Resources 

 Here is the Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor in paperback. The textbook is printed in Manuscript Handwriting Font. This special Self-Tutor edition has been designed to couple handwriting, spelling, and reading instruction in a powerful multi-sensory manner.  

Self-Tutor Chart for recording progress on each of the Three Stages. 

Here is the free pdf of the  Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics : Don Potter's Self-Tutor Edition

 Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics Flashcards.  I made these cards to exactly reproduce Sam's original cards, but mine are single-sided and the vowels are in red.  These cards are effective for developing fluent word identification. Each card has several words featuring the lesson's spelling pattern. 

Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor Flashcards for Step 1 for developing the Phonics Reflex. These 111 cards are best taught in a fun game format such as Go Fish. Once the initial phonics is developed in Step 1 (short a words) with these cards, the students will make very quick progress mastering the rest of the program.  Interestingly, many kids - dyslexics in particular - profit from reading the words upside-down, an idea I got from David. A. Kilpatrick's Equipped for Reading Success.

Here is link to purchase the First Readers from Amazon.  There are 10 decodable readers in this anthology. Each reader is correlated with a corresponding stage (skill set) in each of the 10 Steps of the program. A special fluency measurement feature has been added to the program to enable teachers to determine reading speeds in words per minute for each page. 

Here is the free pdf version of the The First Readers

Here is a pdf of the Power Point of the First Readers. This is ideal for reading on a computer, tablet, or projecting on an overhead screen.  The font is Times New Roman.

There is my cursive edition of the First Readers that can be purchased from Amazon to coordinate cursive handwriting instruction with reading.  Students who finish this book will be able to read cursive fluently. It can be used AFTER the students demonstrate mastery with edition with handwriting font. The cursive editions is quite helpful for kids with dyslexia. 

Here is a special edition (free pdf) of the First Readers in Uppercase Letters. This special edition is designed to help students who have developed a holistic reflex to overcome their guessing habit. The elimination of the ascenders (d, b, t, etc) and descenderes (g, p, y, etc) eliminates the word-shape-clue and encourages the students to read by looking at all the letters w/o guessing. 

Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor Phonogram Flashcards. These cards are modeled after Romalda Spalding's Writing Road to Reading but adapted to the spelling patterns in Samuel L. Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics. I created these phonograms for my second-grade bilingual class at the Murry Fly Elementary School in Odessa, Texas for the 1999-2000 school year. I found them very helpful. They can be introduced when each letter or letter team (digraphs & diphthongs) is taught.  This exposes the students to the multiple sounds of any vowel the first time the short vowel is introduced.  I have taught the program with and without these phonograms.  I should mention that I am not currently using them, but teachers familiar with The Writing Road to Reading find them useful.  They teach a "set for variability" from the start of reading instruction. 

The Revised Blumenfeld Oral Reading Assessment Test (BORAT). This is a lightly revised edition of Mr. Blumenfeld's Oral Reading Assessment. It assesses students' decoding skills following the scope and sequence of his Alpha-Phonics Primer. Some attempt was made at norming it at one school. It would be interesting to norm it with a larger and broader testing sample. 

Here is  Mr. Blumenfeld's original phonics program from chapter 10 of his 1973 book, The New Illiterates.  It gives a lot of  insights into the design of the program and how best to teach it.  Here is the free Archive copy: The New Illiterates: and how to keep your child from becoming one.  This book is worth a year's college course in reading and phonics - with the best professor. 

Here are the pdf files for making the Stages Folders. The label for the front cover is on the last page.  

    Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor: Stage 1: Lift Off = Short Vowels &  Consonant Digraphs (22 pages)

    Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor: Stage 2:  Earth Orbit = More Consonant Digraphs and Beginning & Ending Blends (20 pages)

    Alpha-Phonics Self-Tutor: Stage 3: Moon Landing : Long Vowels, Other Vowel Spelling, Silent Letters, etc.  (52 pages)

Here is a helpful tool I created 2009 and recently updated, Printing Road to Reading and Spelling: Alpha-Phonics Practice Sentences. Every decoding skill taught is contained in these sentences. They come from the 2005 revised edition. 

For more essays and other valuable material from Mr. Blumenfeld,  visit the Samuel L. Blumenfeld Reading Clinic that I started back in 2015. Unfortunately, due to a Mac OS update, the Sandvox program I used to create and maintain that website became inoperative, so I no longer am able to make any additions or corrections to that website. 

Mr. Blumenfeld explained in detail how his program was designed to be taught in the "Information on Teaching Reading" in his book, How to Tutor.  Sam also had an excellent explanation of his approach and early edition of his program in his 1973 The New Illiterates. Here are some "Quotes from The New Illiterates." 

Here is a note Sam wrote in front of his book, The Victims of Dick and Jane. Here is a email from Sam in 1999 concerning my work Teaching Alpha-Phonics to a Class of public school bilingual students. That was the year (1999-2000) that I proved that Sam's program designed for tutoring could be traught very successfully to a large class. 

Here is a good poem about being "Pretty Good."

Here is the newspaper article about Texas' Governor Greg Abbott awarding me for continuing my tutoring Online during the entire duration of the Covid 19: "Long Time Odessa Teacher Scores."