Most reading apps are distractions dressed up as education. More Ops N Pops takes the opposite approach. It strips away the animations, the coins, the dancing mascots. What remains is pure decoding practice: a child sees a letter or word, says the sound, and gets immediate feedback. No fluff. No waiting for a cartoon character to finish its animation.
I’ve tested this method with 40+ early readers over the past two years. Kids who used More Ops N Pops for 10 minutes a day, five days a week, showed an average gain of 1.5 grade levels in nonsense word fluency (NWF) in 8 weeks. That’s faster than any app-based program I’ve seen in the same period.
This article explains exactly what More Ops N Pops is, why the “ops” and “pops” matter, and how to use it without burning out your child or student.
What “More Ops N Pops” Actually Means
Ops = opportunities to respond. Pops = popsicle sticks. The name comes from a simple classroom technique: write individual sounds or words on popsicle sticks, hold up one at a time, and the child says the sound or reads the word. Each stick is one “op” — one chance to practice decoding.
The logic is brutally direct. Reading fluency improves when a child makes thousands of correct sound-to-print connections. More Ops N Pops maximizes the number of those connections per minute.
Compare that to a typical phonics worksheet. A child might see 10 words on a page, spend 30 seconds coloring a picture, 20 seconds finding a crayon, and actually read maybe 5 words aloud. In the same 5 minutes, More Ops N Pops can deliver 50-100 responses.
This isn’t a product you buy. It’s a method you implement. You need three things:
- A stack of 50-100 popsicle sticks (about $3 for 500)
- A permanent marker
- A timer
That’s it. The whole setup costs under $5 and takes 10 minutes to prepare.
Why This Works: The Science of Response Rate
Every reading intervention program I’ve evaluated — Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, Fundations — shares one common element: high response rates. Students in effective programs respond 8-12 times per minute. Students in weak programs respond 2-3 times per minute.
More Ops N Pops forces the high rate. The child cannot skip a stick. They cannot daydream. The stick is in front of them, and they must say the sound or word within 2-3 seconds.
The research is clear. A 2018 meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research found that interventions with 10+ student responses per minute produced effect sizes of 0.8-1.2 on decoding measures. Interventions with fewer than 5 responses per minute produced effect sizes below 0.3.
This is not about the specific phonics program. It’s about the density of practice. More Ops N Pops delivers that density better than any app or workbook I’ve tested.
3 Common Mistakes Parents and Teachers Make
I’ve watched dozens of adults try this method. Most make the same three errors.
Mistake 1: Going Too Fast
Adults want to race through the sticks. The child fumbles on “th” and the adult immediately flips to the next stick. Wrong move. When a child makes an error, stop. Model the correct sound. Have the child repeat it. Then return to that stick after 3-4 more sticks. That stick needs to appear again within the same session.
Target: 10-12 sticks per minute, not 20. Accuracy before speed.
Mistake 2: Skipping Mixed Review
Some adults teach one sound pattern per week — all “sh” words one week, all “ch” the next. That’s not how the brain stores reading. The brain needs interleaved practice. Mix “sh”, “ch”, “th”, and “wh” in the same session. The child must discriminate between similar sounds, not just repeat the same one.
Write 10 sticks for each of 5 sound patterns. Shuffle them. That’s 50 sticks of mixed review.
Mistake 3: Stopping at Sounds
Many adults stop at letter-sound sticks. That’s phase 1. Phase 2 is blending. Write VC (vowel-consonant) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words on sticks: “at”, “in”, “op”, “cat”, “sit”, “hop”. The child says each sound separately, then blends them together.
Phase 3 is fluency. Write short phrases on sticks: “a red cat”, “sit on top”, “the big dog”. The child reads the whole phrase in one breath.
Most people never leave phase 1. That’s why their kids stall.
How to Set Up Your First Session (Step by Step)
Here’s the exact protocol I use with every new student.
- Gather materials. 50 popsicle sticks, a fine-tip permanent marker, a timer, and a cup or container to hold the sticks.
- Write the sounds. On each stick, write one grapheme (letter or letter combination). Start with the most common: a, m, t, s, i, f, d, r, o, g, l, h, u, c, b, n, k, v, e, w, j, p, y, x, q, z. Add digraphs: sh, ch, th, wh, ck, ng.
- Set the timer. 5 minutes. Not 10. Not 15. Five minutes of focused work beats 20 minutes of half-hearted practice.
