Scholastic Week By Week Phonics and Word Study for the Intermediate Grades, Grades 3-6

Most fluency practice is geared for the lower grades. This is a wonderful resource for middle level students, particularly those who have dyslexia or those who simply need to boost their confidence in their fluency and pronunciation. Pros: • Sound phonics teaching (aligns great with the All about Reading curriculum) • Easy to follow format. Each week is structured with (1) instructions for teacher in a mini-lesson, (2) student activity, and (3) speed drill. • Speed drills are particularly exemplary. For myself, I copied the speed drill page and put the page in a plastic sleeve. Using a dry erase marker, it is easy to mark when the student misses the word, and to mark the last work they got correct in 60 seconds. • Emphasis is on improvement, not perfection. The speed drill page has place for students to record their timings over multiple days. My student loved the competition to beat their previous scores and were often eager to retake the timed tests to improve their times! • Activities varied from “cut apart” and categorize similar words, to puzzles and word webs. • “Nonsense word” activites are wonderful to be sure the student is applying the phonics rule, rather than memorizing or recognizing the real words. Cons: • Starting week 29 (out of 35) the words for the speed drill were longer, and therefore the font was smaller, making it more difficult to read quickly. To compensate for this, when I copied that page, I increased the size and made the copy landscape. • This is the only book of its kind. I wish there were additional versions to continue this practice.

Excellent for my 5 year old

This book would be great to help drive instruction in phonics or to help a parent or tutor teaching a struggling student phonics concepts but it’s not good for a struggling reader to complete independently because they need a lot of feedback.

Varied exercises make it fun and not boring. Appropriate for age/grade.

Love this workbook! Finally got a book that matches exactly like advertised. I’m so excited and can’t wait to use this book with child. Only small complaint is that the book had a small chipping on the corner. But that’s not a big issue. I still gave it a five star!

The 34 phonics concepts presented here are good, but the speed drills and the "most common prefix" pages in each lesson don't correlate with the lesson concepts in any way. Each of those lists has 2-syllable, 3-syllable, and 4-syllable words in it. The kids who need to learn to decode multi-syllable words instead need to start out with decoding 2-syllable words, then 3-syllable words, they 4-syllable words. Very few of the kids that need extra help can jump into a mix like that. I'll still use the lists in this book to help me organize more systematic, sequential drills. I'll also use many of the lesson concepts, but they'll be presented with just the words I'm working with at the time: 2-syllable, then 3-syllable, then 4-syllable words.

This is based on 300 most common syllables. Has an easy generic mini lesson plan for a week of study.

We homeschool and had my son tested for a disability since his reading was so bad. His IQ was great. His comprehension was 10th grade, but his speed was 2nd. Most of the reading help books are to build comprehension. We needed fluency. This was one of the few 1-off books for speed and fluency in older kids. I was glad to not have to buy a while “program” but still get some drills and practice lessons. He is improving.

We’re three weeks in with Week-by-Week Phonics and Word Study Activities for the Intermediate Grades, and I’m already seeing a noticeable difference in my daughter’s reading and spelling skills. She’s in grade 6 and has always struggled a bit with phonics-based retention, but this resource has been a game-changer. The activities are well-structured, age-appropriate, and manageable—nothing overwhelming or too “young” for her level. Best of all, she’s actually retaining the information, which is something we haven’t seen with other programs. It’s been a positive experience so far, and I’m feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time. Highly recommend for any parent or teacher supporting an upper-elementary learner who needs a confidence boost with foundational reading skills.

Great book for learning decoding and prefixes/suffixes

Easy to use and well researched!

This book is amazing and easily used in the classroom.

I purchased a number of books for phonics/word study for my grade 6 class. This one was the best by far. Kids really enjoy the activities, which are routinized and easy-to-follow once you’ve run through week 1.