Read Well by Marilyn Sprick (1999, Paperback)

This is a great beginning reading series. Children are introduced to letter sounds and combinations. They learn sight words called "tricky words". Each week's lesson includes stories, often about real animals, people, or places. Children are explosed to encouraged to try larger words and interesting vocabulary through "shared" readings with an experienced reader. A minimum number of worksheets are provided with each lesson which encourage children to make new words from their newly gained sounds, encourage them to write full sentence answers to questions, and think about what they have learned. Each week's lesson is a theme which is easy to work with and encourages choosing more books and learning about the world. This series can easily be used in kindergarten and would finish in first grade
The downside of this series would be that the illustrations are all black and white. This is minor, however, when you look at the results!
- a very pleased first grade teacher