Our Story

It started with a child and a list of words. Tyler was a smart, precocious child. His older brother was a quick learner, too. But there just wasn't an easy way help them make the connection between the sounds they knew/heard/said with written words.

Their parents tried basic ("leveled") books and electronic spelling boards. Tyler's older brother seemed to respond to spelling out short, 3-letter words (like, M-O-M and D-A-D).

So, when it came time to teach Tyler, his dad (Joe) thought that the repetition of reviewing with him 3-letter words with the same endings might help him make the connection between sound and written word. It would also give him an easy way to practice decoding (reading words) and blending (sounding out words). Since he could sound out the letters, if he was exposed to words like Bat, Cat, Hat, Mat, Rat, surely he would eventually catch on. And it worked!

We've tried this method with other children, and have seen similar success. However, some children (including Tyler's younger sister) were just not as interested reviewing a list of words.

So, Joe began writing short, whimsical stories using the words from the lists in order to capture a little one's attention. Then, he combined a collection of stories with the word lists into the EZ-PZ Reading Book Series™.