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Alpha-Mania Adventures
Bring phonological awareness into your home or classroom with Alpha-Mania Adventures!
Alpha-Mania Adventures is an interactive storybook series that teaches pre-reading skills. Parents love that the books provide them with valuable knowledge that they need to further phonological awareness at home.
The books follow the adventures of the Alpha-Maniacs, five spirited kids who use phonemic games to solve mysteries in the magical Letter Lagoon.
More than a storybook
Each book includes:
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A complete guide to phonological awareness and phonics
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Exciting stories infused with phonemic wordplay
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Find the Hidden Objects phonics games within the illustrations
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Bonus activities to reinforce phonological awareness skills
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Guides on Letter Sounds and Letter Formation
The Books
1 – Captain Ray and the Rhyming Pirates: A Rhyming Book
In the first book, the five Alpha-Maniacs are playing pirates on the beach when a band of real, but bumbling pirates come ashore looking for help with a treasure map. The Alpha-Maniacs jump at the chance to train the clumsy buccaneers in all aspects of being proper pirates.
In the story, Captain Ray and his pirate crew speak only in rhyme (Learn more about rhyming here). Occasionally, they stumble on their words and the Alpha-Maniacs help them to complete the rhyme. Drawing children’s attention to the rhyme helps them to develop this skill more quickly. As you read, be sure to emphasize the rhymes and encourage them to repeat the rhymes along with you.
2 – Slomo’s Secret Treasure: A Blending Book
In the second book, the Alpha-Maniacs discover a mysterious treasure map on the beach. As they follow the directions to find the hidden riches, they encounter a shadowy sloth, and they must interpret his slow speech in order to discover the mystery behind the treasure.
Understanding the slow speech of Slomo the Sloth requires the Alpha-Maniacs to put their blending skills to the test. (Learn more about blending here). Slomo’s dialogue is written to show how to separate the syllables in a word, or to show certain sounds being stretched. In the story, the Alpha-Maniacs (and children) are asked to help decipher Slomo’s slow speech by blending syllables or sounds to help uncover the treasure.
3 – The Fantastic Floating Feast: An Alliteration Book
In the third book, Captain Ray and his band of memorable pirates return and invite the kids aboard their ship to celebrate their newfound treasure with a fantastic feast. Once on board, the clever kids quickly determine that their pirate friends no longer speak in rhyme, but rather in alliterative phrases.
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial sound in a series of words. (Learn more about alliteration here.) In the story, alliterative phrases are dotted throughout the book, both in the story text and the pirates’ colorful dialogue. The Alpha-Maniacs rename the pirates with alliterative names, and children are also encouraged to think of alliterative names for themselves.
4 – The Splitter Critter and the Greedy Pirates: A Segmenting Book
In the fourth book, the Alpha-Maniacs discover a mysterious pirate ship belonging to a band of greedy pirates, out to steal treasure from the Letter Lagoon. With the help of their goofy new friend, the Splitter Critter, the Alpha-Maniacs create magic by segmenting words into their individual sounds.
Segmenting is the ability to break words apart into their individual sounds by vocalizing one sound at a time. (Learn more about segmenting here.) In this book, the Alpha-Maniacs receive help from the Splitter Critter, an enchanting creature that segments words to create magic on the island. The segmented words are written as individual sounds, and children are encouraged to blend the sounds together to create the word.
5 – The Great Riddle Race: A Sound Manipulation Book
In the fifth book, the Alpha-Maniacs discover more mysterious clues in the form of riddles. With the help of the friendly Switch-a-Roo, the clever kids solve a series of riddles that lead them to an amazing discovery!
Sound manipulation involves either deleting or substituting individual phonemes within a word. (Learn more about sound manipulation here.) In this story, the Alpha-Maniacs must substitute phonemes within words to solve each riddle.
How does Alpha-Mania Adventures teach phonological and phonemic awareness?
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize, identify, and eventually manipulate the sounds of spoken language. Over three decades of research have shown that phonological awareness is one of the essential building blocks for strong reading skills. In fact, strong phonemic awareness skills are a proven predictor of long-term reading and spelling success.
The Alpha-Mania Adventures series is specifically designed to capture a child’s imagination, as the Alpha-Maniacs meet lively and amusing characters and creatures that each address an important component of phonological awareness. The books also include clear instructions which allow adults to properly teach while reading, so children receive Alpha-Mania’s full benefit.
How does Alpha-Mania Adventures teach phonics?
Research supports that phonics is another important component of learning to read. In each book, you will find a cleverly disguised phonics activity embedded in the colorful illustrations, sure to captivate young readers! Children are asked to search for hidden letters and objects as they follow along with the story, helping to reinforce the important skill of sound-symbol correspondence.
The Research
Follow this link to learn more about the research behind the 5 elements of reading, including phonological awareness and phonics.
Teaching Reading