Wow, there is a lot of material to cover in this one post so I will try to keep it as short as possible without missing anything too major. First of all; the stages of development are worth noting. It makes sense that different methods should be used at different stages, however I feel that an advanced student might become bored with a classroom that adheres too readily to this layout. I feel that it is completely possible to have students in three separate phases all within one lower level grade. After all, the child who's parent's read to him will come in well prepared while the neglected child might be way behind.
The linguist lessons in this book were interesting, as someone who has taught English as a second language I was noticing some of the common mistakes my students made within the charts. Now, wouldn't pronunciation play a key part in the child's ability to pick up on a phonetically based writing workshop? Say for instance a child who grows up in the Midwest would spell hill differently than a child from the Bronx because of the varying pronunciations. Yet, the students will learn rules such as e=eh in pen, when they are pronouncing the words pin and pen the same because of local dialect.
Another part of the book which I had trouble with was the terms they expected us to know. I had no idea what cvc on page 7 meant, a classmate had to explain consonant vowel consonant for me to understand what they were talking about. This is probably common knowledge, but I had never heard of the abbreviation before today.
The book also suggests to break a class up into homogeneous groups. However, our math book warns against this strongly. Which is correct? Is a homogeneous group better for literature while a heterogeneous is better for math, or is this just a difference of opinion due to teaching styles?
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