A system for teaching reading to very young children and first-time English students provides and uses one or more sets of instructional alphabetic letters, double-consonant phonemes, a relatively larger group of three-letter words of only short-vowel sounds, a relatively smaller group of three- and four-letter words with long-vowel sounds, and specifically designed subsets and/or combinations thereof, where the separate letters and words in the set is fewer than 100. The words in the instructional set are particularly selected to avoid phonetic confusion, ease pronunciation, engage student interest, provide teaching leverage based on each subset, and accelerate learning. In one embodiment, a particular 48-word instructional word set is distributed onto eight, 3-D, instructional blocks in a manner that preserves the subset-based teaching method. In other embodiments, the system can be presented on flashcards, magnets, printing on clothing or wallpaper, and through instructional computer software (home, internet, or PDA).