Rod and Staff Reading

by Jennifer Z
(New York)

Product:Rod and Staff
Subject:Reading
Levels Used:1st through 7th skipping 6th grade
Dates Used: 2003 to 2008

Likes:We really appreciate that Rod and Staff uses scripture as the basis for its readers in grades 1st through 4th. I have learned more through these readers than I did in any Sunday school class growing up.

We do use the workbook. I appreciate all the activities that cover vocabulary, sequencing, finding the main idea and other comprehension questions. In addition, it was helpful for one of my daughters to be taught both phonics and sight words. Without sight words she would have really struggled with first grade reading. We have continued to use Rod and Staff reading for our children from 1st through 4th grade.

Dislikes: Even though I do use the workbooks, I do not think they are very child friendly. They expect a lot of writing that my children were never capable of doing. We do a lot of the comprehension sections orally. I try to add more writing questions as they get older, but I do not do outlines or sentence answer questions. It would take us all morning to write out the answers as the workbook asks the child to do.

I also do not use the phonics aspect of the reading program. I found that it moved faster than my children were ready for in the early grades.

I stopped using the reading program after 4th grade because my children did not care for the stories in the older grade readers, and it is not as well supported by the workbooks in the older grades as it is in the younger grades. They did update the 5th grade materials, and I think they are better. The 7th grade book has questions in the book. It is expected that the student will write out the answers on notebook paper. There is a small workbook to go along with the 7th grade reader, but it is not well written.