Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the right age to begin learning?
• How long will the entire course take?
• What is the best place to start?
• What do I do if I have a new student who has never used a phonics method before?
• What is so good about a phonics literacy program?
• Is the Fitzroy Programme expensive?
• What is the main advantage of learning with the Fitzroy Method?
• Will the course work for students with learning difficulties?
• Is the Fitzroy Method successful with dyslexic students?
• What is the difference between a letter name and a letter sound?
• Can the Fitzroy Method be taught at home?
• Will my child read fluently by the end of the course?
• Can I mix reading programs?
• Where can I get more information about using the Fitzroy Method teaching materials?
• What do users say about the Fitzroy Method?

For a fuller understanding of how phonics programmes work, try our free phonics e-course for parents.

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What is the right age to begin learning?

As could be expected, the right age to begin learning to read and write varies from child to child. As a general guideline, children generally will not have any problems starting the Fitzroy Method after four years of age. By then their spoken English is of a sufficient level to understand the programme.

Many children can begin at a younger age, however. It is not uncommon for children to start at three years of age, and some even begin at two and a half.

The main point to remember if you are considering starting your child before four years of age is that she needs to be both mentally and psychologically ready to begin.

Some children might find learning to read and write too difficult if they begin early, while others - who might intellectually be capable - are not emotionally ready to sit still and learn.

If your child is not ready - for whatever reason - it is best to wait a while longer before starting to learn to read and write.

If you don't, there is the danger that reading and writing will become a negative experience for your child. If that happens, you will run up against a psychological barrier every time you wish to sit your child down for a lesson.

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How long will the entire course take?

The entire course is designed to be completed by the end of primary school, i.e. after six or seven years.

Generally speaking, however, the 70 Readers are finished a little earlier, usually some time in two years of primary. Those catching up may need the first year or two of secondary to complete the program. After that children can move on to wider literature - for instance the Harry Potter books - while finishing off the Fitzroy Word Skills books (that contain the grammatical component of the course.)

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What is the best place to start?

The first thing a child needs to learn are the basic sounds the letters make. The Fitzroy Method has three main teaching materials to accomplish this task: the Alphabet Book, the Fitzroy Sounds and the Alphabet computer programme.

All of these products teach every basic letter sound, but they will be learnt more quickly and effectively when used together.

Remember only to learn the letters on a need to know basis, i.e. as they come up in the readers.

For more information on how to use these products, see the user guides for each of them. There is a link to each user guide at the end of each product description.

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What do I do if I have a new student who has never used a phonics method before?

Since the every Reader in the Fitzroy Method builds on the one(s) before it (i.e. Reader 32 presupposes a knowledge of all the material found in the first 31 Readers), you can't skip ahead or read them out of order.

It is therefore essential that you have covered and understood all of the new material found in a Reader before moving on to the next.

If you have a new student, however, and don't have time to go back over the earlier Readers (something we strongly recommend), you can at least consult the Master List found in the Teacher's Guide. Here you can find out what new material (i.e. new letters, new sounds and special [i.e. sight] words) has been covered in the Readers preceding the one you currently wish to study.

Once you have the list of new material found in the Readers, you must at least make sure your student knows this before continuing with the Reader you are currently on. This, while less effective, is certainly much quicker than Reading through all of the Readers themselves.

If done thoroughly, the new student should be able to start reading at the place the rest of the students are up to without too many problems.

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What is so good about a phonics literacy programme?

The wonderful thing about a phonics literacy programme is that as soon as you have learnt the 26 basic letter sounds you can already start to read and write thousands of English words - even ones you have never seen before.

For a more detailed explanation of how phonics systems work, see part 1 of the Fitzroy Learning Centre's free phonics e-course.

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Is the Fitzroy Programme expensive?

While the complete Fitzoy programme is more expensive than some programmes to begin with, in the long run it represents very good value for money. There are two main reasons for this:

1. The Fitzroy programme contains no unnecessary teaching materials. This means that you will never pay for anything that doesn't add real educational value to our programme.
      Many other courses include all sorts of bits and pieces that add very little real value, thereby adding greatly to the final cost of the programme, even if, individually, each item is relatively cheap.
       Our programme isn't like that. It only contains what is necessary - and no more!
2. Our course is guaranteed to produce outstanding results. There is a strong argument that it is the most systematic phonics course available to primary school students in the world today, and bit by bit it will smoothly take your child to a high level of literacy skills.
      Given that the cost of our complete programme (i.e. our Master Pack) works out to about $150 Australian dollars per primary school year, it is ultimately great value.
      As the saying goes: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!".

For more thoughts on the value of our course, see our phonics pricing policy.

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What is the main advantage of learning with the Fitzroy Method?

The main thing to recommend the Fitzroy Method over other phonics programs is that it is systematic.

