Milestone Books

information and samples of Rod and Staff curriculum

Rod and Staff Reading - Grade 1

Reading Grade 1:

We Learn About God

The 3rd Edition of the Grade 1 Bible Nurture and Reader Series provides texts and workbooks for most of the first grade pupil's basic needs—reading, phonics, language, spelling, penmanship, and Bible memory. Separate math, music, and art courses are available to round out the first grader's curriculum.

This edition has a greater emphasis on phonics than former editions. It contains considerably fewer sight words, and has much more drill and practice built into it. The stories are from the Bible, but have been rewritten to fit new word lists.

This course is arranged into 6 units, with a total of 160 lessons. Unit 1 has 15 lessons, Unit 2 has 25 lessons, and Units 3-6 have 30 lessons each. Each lesson has 6 divisions: Reader, Reading Workbook, Phonics Workbook, Penmanship Workbook, Worksheet(s), Practice Page(s), and sometimes Blackline(s). All of these divisions relate to one another in a given lesson, thus thoroughly acquainting the child with the lesson for each day.

Readers

We Learn About God (Units 1-2)
We Learn About God's People (Units 3-4)
We Learn More About God's People (Units 5-6)

The first unit introduces God as Creator, Provider, and Protector, and provides reading readiness lessons. Incorporating practical applications, the second unit reviews the story of Creation and the Fall of Man; and the third unit continues with the stories of Cain and Abel and Enoch and Noah. The fourth unit, in poetry form, includes practical applications and accounts from the Creation until after the Flood. The fifth unit has stories about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The sixth unit has stories about Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew.

Reading Workbooks

The reading workbooks have 2 pages for each lesson. The exercises are closely associated to the corresponding lessons in the readers. These exercises include practice with the vocabulary words, practice in writing sentences, drills for developing comprehension skills, and seatwork in various forms.

Phonics Workbooks

Each phonics lesson contains 4 pages of seatwork. The first unit teaches the basic short vowel sounds and some single consonants. Unit 2 teaches more single consonant sounds. Unit 3 teaches long vowels and some of their various spellings, along with most consonant digraphs and blends. Unit 4 teaches vowel digraphs, special vowel sounds, some suffixes, and two-syllable words. Unit 5 introduces silent letters, word endings, compound words, and special spellings. Unit 6 introduces prefixes, teaches more special endings and spellings, and has much review.

Penmanship Workbooks

The penmanship workbooks that accompany this series teach strokes needed to form each letter as it is introduced in the lessons. The lessons provide much practice to develop the needed printing skills, and students also write their spelling words as part of their penmanship lesson.

(The Penmanship for Christian Writing Series is a stand-alone handwriting course that introduces letters according to similarity in strokes. Either system can be used very effectively.)

Worksheets

The worksheets provide constructive seatwork and exercises in cutting, pasting, etc. In the first four units, the worksheets are closely associated with the reading lesson or the Bible memory verse. In the fifth unit are language worksheets, which include copying poems, drawing simple pictures, and writing a simple description on their own. A picture dictionary is made in the last unit.

Practice Pages

These worksheets provide much practice and review of various skills in word recognition, reading comprehension, phonics, sequencing, penmanship, and much more. The teacher's manuals direct the timing of their use.

Blacklines

Blacklines are reproducible worksheets that provide much practice and review of various phonetic skills for those who need more practice, or for those who need extra, profitable seatwork to keep them occupied. The blacklines also include reading and phonics tests, word-helper charts and patterns to make word-helper flash cards, edge lists (used with a timer to improve reading speed), and more. The phonics teacher's manual directs the timing of their use.

Teacher's Manuals

Two teacher's manuals are needed to cover the six units of this course. The Reading Teacher's Manual gives general suggestions, drills, and detailed procedures for teaching the reading-thinking skills, vocabulary concepts, and reading comprehension skills that pertain to each lesson. The Phonics Teacher's Manual gives specific instructions for teaching the letter sounds—how they fit together to make words and how they are taken apart to spell words. Instructions on when and how to use the penmanship workbooks, worksheets, practice sheets, and blacklines are given in the teacher's manuals, which also include reduced copies of workbook and practice pages, and the blacklines with the answers in red. By carefully following the directions, the inexperienced teacher can successfully teach this course.

This site is operated by Milestone Books. We are an independent vendor of materials by Rod and Staff Publishers of Crockett, KY. The samples on this site are taken from copyrighted materials, and are shown for information purposes only.