The First Readers Anthology is a collection of phonics readers (phonetically decodable texts) that were originally published in 1997 as eleven individually stapled booklets to be used with popular Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics Reading Primer. The reading levels progress from beginning to upper elementary, virtually covering all the major spelling patterns of the English language. They encourage the development of fluent decoding and good comprehension. They can be used with any phonics reading program that starts with the short vowels. These are the readers to use if want children to read well without guessing from pictures or sight-words.