of the phonicsq and believe it or not I get the word. The q I use a lot is the er, ir, ur, and ow1, ow2."

Brigjetto WIlliams, 4th grader
L.D. Resource Room

"How did you get the word "round" I used the house even though I didn't look."

Imara, 1st grade
LD resource room

"This is an excellent program! I highly recommend it. Emily and I saw it last year and immediately requested (and received!) materials for our classroom. How many times have we all drawn a visual for a student that couldn’t remember the sound of a letter?? Well, here they are with supportive materials so every child can visualize that sound!!"

Classified Staff that works with any language students

"How the Q helped me was that I didn't know how to read real good and when I came here I started to read much better and maybe when I grow up I may teach my kids about the Q and they will improve their reading. How the Q works is that how it sounds like teeth the main letters are ee they help me real well and when I'm in high school, middle and college I will use them."

Koi, 5th Grader, ESL Student

"PhonicsQ is the ultimate tool in the classroom for pronunciation. Adult students of all levels enjoy starting each class with the "sounds" of letters, vowels and blends. Thank you. It is an invaluable tool for me."

Carole Smith, ESL Teacher Lewis Adult Education Center
Santa Rosa, California

"Your suggestions really helped me. I had to share an explicit phonics lesson with my Thursday night class last week and in part of it I used PhonicsQ. Everyone, including the professor wrote down your website. The PhonicsQ has been working great! I had my students glue the vowel combinations chart in their word notebooks. As I introduce the cues they highlight them. The advice about continually going back over the ones that have been introduced was very helpful. I think that was what I needed to understand. I was getting too worried about "mastery". It seems much more natural now that the cues are being continually integrated- just like your example about spelling the word "stain". My students are using them while they're reading and spelling."

Lise Narath
El Cerrito, California

"I have been using PhonicsQ with my ESL students ever since my principal bought it. I like the size of the cards and the posters are great. I have them on the board space in front of our desks. Our school works with Phonographics and the charts work together with those lessons…"

Keni O’Francia, Seattle School District
Seattle, Washington

"Thank you so much for the materials. If you ever update or add anything to PhonicsQ, I would love to know. I saw you at the CABE conference in San Jose in February 2002. I teach a 4th/5th class of 100 percent English language learners. We use Open Court, but I feel that the phonics program and graphics are quite uninteresting. My students loved using PhonicsQ, and kept asking for it. Thanks!"

Marcia Wright
Monterey, California

"Thank you for giving me an extra course and helping me to improve my pronunciation. In Taiwan, we use quite a different way to learn English. NO one teaches us these relationships of the words and the sounds specifically. The correct pronunciation and the understanding of word structures help me a lot to review my vocabulary as well as to learn new words. This teaching skill is very helpful not only for your students but also for our ESL students. I appreciate your kindness and four-day effort very much."

Peggy Ding

"I had a great time for a few weeks. Your pronunciation teaching method with the pictures and the key words was very impressive for me. Your method is very easy to learn and very interest. I believe all students will never forget your pronunciation instruction. You jumped Pat’s instruction into at the best time. Having been thought meaning or origin of words or sentences, your short mention helped our understanding and made our class vividly. I really appreciate for your teaching. If you come to Korea, don’t forget me and please call me."

Ock Hyung Lee
Seoul Korea

"Phyllis has taught the comprehensive rules of English pronunciation to two of us, who are both ESL students at UC Berkeley over this summer, about an hour a day for four days. She showed us her hand-made charts, which have the boxes for all the vowels and consonants, and major combinations of them. Her theory is that each letter and combination of letters have only one or two patterns of pronunciations. In her charts, each box has a key word for a particular letter(s) from the key word. It was really helpful for me to learn all the possible patterns of pronunciation. I knew how to read the English phonetic symbols in dictionary, and I knew several rules in pronunciation, which I can apply to many strange English words. However, I had not thought that there is such a comprehensive rule of pronunciation, which covers almost all sounds in English. After having studied the comprehensive rules, I can now feel confident in my pronouncing strange words. Furthermore, I can even correct my pronunciation by myself by using Phyllis's general rules. For instance, from her lesson, I have studied that "AU" has only one possible way to pronounce. Yet, since I had studied pronunciation word by word, I hadhappened to be pronouncing "cAUght" correctly while pronouncing "AUgust" wrong. As an international student from Japan, I think these pronunciation rules, which tell comprehensive connections between spelling and pronunciation, will work for international students very well because most of them tend to be good at spelling while they are bad at pronunciation. I hope more international students will have an opportunity to study these pronunciation rules. Finally, I really appreciate her teaching because it was very beneficial for me. Also, I feel that I am very lucky because I could study such a beneficial thing from her voluntary lessons after we bumped into each other at an ESL trip to a theater."