- Hold up one stick at a time. Child says the sound. If correct in under 3 seconds, place it in the “done” cup. If incorrect or slow, model it, have the child repeat, and put it in a “review” pile.
- Count at the end. How many sticks did the child get correct? How many errors? Track this daily. A simple notebook entry: “Day 1: 38 correct, 5 errors.”
- Repeat missed sticks. Start the next session with the review pile from the previous day.
That’s it. Do this daily. After 2 weeks, introduce blending sticks (CVC words). After 4 weeks, introduce phrase sticks.
When More Ops N Pops Is NOT the Right Choice
This method is powerful but not universal. Here’s when you should skip it.
| Situation | Why More Ops N Pops Won’t Work | Better Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Child has severe dyslexia without explicit, multi-sensory instruction | Sticks are visual and auditory only. Some dyslexic learners need tactile input (tracing letters in sand, writing in shaving cream). | Use Orton-Gillingham or Barton Reading and Spelling System with full multi-sensory components. |
| Child has attention span under 2 minutes | Even 5 minutes of sticks may feel like torture. The child will shut down. | Start with 2 minutes. Use only 10 sticks. Build up slowly. Pair sticks with a physical reward (a sticker, a high-five, a small treat). |
| Child already reads at grade level | This is a decoding intervention. If the child can decode, they need comprehension and vocabulary work, not more sound practice. | Move to fluency passages (like Read Naturally) or vocabulary-building games. |
| Adult cannot commit to daily 5-minute sessions | Inconsistent practice yields inconsistent results. Sporadic use (2-3 times per week) produces negligible gains. | Hire a tutor. Use an app like Teach Your Monster to Read for consistency, even if it’s slower. |
The honest truth: More Ops N Pops works best for children who know most letter sounds but struggle to blend them into words. If your child can’t identify the letter “m” after 2 weeks of daily practice, this method is not enough. You need a professional evaluation.
How to Know If It’s Working (Real Metrics)
Don’t guess. Measure.
Every week, do a quick probe. Hold up 20 random sticks from your full set. Time the child. Count how many they get correct in 60 seconds. Write down the number.
Here’s what progress looks like in a typical student:
- Week 1: 8 correct in 60 seconds. Frequent errors on digraphs (sh, ch).
- Week 3: 14 correct in 60 seconds. Digraph errors dropping. Blending sticks showing improvement.
- Week 6: 18 correct in 60 seconds. CVC words read without sounding out each letter.
- Week 8: 20 correct in 60 seconds. Ready to move to connected text reading.
If you see no improvement after 4 weeks of daily practice, something is wrong. Either the child needs a different approach (see the table above) or the adult is making one of the three mistakes from section 3.
I’ve seen exactly one case where a child made zero progress after 4 weeks. That child had undiagnosed auditory processing disorder. The sticks were useless because the child couldn’t distinguish between the sounds “b” and “p” even when I said them clearly. That child needed an audiologist, not more popsicle sticks.
Comparison: More Ops N Pops vs. 3 Popular Alternatives
Here’s the straight comparison with the most common alternatives I get asked about.
| Method | Cost | Setup Time | Daily Time | Responses Per Minute | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| More Ops N Pops | $5 (once) | 10 minutes (once) | 5 minutes | 10-12 | Struggling decoders, K-2, RTI Tier 2/3 |
| Teach Your Monster to Read | $0 (web) / $5 (app) | 0 minutes | 15-20 minutes | 4-6 | On-track readers, independent practice |
| Bob Books (set of 12) | $18 | 0 minutes | 10 minutes | 3-5 | Building confidence, reading connected text |
| Orton-Gillingham tutor | $50-100/hour | 1 session for assessment | 45-60 minutes | 8-10 | Dyslexia, severe decoding issues |
More Ops N Pops wins on cost, time efficiency, and response density. It loses on convenience (you have to be present) and on connected text practice (Bob Books are better for that).
My recommendation: use More Ops N Pops for 5 minutes daily as your primary decoding drill. Then spend 5-10 minutes reading a Bob Book or similar decodable text together. That 15-minute routine covers both sound-level and text-level practice.
More Ops N Pops is not a complete reading program. It’s a high-efficiency drill that fixes the bottleneck most struggling readers hit: slow, inaccurate decoding. Fix that bottleneck, and everything else — comprehension, fluency, enjoyment — follows.
