Testimonials about McRuffy Press Curricula

I have really enjoyed using this program. This is my second time using it. Both of my children, who learn differently, excelled with this program. My favorite part is that it goes slowly. My kindergartner did not know her letters when we started this school year. We had worked on them A LOT last year in preschool but she just didn’t get it. With McRuffy you only learn one or two letters at a time and you use them in words right away. Now that the letters had a purpose she learned them with little trouble. We are just finishing the short vowel readers and she is doing great. Both of my daughters enjoyed the simple stories and worksheets. I highly recommend the McRuffy program.

I just wanted to say that (Super Pork makes Friends) is the cutest reader I have read so far in the McRuffy Press First Grade SE Phonics curriculum.

My daughter's fluency was horrible before starting this curriculum. Her fluency in reading had greatly improved.

These readers have really made her want to read. She hated reading before! She has read Super Pork probably two times a day every day this week!

She even got 100 on her spelling test today and I really thought she would get confused with "er", "ir", and "ur" and she didn't!

I am so impressed with what this curriculum has done for my daughter.

Pamela

I have been using the Kindergarten Language Arts and Math program. My son and I both like it very much! Sure there are days when he would rather play :) but many times he is very eager to "do school":).

I think it is a thorough program, challenging but not overwhelming, just the right amount of manipulative and written work. The teachers manuals are excellent. They are all scripted (they tell you what to say to your child), they tell you what to do, list all materials needed (it is NOT an overwhelming list), and show you a picture of your child's workpage for the day (which is great so you don't have to flip open your childs book when preparing for a lesson (preparation usaully takes only a few minutes).

My son loves the colorful characters on the workbook pages and readers. Mr. Davis has a sense of humor, and my son and I enjoy laughing together at the funny things that happen to the characters in the stories, and in the workbooks. It's not all silliness, there are plenty of nonsensical sentences too.

My son is learning to read well, learn grammar concepts, comprehension skills, math skills, etc.

I have called Mr. Davis a few times with questions and a few comments, and he is very nice and welcomes both. I appreciate the hard work he and his fellow workers have put into this program. They have made it possible for me to do what I believe what I am to do, and that is to home educate my son. Thank you Mr. Davis and fellow associates!

Sincerely,
Alison of NY

PS- I just want to encourage those of you who are considering homeschooling, but are in doubt they can do it. I go through that, at times, but if you can read and write, and follow this program, as directed, I believe you and your child(ren), can be successful!

With seven children, I have tried many different phonics programs over the years. I believe I have looked at or used about everything available. Each program has its strengths and weaknesses. Some programs were too time intensive. With other children to educate, I did not have the extra time to prepare all that was necessary to implement their program, or the program was so shallow that I did ot feel like it gave adequate practice to prepare the student to be a good reader. I have also found many of the curriculum choices move either too fast or too slow.

When I found McRuffy, I knew I had finally found the phonics curriculum I needed to prepare my children to be good readers. It is the perfect balance for the home school mom of many.

Brian has done a terrific job at laying out the material in a concise easy to understand manner. It is not overwhelming for the child or the home school mom. You can open the teacher's book glance through the lesson and be ready to go. I have found the pace to be a perfect balance for my children, not too fast or too slow. The readers are not dry and boring, which is a big plus for motivating the children to read the story.

McRuffy is very affordable. The price includes your children's workbooks, readers, teacher manuals, and all charts and word lists needed. Everything you need is in one neatly organized box.

Thank you again Brian and McRuffy Press for a great phonics program.

Kim

Dear McRuffy Press,

I wanted to write to request a catalog or more information about the products you have available. But first I wanted to tell you how happy I am with the products I am currently using. First, a little background.

I taught my oldest daughter to read by writing a few letters on a piece of paper and telling her the sound they make. We would do simple things like sound out road signs or arrange magnetic letters on the fridge. She just seemed to “get it” on her own. She read very well at the age of 4 and I thought all my children would be so easy. Then along came her brother,who is very intelligent. He, however, didn’t “get it” at all. This is the child who can quote his favorite movie line for line, memorize lengthy bible verses for summer bible school and figured out the tip for the waitress at his 5th birthday dinner. But at the age of 6, was absolutely unable to tell me what the letter M sounded like. I was desperate, everyone said “Boys take longer, relax!” OK, but he was frustrated and embarrassed.

