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Need help from OPGTR veterans who've worked it with a 4-year-old...


Megicce
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I am at a loss about what to do with the "Two Review and One New" thing. My sweet K4 girl has about a 15-20 minute attention span when it comes to phonics, so if I'm doing two review and one new, we usually get through both reviews and about a third of a new lesson in that time. If she's squirrelly, maybe we only get through the review before I lose her into Sillyville.

 

I'm stressing, which I probably shouldn't be, mostly because I'm not sure how quickly I should be trying to get through the book. Am I aiming for one lesson a day? (Cuz that doesn't happen if we're doing review.) Or should I be breaking it down into smaller chunks to fit her attention span and just doing what we can and not stressing?

 

We just hit the section on double letters at the end of a word, so the lessons and passages to read are getting LOOOOOONG.

 

Thank you!

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I am at a loss about what to do with the "Two Review and One New" thing. My sweet K4 girl has about a 15-20 minute attention span when it comes to phonics, so if I'm doing two review and one new, we usually get through both reviews and about a third of a new lesson in that time. If she's squirrelly, maybe we only get through the review before I lose her into Sillyville.

 

I'm stressing, which I probably shouldn't be, mostly because I'm not sure how quickly I should be trying to get through the book. Am I aiming for one lesson a day? (Cuz that doesn't happen if we're doing review.) Or should I be breaking it down into smaller chunks to fit her attention span and just doing what we can and not stressing?

 

We just hit the section on double letters at the end of a word, so the lessons and passages to read are getting LOOOOOONG.

 

Thank you!

Please don't stress, please, please, please. There is NO should when you are talking about learning to read. OPG goes to about a fourth grade reading level. Does that help you feel better? Do what you can, what feels fun. If she gets turned off by your stress you will likely make NO progress.

 

Don't even be surprised if you plateau on a level and stay there for a long, long time. Learning to read is not a straight line for most children (start on lesson one, one day per lesson, know how to read when you complete all the lessons.)

 

My children all learned at different ages, at different speeds and all were reading Harry Potter by the end of second grade (if not earlier.) The ones that started learning earlier were not necessarily the ones who could read better earlier.

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I don't use OPGTTR, but it's taken my 5yo five months to get to book 18 in the 'I See Sam' series, and I think we spent about 3 months on the first week of ElizabethB's phonics lessons. I vote for the not stressing option. These things take time and many "But Mother Dear, you can't expect me to know what a t is when you've never told me" experiences.

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We also never do the two review.

 

We go slower or faster depending on what the lessons are, the age of the kid and if it seems they are getting it. I found that in the earlier sections we often would break one lesson into two days. I would do the lesson part one day and then the passage to read the next (which then kind of becomes a review). Now we often do two or even sometimes three lessons in a day. It was a similar pace with my oldest.

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I do two review with my 5 year old but only because she taught herself to read so I have certain things that need to be covered more often to fix things she taught herself incorrectly. She was reading when we weren't in the room so we think she was reading for 3-4 months before we ever knew that she could. When I do review a lesson we aren't going through a whole lesson again. I mark words that she had trouble with the first time that we went through the lesson so I will go back to that word or sentence and have her do it again. Then go to another lesson that is marked that she had trouble with. My book has about 10 post it notes marking lessons that need review at any given time.

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Thank you so much, all! I am going to take your advice to feel less stressed and stop beating myself up. So nice to hear how other people implement it, too - I think what is going to work best for us is to keep forging ahead with the new material, working just as long as she can do so productively, and then taking a break. If she needs review, we'll just pause and go back to that for a bit. Thanks for the permission to do what I feel like we ought to be doing anyway! :)

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I don't do the two review as outlined in the book. We split the longer lessons over a few days, usually there seems to be a natural stopping point. I may do a quick review of what we covered the day before, then move on to the new portion.

 

What I am doing for review - I bought a large, lined easel pad that I hung from one of the doors into our living room (where we do school). Each week I write a few sentences on there using some words from the most recent lessons, some from older lessons and anything she's having trouble with. I change the names to family names and try to make them fun - for example, we just did the lesson with qu so one of the current sentences is "Quit it, George!" (her brothers name). We will read some or all of the sentences off the board at random times during the day, sometimes dh will have her read them, and sometimes she'll stand there and read them on her own.

