Secret Stories
Our curriculum incorporates the fundamentals of phonics in a playful and engaging manner, making it perfect for children in the early primary grades. By turning abstract phonics skills into fun and memorable "Secrets," children are drawn into a world of literacy that feels more like play than work. This approach ensures that learning is always age-appropriate, fostering a love for reading and writing from the very start. Dive deep with us as we unveil our secret methods.
Catering to Every Learning Style
Our curriculum caters to every child's unique learning style, ensuring no one is left behind. With a mix of state approved and scientifically proven curriculum, your child is guaranteed to take steady steps in their academic journey.
Visual Learners
For children who learn best through seeing, Secret Stories® offers a plethora of colorful and imaginative visuals that transform abstract phonics concepts into tangible ideas. The vibrant illustrations and story characters captivate children’s attention, making learning an exciting visual adventure. In every classroom setting there will be the full list of "secret stories" that kids can look around and pull from whenever they need.
Kinesthetic Learners
We energize learning with games that blend education and fun, including a letter scavenger hunt to boost letter recognition and phonics through active play. Kids also love our animal movement activities, where they embody animals associated with different letters and sounds, ensuring they have a blast while internalizing essential literacy skills. Among other games, we make the most of every minute by incorporating learning in the form of movement when the kids need a break.
Auditory Learners
Auditory learners thrive in an environment where they can hear and process information, and Secret Stories is designed to meet these needs. The rhythm and melody of the songs used make the learning memorable, ensuring that the phonics patterns stick in young minds. For example, even if you haven't heard it for years, the song "Mary had a little..." brings the song right back up. Our engaging songs and intriguing stories bring phonics skills to life so they can pull on what they've learned for life.
A Balanced Approach
Our combined curriculum is not just about phonics; it's about fostering a balanced learning experience. It nurtures both academic proficiency and holistic development, ensuring that children are well-rounded and ready for future challenges. Through engaging stories and interactive learning, Secret Stories promotes critical thinking and creativity, alongside phonics skills.
Interactive Activities
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Letter Hunts: Students go on scavenger hunts around the classroom or their homes to find and identify letters or phonics patterns in words, connecting the abstract concepts to real-world applications.
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Role-Playing: Children take on the roles of different letters or phonics patterns, acting out the stories and sounds, which helps to solidify their understanding in a fun and memorable way.
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Storytelling and Writing: Students create their own stories or sentences using the Secret Stories phonics patterns, encouraging them to apply their knowledge creatively.
Critical Thinking
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Problem-Solving with Phonics: The stories and activities encourage students to think critically about sounds and letters, promoting a deep understanding of how phonics patterns work together to create words.
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Making Connections: Students learn to connect the phonics patterns they’ve learned with other areas of study, fostering interdisciplinary thinking and showing them the real-world applications of their skills.
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Questioning and Exploration: The curriculum encourages students to ask questions and explore the ‘why’ behind phonics rules, helping to develop their inquiry skills and understanding of language.
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Analytical Thinking: Activities and stories are designed to help students analyze sounds, words, and patterns, strengthening their ability to decode and comprehend text.
This balanced approach ensures that children develop a lifelong love for learning and are well-prepared for their educational journey ahead.
From Questions to Confidence
Personalizing the Learning Experience
We understand that each child is unique, with their own way of processing information and making sense of the world. That’s why our Secret Stories curriculum is designed to engage various learning styles, ensuring that visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners all find connection and understanding in our classrooms. Here's how:
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Catering to Individual Learning Styles
We understand that each child is unique, with their own way of processing information and making sense of the world. That’s why our curriculum is designed to engage various learning styles, ensuring that visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners all find connection and understanding in our classrooms.
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Guided by Curiosity
Our approach goes beyond the traditional confines of a preset curriculum, allowing children’s questions and interests to guide parts of their learning journey. This adaptability ensures that learning feels relevant and engaging to each student, fostering a love for discovery and inquiry.
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Encouraging Questions and Exploration
When a child’s hand shoots up with a question, we see a golden opportunity. We create a safe and encouraging environment for children to voice their curiosities, using their inquiries as springboards for teachable moments that enrich the whole class's understanding.
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Practical Phonics
When a student stumbles upon a word they can't spell or read, it's a perfect moment to introduce the next ‘Secret Story’. By providing them with the phonics tools they need in the moment of need, we empower them to decode and understand, turning a moment of uncertainty into a triumph of learning.
With a focus on individualized learning and fostering curiosity, we ensure that every child feels seen, heard, and capable, building a foundation of confidence and love for learning that will serve them for years to come.
How it Works
Secret Stories is a brain based approach to traditional phonics instruction that accelerates learner access to the reading and writing code. This curriculum provides the logical explanations for letter sound behavior that learners brains crave. These logical explanations are shared in the form of “secret” stories, which are the secret reasons WHY letters make all of the crazy sounds that they do when they get together in words. The “Secrets” work seamlessly with any reading series or phonics program, fitting snugly between the teaching of reading and writing.
Decoding In Reading
Decoding is a crucial reading skill where kids learn to break down words into sounds and blend them back together to understand them. It combines knowing how letters sound and using that knowledge to read and understand written words.
Decoding allows kids to figure out most words they’ve heard but have never seen in print, as well as sound out words they’re not familiar with. The ability to decode is the foundation upon which all other reading instruction—fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc… are built.
What is Phonics and why is it important?
Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing that is based on the alphabetic principle—the understanding that letters represent sounds that form words. Scientific studies have consistently found that phonics instruction is the most effective way to teach children how to read. Without it, some children will develop serious reading difficulties.
Phonics enables beginning readers to decode unknown written words by sounding them out, which is an essential skill for independent reading. This is especially important given that most all printed words are unfamiliar to beginning grade learners. Knowing the sounds of letters and letter combinations also helps kids to know which letters to use for the sounds they hear in words they want to write.
Tapping Into Body Intelligence
Kids learn best when they're active, and moving helps them remember information better. Secret Stories takes advantage of this by using movement to quickly teach young kids the sounds letters make, usually in just a few weeks instead of a full school year. Plus, at the same time, kids are learning about phonics patterns, giving them even more tools for reading and writing. Which... sometimes takes years.
Shortening this learning curve is important because once kids know the sounds that letters are supposed to make, they begin to notice when letters aren’t “doing what they should,” and want to know their Secrets! This approach means kids can start using what they've learned right away, making learning easier and more fun.
A Brain Based Approach to Phonics Instruction
Research shows that almost all learning happens unconsciously, with our curriculum we continually incorporate things like visuals, sounds, and feelings tapping into various memory systems. By presenting information in diverse ways, we create and strengthen numerous neural connections, making learning more comprehensive and enhancing our ability to remember and use information.
Stanford University’s study on brain waves shows how different teaching methods affect reading development… “Teaching students to sound out “C-A-T” sparks more optimal brain circuitry than instructing them to memorize the word ‘cat,’ …even on future encounters with the word." Which is exactly why we don't do the work for them, we give them the tools to succeed, with our help just a step away.
Videos of Students Using Secrets
See how kids across the country are using Secret Stories to read complex words and rules with ease. Not only that but they can explain the reasoning for them too!
Your Peace of Mind
Addressing Your Concerns and Questions