Now, I am a simple person, I prefer blank pieces of paper and a classic story book. That’s all it should take, in my opinion.

While at a friend’s house one day my son was looking at a Saxon phonics kit. His eyes lit up and he begged to start reading with this wonderful kit. I cringed and thought wow! That’s a lot of bells and whistles! I hate bells and whistles but if it helps him to read we should consider it. Then I found out the price. And once again I cringed, I was not ready to spend such an enormous amount of money on something that should be so simple! One day as I was preparing my homeschool order with Rainbow Resources, I read a description for your product. I thought it sounded good for the price and hey it was worth the try. I want you to know what I think now that we are just 3 weeks into the program- WOW! I LOVE IT! My son LOVES IT!

The [McRuffy Press] K[indergarten] phonics program has met both of our expecations. I love the simple lines and basic building blocks. There are enough bells and whistles to keep my son’s attention. His confidence is on the rise and he now tries to decode things outside of school time. Before he avoided the subject of reading like the plague!! Now he is sure of himself enough to guess at words he sees in pulbic and is showing interest in decoding words. This never happened before!

Tears and frustration have been replaced by excitement and curiosity. Embarrassment has changed to confidence. I can’t believe how such a simple thing can affect someone so much.

We are excited and relieved to have found your product. When people ask me whiat I use, and I tell them, they say they’ve never heard of it. That’s a shame. To waste so much money on so many phonics programs, when your product is so wonderful!

My 4 year old daughter is chomping at the bit to start the program ASAP. (I’m trying to give her big brother a head start.) I don’t know how long I can hold her back though, the otherday she “borrowed” his handwriting book and was filling in the spaces all by her lonesome behind the couch. Thank you! Thank you! I am so happy I took a chance on your company. The smile on my son’s face everyday as he gets a sticker for a job well done is such a blessing.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

BJW

I saw that someone had submitted a review for McRuffy Press Phonics and I just wanted to reiterate (sp?) how great this curriculum is. It’s like the antidote to Abeka, Bob Jones, etc.

Each lesson is short and completely laid out in the Teacher’s Manual. There isn’t a lot of extra reading and preparation for you to do just so you can be ready for the day’s lesson. You just open it up and go! There aren’t extra games and accessories to shell out for. All the games, flashcards, etc are included with the package. Now they are even offering the readers in color (we bought it when they were still only offering black & white).

This curriculum is so easy to use, easy on the pocketbook and fun. It’s very thorough, we are nearing the end of our school year and I can’t believe what he’s learning. I swear I didn’t learn this stuff until I was in second grade. It doesn’t push your kids in an unhealthy way though. If you start Kindergarten at a reasonable age, your child will most likely be able to handle everything this curriculum suggests. What is also great is that handwriting and spelling are also incorporated into the curriculum, and it’s all related with the lesson. There are readers to go with the lessons, so no going to the library with a list of what books to get to try to practice sounds being learned.

It has simplified our school experience in such a way that I am absolutely hooked and will definitely be ordering their 1st grade curriculum for next year.

Happy Learning!

L

For LA we are using McRuffy Press Phonics and Reading Program. I am very impressed with the curriculum. It covers all aspects of LA including phonics, reading, writing, spelling, grammar and handwriting. The pace of the lessons is just right with earlier lessons going slower, while later lessons slowly add more difficulty.

If anyone is interested they have samples on their website. I took a leap of faith and ordered all levels K-3. We are only using the K level right now. My dd started it from the beginning while my ds7 started half way through. (He has had some reading experience but I wanted to make sure that he wouldn’t be pushed too hard by starting in a higher level.)

Also the readers that come with the curriculum are the cutest, funniest, most creative readers that I have ever seen. My husband and I just sat one night and laughed as we read through the different readers and watched the rest of the story unfold in the illustrations.

