Educators worldwide acknowledge that the greatest key to a child’s success in education is reading–smooth, skillful, proficient skills in reading rapidly and understanding what is read.
The key to the Victory Drill Book’s effectiveness is that lists of words are strategically grouped together by phonetic sounds. The student reads the lists of words while being timed. As the sounds are mastered, students become progressively better prepared for paragraph reading, working toward an eighth-grade reading level. In the process, the emphasis on speed enhances the transition from “sounding out” to efficient reading. Phonics lists and spelling rules are in the front of the book and the rest is devoted to the word lists that are the heart of the program.
First published in 1970, the 2009 edition makes a few significant changes, reordering the order in which sounds are introduced and introducing new stories. The lists are mostly the same, with tweaks here and there. The original edition includes rules in the back of the book, while here they are added to the beginning. Also, the following guideline for reading speed per grade level is no longer in the book, but is helpful to have:
Minimum Speeds for Page Mastery:
- Pre-K - 20 words per minute
- K - 30 words per minute
- Grade 1 - 40 words per minute
- Grade 2 - 55 words per minute
- Grade 3 - 70 words per minute
- Grade 4 - 85 words per minute
- Grade 5 - 100 words per minute
- Grade 6 - 115 words per minute
- Grade 7 - 130 words per minute
- Grade 8 - 130 words per minute
The Victory Drill Book offers an immediate edge in developing those life-shaping skills by providing a systematic approach to high speed phonetic reading. Designed for either a total-class or individualized approach, the Victory Drill Book is as effective in a home-school setting as in a structured classroom, producing outcomes that will help ensure students’ ongoing success in every other segment of their education.
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