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    Lite Version

    The Lite version of Pictures Are For Babies contains the first courses of the program, which cover learning the alphabet, common symbols, and basic words and sentences. It includes 200 lessons and provides the same functionality as the full version. Lite licenses never expire and are offered for a suggested donation of $20, but the user can set their own price, including no payment at all.

    The Lite version allows prospective users to try out Pictures Are For Babies without any financial commitment. Parents of small children can use a Lite license to determine if their child is ready for explicit reading and writing instruction. If the child is not ready, parents can wait until the child is older before trying again. More instructions for this use case are available in the reading break section of the manual.

    The primary use of the Lite version, however, is to serve as a complete solution for early detection and remediation of reading difficulties. Thanks to its pedagogy, designed from the ground up on the principles of orthographic mapping, the Lite version contains all that a parent, educator, or reading specialist needs to detect and remediate reading difficulties.

    Specifically, Pictures Are For Babies contains precise instructions on how to conduct reading interventions that target deficits in phonemic awareness, the ability to break words into individual sounds and efficiently manipulate them. This ability has been proven to be the most common cause of reading difficulties, and the exercises that Pictures Are For Babies contains are proven to be effective in developing it. With even a few dozen hours of proper instruction, students who previously struggled for years managed to read at grade level. These interventions have also been proven to be effective in older children and adults.

    The rest of the manual contains detailed instructions on how to conduct the lessons and interventions. This section contains a guide on how to use the Lite version of Pictures Are For Babies in a Pre-K to K-2 classroom. The guide assumes that the tutor role is played by a teacher, teaching assistant, or reading specialist. The instructions for using the Lite version in a classroom are the same for the most part as using it at home or with individual students. The differences are outlined below:

    • Use one instance of Pictures Are For Babies to track the progress of an entire class.
      • This is what is commonly referred to as Tier 1 instruction in most Response to Intervention (RTI) frameworks. The word courses section uses a slightly different meaning for Tier 1, adapted to the context of individual instruction.
      • The fewer students in the class, the better. The more students, it becomes harder to identify struggling students and to perform instruction and interventions. Five to ten students is optimal.
      • The students should start with a similar level of reading and writing skills. Future versions of Pictures Are For Babies will include diagnostic features, but for now, the teacher will have to use their own judgment and assessment to determine each student's level.
        • In Pre-K, this is not as important as most students will start with little to no reading and writing skills.
      • For reading lessons, have the students read the symbols, words, or sentences aloud in class in unison. Mark an example as mastered if the majority of the class read it correctly and without hesitation.
      • For dictation lessons, have the students write the symbols, words, or sentences on their individual notebooks or on another writing surface. Then have them show you their work. Mark an example as mastered if the majority of the class wrote it correctly and without hesitation.
      • For all the lessons, perform the interventions described in the manual for the entire class.
      • Keep notes on which students struggle with many of the lessons. This will help you identify students who need individual tutoring.
    • Ideally, use individual instances of Pictures Are For Babies for each student. That requires buy-in from the parents, as their help will be needed to perform the tutor role at home. If this is not possible, use individual instances of Pictures Are For Babies for students who were identified as struggling during whole-class instruction.
      • This is what is commonly referred to as Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction in most RTI frameworks. The word courses section uses a different meaning for Tier 2 and Tier 3, adapted to the context of individual instruction.
      • Have the parents or guardians help in filling the tutor role. If this is not possible, any teacher, teaching assistant, or reading specialist can fill the tutor role during school hours.
      • The instructions for these individual tutoring sessions are the same as the manual. Since the most common cause of reading difficulties is a deficit in phonemic awareness and the students have already been identified as struggling, Tier 2 and 3 interventions can be used from the very beginning without waiting for the software to prompt them. See the instructions for performing them in the word courses section of the manual.

    Upgrading to the Full Version🔗

    The Lite version of Pictures Are For Babies contains most of what is covered in Pre-K to K-2 classrooms. Tutors and educators that wish to go beyond are free to use the manual as a guide to create their own lessons and run the appropriate interventions. Keep in mind, however, that manually creating lessons while ensuring the same level of fidelity as Pictures Are For Babies is a complex and labor-intensive task.

    The full version of Pictures Are For Babies contains the complete curriculum for words and sentences, covering twenty-five levels of difficulty and over 18,000 unique words. This level of content goes far beyond what is covered in most other literacy programs. It includes nearly all vowel and consonant patterns seen in one-syllable words, many common multi-syllable words, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek morphology, and a wide variety of words common in common situations, and academic subjects. Here is a small sample of sentences from the late levels:

    Binary logic gates form the foundation of most computer systems, with modern computers having billions of them.

    Franz Kafka's works explore themes of alienation, unjust laws, and complex bureaucracies.

    Oxygen diffused through the circulatory system rapidly after the patient's respiratory rate increased.

    Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign led to the deciphering of hieroglyphics.

    In Russia, the quick and careless transfer of common infrastructure to the private sector led to a large economic crisis.

    The full version will also add texts and writing courses that will allow students to master reading and writing to a college level and beyond. All further content updates to Pictures Are For Babies are included to all users of the full version at no additional cost.