Mariann

We are so excited about our childrens’ progress from using your curriculums that we had to write and let you know. We have two children: one in first grade and one in third grade. We have used your curriculums (reading and math) for both of the children since they were each in kindergarten. Both of our childrens’ abilities to read have far eceeded our expectations! We never expected either of them to be reading when they were in kindergarten - but they did! And our eight-year can read almost anything she can get her hands on!

Your curriculum has been easy to follow and teach. The children like the variety of activities in their day-to-day lessons.

We recommend your curriculums to everyone we know!

Thank you so much! And may God continue to bless your efforts!

From Proud and Happy Parents

I am thoroughly enjoying teaching my youngest son 1st grade with your materials. It is bringing back lots of great memories from my older two’s experience with your curriculum. I appreciate your timeliness in sending what I needed so quickly and it is always so well packaged. Everything you do is 1st class!

Thanks again!

Cathy

As a relatively new (1 year) homeschooling mom, I just want to say “thank you”. I pulled my son out of school, midway through first grade. To my horror, he had NO CLUE, what phonics was! I spent the remainder of that year trying to teach the basics of phonics. After much research on my part, I came across your curriculum.

My son has taken off with reading since we started this curriculum...[He was ] still need[ing] all the fundamentals of the phonics that he missed during kindergarten and mid way through first grade. That’s why your curriculum works so well, it teaches the new phonics skills while reviewing the old.

Thanks again for a wonderful curriculum and I look forward to another year with McRuffy Press.

Sincerely,

June

P.S. My son loves the books, he laughs with the stories and hates to stop...

I have searched endlessly for a phonics program that was done at a slower pace. We have tried Phonics Pathway, LLATL, 100 Easy Lessons, HOP, and others. Each went too quickly for my daughter. We needed something that had a slower progression through learning to read, had writing, spelling, language (somprehension, sentence structure, etc), and readers to go with the lessons.

BINGO! McRuffy Press has answered our prayers. This curriculum not only progresses at a slower pace, but is extremely easy to teach.

Each day the outline gives you - Lesson Objectives, Preparation, and Teaching. But unlike a lot of curriculums, this outline is short and to the point, not a lot of unnecessary reading for the teacher. Someone who has never taught a child to read can use this. You can look at it with no preparation beforehand. A quick glance and you have what you need to start the lesson.

The lessons are fun. interesting, and my daughter loves them. Up until now, she was extremely frustrated, and with a speech articulation delay reading was difficult. But this program has made her excited and the frustration level has disappeared to almost non-existant. There are fun games you can use to help with learning sounds and words that are easy to put together, each day she has a worksheet to do that is not at all too much, there are evaluations at the end of each week, and unit tests to make sure the student is getting it before moving on.

The readers are fantastic. You can order them black/white or colored. I paid the extra for the color which was not much at all. The readers we’ve done so far are about people and animals, not space creatures and such. She can relate to these books.

This curriculum also covers handwriting with copywork, Charlotte Mason technique. Further into it she started spelling and spelling tests. I like the fact that the spelling practice during the week allows her to look at the words while I quiz her. This goes along with Charlotte Mason and Ruth Beechick’s method of how we learn to spell by seeing the words. Most of us have come across a word that we cannot spell and try to remember what it looks like.

I cannot say enough about this program. It has saved our lives. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to teach their child to read in a steady manner, grasping each concept before moving on, and extremely easy for the teacher. This will make for a much better reader without the frustration.

I only wish I had this when I taught my oldest how to read. Maybe we wouldn’t have such a struggle as we do now.

Go to www.mcruffy.com to learn more about this curriculum and the others avaiable, This curriculum is worth every single bit of the $99.00 or in my case with the colored readers $119.95. (January 2005 pricing)

Bethany

We can't say enough positive things about [the McRuffy Press Phonics curriculum] but the results speak for themselves. Our youngest grandaughter, who won't be 4 until October, reads all the grade K books as well as the first two first grade books. Our oldest, who is 6 is grasping the concepts so quickly it's hard for me to keep up!

Both girls have developed such a love for books and reading due to your readers and the foundation taught.

We could go on and on, but we just want to say Thank You for the part you are playing in [our grandaughters'] education!

Gary and Karen