In fact, not only is it systematic, it is arguably the most systematic primary level phonics program available in the world today.

This means that your child will always feel on top of the reading and writing learning process, since every step of the way is carefully calibrated.

The result of this is that every Reader always appears easy to read. This creates a series of success experiences that boost confidence and encourage your child to continue learning.

Just as importantly, the systematic approach guarantees that your child - even if not blessed with huge amounts of reading and writing talent - will nevertheless learn to read and write fluently.

Note: To get an indication of how our Readers and other teaching materials progress, please look through our product descriptions.

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Will the course work for students with learning difficulties?

The Fitzroy Method works particularly well for children with learning difficulties. In fact, over three and a half thousand Australian schools have invested in our teaching materials, many using them for enrichment (special needs) classes.

The two main reasons our phonics program works so well for children with learning difficulties are:

1. Phonics programs are logical. That means that children learn to 'decode' words, making it unnecessary to remember thousands upon thousands of new words. All they need to learn are some simple spelling rules and patterns and they can read huge quantities of words - including ones they haven't seen before!
2. The Fitzroy Method is systematic. This creates an environment where even slower learners readily understand what they are being taught, because no step in the learning process is ever too great.
      By taking many small steps, each step becomes easy and enjoyable.

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Is the Fitzroy Method successful with dyslexic students?

Since phonics methods teach children to sound out words, this makes it far easier to remember the correct placement of letters in words than it is with other systems. To spell a word correctly, you just need to sound it out in its component parts.

The Fitzroy Method systematically teaches all basic letter sounds, digraphs, spelling rules and special (sight) words that a child needs to sound out even relatively complex texts. This means that while dyslexic students will take longer to learn to read and write than other students, with time and patience they can still reach a high level of literacy.

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What is the difference between a letter name and a letter sound?

The letter name is what we normally say when talking about a letter or spelling out a word, e.g. Cee, Ay, Tee, for cat. The letter sound is the sound the letter makes, i.e. c as in cap, a as in apple and t as in top.

For more information, see our free phonics e-course for parents

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Can the Fitzroy Method be taught at home?

The Fitzroy Method can easily be taught at home thanks to its strong phonics base and systematic structure.

The method stays the same from beginning to end, so that once you have learnt how to approach any of our teaching materials, you will always be equipped to use them - no matter what level you are up to in our course.

Most people also find the logical nature of our program simple to use since you can always see how each different part in it fits together.

What is more, every Fitzroy product has an accompanying user guide to tell you how to get the most out of it. This, along with our Teacher's Guide, makes teaching the Fitzroy Method easy for anyone - even parents will no teaching experience.

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Will my child read fluently by the end of the course?

Children who have completed our course will be able to read a great many newspapers, magazines and novels.

Most children start reading wider literature - like Choose Your Own Adventure Books - while they are still on the Readers (usually around pack 41-50), and move on to Harry Potter and other books at the conclusion of the course.

In most cases, the transition from Reader to novel is a smooth one.

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Can I mix reading programs?

The Fitzroy Method is systematic and complete. As such there is no need to mix it with any other programs.

If you do wish to mix it with another program - the most logical suggestion being an on-line learning course - then you must make sure that you still complete all components of the Fitzroy course. If you do that then you can mix in other courses while still knowing your child will get a solid reading and writing education.

Even so, there is a danger to mixing and matching. The Fitzroy Method is precisely calibrated. This means that no step along the way is ever too hard for your child. This creates what we call 'success experiences' that encourage children. But if you use material from other courses there is no guarantee that it will be set at an appropriate reading level. This might well result in a drop in reading confidence for you child since there are likely to be several words that cannot be read. This is not a good thing

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Where can I get more information about using the Fitzroy Method teaching materials?

The four best sources of information for the Fitzroy Method are:

1. The teaching materials information pages. To view them online, simply go to the phonics products page and follow the links.
2. The teaching materials user guides. There is a link to every user guide at the bottom of each product information page.
3. The Teacher's Guide to the Fitzroy Method. The Teacher's Guide not only has a full description of our teaching methodology, it also contains over 100 pages of teacher resources, such as spelling tests, end of Reader level tests, lesson plans, and much more. For a full description, go to the product information page.
4. Fitzroy Method Professional Development Courses. These courses are held throughout Australia, as well as in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. To find out where the next course is, go to the phonics courses information page.

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What do users say about the Fitzroy Method?

Users unanimously love the Fitzroy Method. It's easy to understand; the results are rapid - and it has a long history of giving struggling readers new confidence. Have a look at some of our testimonials.

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Fitzroy Range

• Alphabet Book
• Alphabetics game
• Answer Books
• Audio CDs
• Fitzroy Files
• Fitzroy Sounds
• Phonics Readers
• Phonics Software
• Teacher's Guide
• Word Families
• Word Skills