Hajime Ueda
Japan

"It was very delighted to have you here at Berkeley and to learn something from you. To let you know that your method for English pronunciation is certainly very useful for ESL student and us until now I still use it. As I told you before that this is the first time for me to learn English pronunciation rules. Although as you said the method that you have developed is not specifically targeted to be used for ESL student, but after you briefly show and teach me, I certainly sure that it can help the ESL student to pronounce the English words and vocabulary even better. The strong element in your method, I think, is the picture that you use to help student to remember what the right pronunciation associate with a specific word or group of words. I feel it help me a lot to remember the sound if I have to find the right pronunciation for some words or vocabulary or if I am not so sure how to pronounce it right."

Suraya Afiff
Indonesia

"Thank you for teaching us pronunciation. In my point of view, speaking English is the most difficult study of the four English communication skills – speaking, listening, reading and writing, but in your systematical teaching, I am aware that how to use key words to memory the pronunciation about some letters. Generally, how to pronounce long sounds or short sounds is a little difficult for Asian students. All in all, I appreciate you use your leisure time to teach us how to pronounce correct words."

Arthur Lim, uncertain of country of origin

"I think the method with the key words about pronunciation in English is a wonderful way to learn a great pronunciation, because we have the rules in every key word and we can remember it when we have new words."

Oscar Roberto Alvarez

“PhonicsQ has become a standard resource in many resource rooms and classrooms across Saskatchewan. Its versatility allows teachers to use this system with existing programs they already have. It is a simple and effective way to introduce each essential phonic component, to display it, and then review it the next day. The students easily master and use the cueing system to remember the alphabet sounds, and later, digraphs, blends, and vowel teams. Teachers are noticing increased independence when reading and writing, as students quickly refer to the PhonicsQ cards that are displayed in their classroom.”

Sheila Erickson, Educational Consultant
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

"Thank you for inviting me to visit you and your students yesterday. I am very excited about what I saw! The combination of the PhonicsQ program and your excellent teaching style is powerful and obviously produces phenomenal results. It's the best phonics program I have ever seen. I hope to use it in my own teaching. Thanks so much!"

Michele Domash, Special Ed Resource Room Teacher
Seattle, Washington

"I love your materials and have completely changed over from the Slingerland format to yours to teach my multisensory program."

Carol Hudson, Author of Cartoon Phonics and 3-Star Phonics
Newport Beach, California

"I really like your charts and cards and use them on a daily basis with my primary students. The phonogram chart has also been a tremendous help for my upper grade level students who have not mastered the phonograms and who have difficulty with spelling rules, etc. It has really helped them with the spelling, having the visual aid. Thank you for developing this product to help students and teachers!"

Shelly Kushner, Special Education Teacher
Anacortes, Washington

"I work as a learning specialist in North Clackamas School district in Milwaukie, Oregon. I wanted to let you know how excited I am about your phonics cueing system. I am using it daily with learning disabled students. I am also trying to share it with the rest of the teachers in our building so that we can get a uniform cueing system going throughout the building."

Claudia Olson
Milwaukie, Oregon

"We have received our PhonicsQ and, so far, we are very impressed. I purchased the program to use with our small group pull-out special education students, grades 4-6…"

Cheryl Gort
Granite Falls, WA

"I did not meet you but was given a set of your program to review for a graduate class from Madonna University in Livonia, MI. One of my professors who also is an elementary school principal just got it from a friend. We were all impressed. Now I am suddenly in lower elem. L.D., it will be perfect."

Sharon Boroff
Michigan