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My son is now five but we started at four. I'm finding that the actual phonics aren't too much, just the focus required to get through all the sentences in each lesson. We "go sideways" a lot to review. We've done bob books, phonics pathways, Starfall, hand written 'clues' to find his favorite stuffy, ETC. Our latest thing is AAR level 1 readers and AAS level 1. I still consider us using OPGTR as the main program, it's just good to tackle things from a different angle. OPGTR leads the way, introduces all the new stuff, everything else is review. You've gotten a lot of good advice, I just wanted to add that in.

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I don't do the two review and one new either! Might review lesson before if she seems to need it, but if she does the lesson well then the next lesson goes well too. I always figure I have to get the lesson/info in within the time frame of the child's attention span. Anything outside of that attention span is certainly open to Sillyville here as well!

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I also never did any review - I found pointing out words of rules we had covered in books she or I were reading was more than enough review for her. I also however never did the sentences in OPGTR just the word lists to cover the rule as she was reading enough in other books without needing phonetically "correct" sentences containing mainly one rule. She is now recovering some of the lessons with spelling.

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I'm on my 3rd 4YO and with the first two we never did reviews. This one does need a little review, but I just review the concept (e.g. S + H says shhhhhh) and a few related word then move on to the new. I also had a different approach to the OPGTR sentences with all 3. #1 skipped them entirely and did Bob books, #2 read most of the OPGTR sentences happily, and I pick and choose with #3 who has shorter stamina for the lessons.

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I've been using OPG with my Kinder this year and I had no idea what you were talking about and had to go look. I usually just pick up where we left off. Sometimes there's a review at the top of the lesson, like the vowel sounds. We've been singing the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland's song so he can remember which letters are the vowels. Which he needs to remember more than their sound. I don't even really read the script but just show my ds the bold words and he reads them. I even skipped the whole first 20 odd lessons about letters and their sounds. Occasionally I will write a sentence out for him to use as copywork or make paint chip word families. We've built the lessons out of letter tiles before too. I take those lessons OUT of the book any chance I get because sitting there and reading from that book drives him crazy. Like Montessori suggested I try not to give the brain more to do than the hand.

 

Usually I just review real quick on the spot if he falters. I also use readers and ETC and the lessons in the back of Why Johnny Can't Read. He's been working on his own through an Evan Moor Skills Sharpener too. As well as the Starfall play time. So OPG is not our main "book."

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My six year old is on track to finish OPGR by the end of June. We started in Kindergarten, so it has taken us two years to work our way through. We don't do any review during daily lessons, but we did take a break last summer and worked through the first three ETC books. It really boosted his confidence to work through them quickly. When we restarted OPGR in the fall of first grade, the lessons were much easier and he made many leaps.

 

If I tried to do "2 Review and 1 New," I think I think there would be a rebellion.

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I am at a loss with my three and half years old. I see everyone starting reading and math skills at 4-5 or even 6-7 yrs but I think the reason why my son has been so destructive around the house is maybe he is bored. He spends his day on ebay searching for spiderman toys or watching spiderman episodes on netflex and you tube and acting them out. Lately he and his older sisters have been writing scripts and making spiderman movies with their lego figures. Maybe I need to start some formal academic stuff with this child. The other day he was chanting the 10's, knew the days of the week, months of the year. Kind of freaks me out. I never had one like this before. Well I did have an early reader. She was my 2nd child who learned to read at age two but the math one where he is counting by 10's is a new one. He uses words like "actually" and asks why is the sun shiny etc Is this a normal 3.5yrs old? Wjere do i begin with him?

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I am at a loss with my three and half years old. I see everyone starting reading and math skills at 4-5 or even 6-7 yrs but I think the reason why my son has been so destructive around the house is maybe he is bored. He spends his day on ebay searching for spiderman toys or watching spiderman episodes on netflex and you tube and acting them out. Lately he and his older sisters have been writing scripts and making spiderman movies with their lego figures. Maybe I need to start some formal academic stuff with this child. The other day he was chanting the 10's, knew the days of the week, months of the year. Kind of freaks me out. I never had one like this before. Well I did have an early reader. She was my 2nd child who learned to read at age two but the math one where he is counting by 10's is a new one. He uses words like "actually" and asks why is the sun shiny etc Is this a normal 3.5yrs old? Wjere do i begin with him?

 

 

Take away the TV. LOL. I'm only sort of kidding.

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I am at a loss with my three and half years old. I see everyone starting reading and math skills at 4-5 or even 6-7 yrs but I think the reason why my son has been so destructive around the house is maybe he is bored. He spends his day on ebay searching for spiderman toys or watching spiderman episodes on netflex and you tube and acting them out. Lately he and his older sisters have been writing scripts and making spiderman movies with their lego figures. Maybe I need to start some formal academic stuff with this child. The other day he was chanting the 10's, knew the days of the week, months of the year. Kind of freaks me out. I never had one like this before. Well I did have an early reader. She was my 2nd child who learned to read at age two but the math one where he is counting by 10's is a new one. He uses words like "actually" and asks why is the sun shiny etc Is this a normal 3.5yrs old? Wjere do i begin with him?

 

 

This was my son at 2 years old exactly! I threw out conventional wisdom at 2.5 years old and pulled out OPGTR and he settled right down. He was literally picking paint off the walls before I did that. He is a happy 4.5 year old who is reading at a 3rd grade level now and we're still slowly working through OPGTR as well as other on-level subject stuff, like math and writing, now. I also let him roam outside 1-2 hours a day and between that and school he is quite calm and hardly gives me any trouble.

 

I say you know your child and if you feel he's bored add significant physical activity as well as some mental challenge. Start slow and see how he does, if it doesn't help or he responds poorly just stop and try something else, no big deal.

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We never do the two review and one new. Ever.

 

That being said, you will be able to pick up on the areas she needs to review. Once you get to the later lessons (Im not sure where you are at this point) I review the rule that we did the day before very briefly, then we move on. Also, when I feel like we have had a lot of new rules/info for her to sink in.. I plan a review DAY. We dont have a new lesson, we just go over all that shes done so far but we do this pretty quickly.

 

Also I should mention, we very rarely use the book. We were struggling for a while so I decided to try a lesson on the white board. She has been reading wonderfully. Theres just something about the book :) So every once in a while, I'll have her read a lesson from the text but mostly we do it on the white board.

 

We started OPGTR when dd was 4 and it was just too much for her attention span. So we held off until this year. I was shocked but she remembered everything and we skipped the first 30 some lessons. They absorb more than you think they do!

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My oldest needed some review. I would write the lists of words on our white board adding words she continued to struggle with. She would do this review part in the evening. She just didn't have the attention span to do it all at once. My current 4 year old. Does not need review. She usually does two lesson at a time. She is just picking it up a lot faster/easier.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I only review a few words from prior lessons if she struggled with them (and I remember to write them down). I just keep a post it note in my book and write the words that she struggled with. The next day I simply have her read off the post it or the whiteboard - otherwise she feels like she is doing something she has already done - and this doesn't take that long.

 

My dd was decoding 7-8 letter words at 2, so I thought when I started this book at 4.5 that she would fly through it. Not so much. It has taken us almost two years (including breaks for summers). Many people in the past said it took 18 mo. I found that once we got to about lesson 60 I could only do 1/2 a lesson for sure. I also had to vary it up a lot as it became difficult for her stamina-wise. Allowing some variety in how to read provided help and peace.

 

Writing on whiteboards for the lessons for a week

Writing on strips of paper and having her read them

Writing the sentences in crayon line by line after she read them

Writing on windows with window markers

Typing the sentences out in different colors and then printing it

 

All of those things without having her use the actual book helped us get over the hump. Now she is at the end of the book and can easily read several lessons at a time. I found lessons 60-90 to be the hardest. Once you are around 90ish they can start reading many dr. seuss and similar books which really helped my dd to progress and "see" the fruit of her work.

 

Good luck.

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I don't think I completely internalized the idea that you should do two ENTIRE review lessons. My son wouldn't sit through that!

 

What I do is start with a quick drill of various words we've done in the past--I just make it up on the fly. Sometimes it's just a list of 8-10 words, sometimes it's a crazy sentence I make up and write on the whiteboard, to make him laugh. Then we do the day's lesson (and I do one lesson per WEEK with my 5 year old ds)--very brief. Then I either use OPGTR sentence suggestion or I create another 1-2 silly sentences w/ the new words. We are in and out of there in 10 minutes or so. He is steadily learning! I am starting to incorporate some easy readers in--we got the BOB books at the library the other day. They are bo-ring, so I might write my own readers for him in the next month or so. I love to write and create and illustrate (my illustrations are kind of like Fred's in LOF, ha) so that would be fun. HTH!

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