Pathway Readers
The Books
We use Pathway readers as our developmental readers
for our reading program. We
introduce the new words for each story, review them, and then read the story.
In the beginning, I used prewritten word lists that I obtained from Ms. Pecci.
These proved essential to our success. The word lists told step by step how to
introduce each word in the three books of the first grade series. While we were
reading through the first grade readers, we were learning and reviewing the
essential phonics that go along with this reading program.
Once we finished the first grade books, we moved on
to the second grade series. I typed up a list of the words for each story using
the list in the back of the books. I printed out two copies. On one, I marked
all the words with uniform decoding to use as a teacher’s reference during word
introduction. The other copy was for Eric to mark when we introduced the words.
Every day, we would get out our copies of the word lists and go through the
words prior to reading the story.
We are now in the third grade series. We are still
using the word lists in the back to introduce the new words before every story.
We plan to continue this practice for at least two more grade levels.
WARNING:
Climbing Higher, the 2-3 reader in the Pathway
series, is different from the rest of the series. It is harder and in smaller
font than the third grade readers!
It also does not have a word list in the back (although the words are
listed in the accompanying workbook). We read this book between the 3-1 and 3-2
readers.
The Workbooks
We started using the workbooks when we started the first
grade series. I went through the workbook and crossed out any phonic
instruction that was not compatible with our reading program. There was a great
deal of phonic instruction, however, that was compatible and we left those
exercises in. I do not use the Teacher’s Editions so I do not know what they
contain.
I like the Pathway workbooks. They start simple and
coherently progress in difficulty. As you work through the workbooks, you can
see how they introduce certain language arts topics without using excessive
jargon. For example, they might have the child circle a word that means almost
the same as another one, but they don’t bog the child down with formal definitions
of “synonym” until later. They first work on vocabulary by having the child
write the missing word in a blank in a sentence and then progress to having
them match words with definitions. The workbooks also reinforce some of the
behavioral lessons covered in the books.
Thoughts on the Pathway Readers
I am not a religious person so I was leery of using
an Amish set of readers. To my surprise, I have been absolutely delighted with
this series. The stories are real and address many childhood issues in a straightforward
and no-nonsense way. The children make mistakes; they misbehave and they are
corrected in a way that teaches them the way to behave without judging or
demeaning them. Moral values such as kindness, carefulness, ‘the Golden Rule”,
responsibility and so on are introduced in the setting of real events, not
fantasy, that children can
recognize and relate to.
Direct religious instruction is not a part of this
series. We are currently in the third grade readers and the only direct
reference I have seen to God or the bible was a single bible quote in one
story. I believe that the morals and behavior taught to the children in the
stories are ones that we would all like to teach to our children, regardless of
religious affiliation.
One particular aspect of this series that appealed to
me was the way it teaches unpleasant emotions. My child has trouble
understanding complex emotions such as jealousy and shame. In this series,
complex emotions are described from a child’s perspective using the actual
feelings and thoughts that a child might have.
Here’s an excerpt from a grade two reader. Rachel,
the six year old carelessly left her brother’s baseball bat out and a horse
stepped on it, breaking it in half. She fitted it back together and put it away
so it wouldn’t look broken.
Here is the description of how she feels:
“It was late when Jonas and Paul came home from the
field that evening. Everyone was busy. No one had time to play ball. No one
found out that the bat was broken.
Nancy tried hard to act happy, but deep down she was
not happy at all. She ate supper, even if she was not hungry. She tried to
laugh, even if she felt like crying.
At last it was time to go to bed. Nancy was glad. She
wanted to get away from everyone else.
Nancy could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the two pieces of
that broken bat. “I will have to tell Dad and Mother about it, “ she said to
herself. But then she thought,
“What will Paul say? He will not like me if he finds out it was me.”
When there was no more work for Nancy that morning,
Mother told her she could play until it was time to get dinner. Nancy did not feel like playing. She
did not even feel like finding Nelson.
She walked around the house and sat down on the front steps.
Dad came home from the field and went into the
shop. How Nancy’s heart jumped
when she saw Dad go into the shop! “He will find the broken bat,” she thought.
“I just know he will.”
Note that the words “ashamed” or “guilty” don’t
appear. The actual physical manifestations are described so that children can
recognize the feeling.
Here’s another example. In the previous story Rachel
and her brother Peter had a fight (which included some hitting and kicking!).
Their mother introduces the Golden Rule to them and talks to them about it,
using the specifics of the fight.
In the next story a man buying eggs from the family gives Rachel a bag
of candy.
“Rachel was very pleased with that bag of candy. “The
man gave it for me, didn’t he?” she asked. “The candy is for me and not for the
boys.”
Mother looked at Rachel. “Did you forget the Golden
Rule?” she asked.
Rachel started to think. She could not see what the
Golden Rule had to do with her candy.
The Golden Rule said you should not hurt other people if you did not
want them to hurt you. It didn’t
say a word about getting candy from a man who came to buy eggs.
“What if the man had given the candy to Peter?” asked
Mother. “Would you want Peter to eat it all by himself?”
“No, I would want him to give some of it to me, “
said Rachel
“Then what should you do?” asked Mother.
For a time Rachel did not say anything. She knew what Mother wanted her to do
with the candy, but that was not what Rachel wanted to do. “The man gave it for me, so it is my
candy,” she said.
“Yes, it is your candy and you may do with it what
you want to do, “ said Mother. “You may eat it all, or you may give some of it
to the other children. Just try to
do what you would want Peter to do if he had the candy.”
Rachel looked into the brown bag. How good the candy looked! How she
wanted to eat it! But when she thought of the Golden Rule, she could not eat
the candy. She just couldn’t.
All at once Rachel knew what she was going to
do. “There is enough candy for all
of us, “ she said to Mother. “I will put it away for a surprise after supper.
Then we will all help each other to eat it.
“That is a very good idea,” said Mother. The big
smile on her face showed how pleased she was.
Rachel put the candy away. She did not say a word
about it to anyone—not even to Peter. All afternoon Rachel could not forget
about that candy. Just thinking about it and about the surprise she had for the
others made her feel happy.”
In this excerpt, a child’s perspective is used and
goes through the thinking that might go through the mind of a child in the same
situation. I like this because the reading child can really relate!
Sources for Pathway Readers