You will see UNBELIEVABLE RESULTS!

Zoo-phonics agrees heartily and conforms with current research that states that children need an awareness and understanding that "the sounds paired with the letters are one and the same as the sounds of speech." 1

According to Marilyn Jager Adams, "Research shows that the very notion that spoken language is made up of sequences of these little sounds does not come naturally or easily to human beings." 2 Because Zoo-phonics uses Animal/Letters and Body Signals, students gain easy access not only to the concepts of the alphabet, but also to the shapes and sounds, and what to do with the alphabet. From this, children have the building blocks to build important, and enormous words! 1 Phonemic Awareness in Young Children, by Marilyn Jager Adams, Barbara R. Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, Terri Beeler, Paul H. Brookes, Publishers (Baltimore, etc., 1998). 2 IBID

The Effects of Zoo-phonics in the Kindergarten Year
By Alexa Stafford Horne,
As presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University, Fall 2002

Graphed Results--Kindergartens and First Grades using Zoo-phonics
Westwind Elementary, Phoenix, AZ, Kindergarten using Zoo-phonics 2001-02&2002-03 school years
Julliette Low Elementary, Anaheim, CA, Kindergarten using Zoo-phonics 2001-02&2002-03 school years
Julliette Low Elementary, Anaheim, CA, First Grade using Zoo-phonics 2002-03 school year
Robert H. Down Elementary, Pacific Grove, CA, Kindergarten using Zoo-phonics 1991-92 to 2000-01 school years

Zoo-phonics Scope and Sequence: A scope and sequence of phonemic concepts and syntactic skills. (2 pages)

No child slips between the cracks with Zoo-phonics!
"Just wanted to write to let you know I am eating crow in North Carolina. I was just not sure about the program and was concerned about having to implement Zoo-phonics. On Wednesday, I started talking about the animals and introducing the signals and sounds. The children loved them and I thought to myself skeptically, "Of course they love them, they are animals!" On Thursday, I went over the signals again, and was completely amazed that they knew them all. Even my students that only had learned about 2 sounds out of the 18 we had already learned were producing the correct sound and using the signals. On Friday, I decided to give a little spelling test. I was just going to use the ad family. Boy, was I shocked and surprised when ALL of the students made a 100%! Even my little boys that are struggling! They were signaling with me and then they would look up at the Nature Cards and make the connection between the animal and the signal and the sound! Wow!

I tried again on Monday and used a variety of CVC words. I did not stick to a word family because surely it had been a fluke. NOPE! Everyone made a 100%. Okay, I thought. It works! So now I am the biggest supporter. Sign me up! Let me sing your praises. My students are writing better. They are sounding out words to create beautiful sentences and stories. When they come to a word they don't know in a book, they signal it out and figure it out on their own! They love the program and BEG to do it. I am now a Zoophonics Teacher!!"
— Kelly Hain, Teacher, Hurley Elementary, Salisbury, NC

"Your use of picture mnemonics to teach letter-sound relations is indeed supported by findings of our 1983 study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology. In this study we found in two experiments that beginning readers learned letter-sound relations more effectively when they were taught associations between objects having shapes that resembled the shapes of the letters and having names that began with the sound to be associated with the letters. You have applied this principal to all of your letters. In addition you have included body movements that relate to the objects. The evidence suggests that this should help children learn these associations more effectively. Help in learning letter-sound associations is particularly important for children who come to school without much knowledge about letter shapes, names and sounds and for children who have a difficult time remembering associations by rote. In addition, building letter instruction around animals and body movements make learning more fun."
Professor Linnea C. Ehri
— Program in Educational Psychology, CUNY Graduate School, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY