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Phonics curriculum for active 4/5 year old boy


Annie Laurie
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My rambling in another thread made me think of this question. What is a good phonics program for a little boy who can sit for a long time listening to stories (45 minutes most days, sometimes an hour), but is not interested in learning to read or write and does not like workbooks or paper crafts? He will be 5 in November, a few months after we start our school year, and I will still consider it preschool.

 

(One of my sons was like him and didn't get interested in learning to read until he was 5 3/4, but then he learned to read in a couple of months, so I wonder if I should just wait. I think I'll try some things with my current little one, but if he is unwilling, I'll just wait like I did with my other son.)

 

What could I try that might click with him? He loves games and stories. He's very active and talkative. I was going to do MFW K but I don't think he's ready for the worksheets. What is AAR like? Any other ideas?

 

 

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We LOVE Logic of English Foundations. It has lots of active phonics activities, and is super easy to teach. It's also easy to split a lesson across multiple sessions or days. We do letter formation with our pointer finger, elbow, toe, whole body really.  We play basketball with phonics activities.  It's minimal worksheet-y. And the things that are in worksheet form can (mostly) be done in other ways.  

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We have Happy Phonics (~$60) and it sure has helped us! It is all different kinds of games. It's very Mom directed and you choose each activity and when to do it though, so if you want a Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 program then Happy Phonics might not satisfy. AAR looks so great but I haven't been able to plunk down the $$ on it, and now DS newly 5 has begun to read anyways so we are Happy Phonics-ing, and we'll do MFW K pretty soon too.

 

My son also had NO interest in writing for AGES. We just did art for that "skill area". Then one day he was like, "I want to write those letters mom." while I was scribing for him. 

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DS started AAR pre-level at 4 and now is about a third of the way through AAR1 at newly 5. It's been great and I would highly recommend it, but I know it is pricey. It made sense for us knowing I would reuse it with DD but it might not make sense if you wouldn't reuse it. Pre-level is very simple with coloring sheets and activities like rhyming. It starts with letters in the first half and moves into letter sounds in the second. It all involves pre-reading activities to have children become more aware of the language that they hear. DS loved all it. Level 1 has lessons that involve making words with letter tiles and learning words on little cards. It also has their readers to read from. DS is reading great, only CVC words, but he had no interest in doing any CVC words before this when I tried and is now trying to read more advance stuff and generally very interested in reading now. He has made amazing progress in only about a month. He went from struggling to read CVC to now reading fluently with some pauses. I am very happy with it, DS doesn't love it like pre-level though because there is a lot of review that I break up. He would rather move onto the next lesson and new words.

 

Have you seen Memoria's Press First Start Reading? DS is very interested in writing real words so I got FSR as well. It's much cheaper and incorporates a lot of reading. I think when I was researching it MP says they start it with 5 year olds. I bought the lesson plans too and it starts very slowly and incorporates gentle learning which would be great for a younger child. It is a workbook but with coloring and writing and reading.

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I'm using AAR1 with my wiggly 5-year-old (pre-K) boy and we're loving it so far (on lesson 11 of 49). The only worksheets are cutting out 4 words and pasting to the corresponding picture. I have him choose 1 of the 4 pictures to color, as he's not a coloring fan but I want him to work on that skill. I also got the add-on Ziggy file folder games because he LOVES games of all types.

 

We started AAR Pre-reading at 4 but circumstances got in the way and he ended up leaping over those skills without it through other play/methods. I plan to start MFW K in the fall, but we're just using it for the themes/framework and using AAR & RightStart Math.

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No matter which materials I use, I throw in extra fun/silliness to keep my DS's attention as he's highly distractable (I'm sure he has ADHD, but not officially diagnosed). When he reads words from AAR cards, he acts out any that he can. Every time he reads a story from the reader (or others we have, like BOB Books), he puts a sticker on a chart. Once he gets 5 stickers, he gets a small treat/prize. He desperately wants to read and is ready, but needs incentives to stick with it sometimes because it is work!

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I posted this morning on the curriculum I've used for my preschoolers. For me, I found that simple workbooks worked best as long as I kept the lessons super-short and focused, without any fluff or busywork. I found Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code worked well because they led to quick letter-sound mastery in just a few minutes per day, and I could skip the writing and just do the books orally. Then, we moved into Explode the Code 1 and Bob books. 

 

My full post on simple, inexpensive preschool curriculum is here if you'd like more info. 

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This reply comes late, but my son was (and still is) a lot like yours, and we've been very happy with Hooked on Phonics. I think it's an overlooked and underrated program. The lessons are digestible and can be broken down into even shorter chunks, and the little stories -- there is one after every lesson -- are really cute and fun. They held my son's attention when other texts -- like the BOB books -- definitely did not. The book is also nicely laid out, large font, glossy pages, and it just "feels" good to wok with. There's also a DVD component, which we skip, but it would be good to reinforce learning if there are difficulties. I find the progression of phonics to be solid, and while I concede that HOP does not cover every phonics rule, it does cover most of them. It is also easily supplemented by other texts (like Alpha-Phonics or TOPGTR).

 

We did Kindergarten level was he was 4 to 5, then we took a break, and we are now finishing up the First Grade level (he recently turned 6). We plan to do the Second Grade level over the summer. After that, I will take him through the parts of TOPGTR that go beyond what HOP covers, but mainly we'll just practice with lots of reading. (A note: Since we had such success with HOP Kindergarten, I also ordered the Pre-K level for my 3-year-old. This is not as good. But for K and up, it's great.)

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My son is almost exactly a year older than yours, and sounds very similar. We were having a great time with scrabble tiles this time last year. I went and found my instructions in an old thread.

 

4yo scrabble: take it in turns to pick a tile from the bag, say its name and the sound it makes (or just the sound, if you prefer), then add it to your collection! When we first started playing, if DS didn't know a letter or sound, I'd just tell him and we'd move on quickly. It was incredibly tedious for me, but I pretended to have fun, and he really loved it. We even started trading tiles because he had favourite letters.

 

I introduced BOB books around the same time, and I think we dabbled with the HoP app, because I happened to get it free. As soon as DS was able to make it through the simplest of phonics readers, I would have him read them to me in bed at night, in between chapters of our read aloud. I'm glad I established that habit while his reading was still really novel and exciting. We've had so much fun with it all. :)

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My rambling in another thread made me think of this question. What is a good phonics program for a little boy who can sit for a long time listening to stories (45 minutes most days, sometimes an hour), but is not interested in learning to read or write and does not like workbooks or paper crafts? He will be 5 in November, a few months after we start our school year, and I will still consider it preschool.

 

(One of my sons was like him and didn't get interested in learning to read until he was 5 3/4, but then he learned to read in a couple of months, so I wonder if I should just wait. I think I'll try some things with my current little one, but if he is unwilling, I'll just wait like I did with my other son.)

 

What could I try that might click with him? He loves games and stories. He's very active and talkative. I was going to do MFW K but I don't think he's ready for the worksheets. What is AAR like? Any other ideas?

Lets see...preschool phonics for a child with no interest in reading or writing, who doesn't like workbooks or paper crafts? You might be better off waiting but then again you know your child.

Since he's not a fan of workbooks I would use Letter Magnets (If you prefer then you can get these magnetic letters and magnetic drigraphs.) and a Magnetic Dry Erase Board (or use a cookie sheet)

Also since he likes stories, I would get something like AlphaTales to teach the letter sounds (not their names). There are other series of books that focus on each letter of the alphabet also and there are of course countlesss videos on YouTube and what not. I am a big advocate of sounds first (not the names) so I am picky about videos where as I can read a printed book pretty much any way that I want to.

 

The focus for me would be to work on his oral and aural blending and phonemic awareness using verbal games and the letter magnets

I'd want to get him to know that each letter represents a sounds and that sometimes letters team up to make new sounds (digraphs and vowel pairs)

I'd want him to learn the primary sounds that the letters make.

I'd teach that vowels are sounds we MUST open our mouths to make that every single word, no matter how short or how long has at least vowel sound in it.

I'd do syllable work orally every day to build there awareness.

work on using our mouths to make letter sounds correctly and make blending a very kinestetic and visual activity. I would not work in alphabetical order and I'd start with a vowel and a consonant so that we could work on blending by saying the letter sounds and moving/sliding the magnetic letters closer and closer to each other and rearranging them. So if you start with 'a' and 'c' you'd learn the sounds /a/ and /k/ and read/blend "ca" and "ac". Later you could add the consonant T and then blend any syllables with those sounds 'ca', 'ta', "cat", "tac" 'act'

 

Next you might cover the vowel 'o' and the consonant 'x' so that you learn to read 'ox' and can also blend the words and sounds 'tox' 'cat' 'act' 'cax' etc.

 

I'd work mostly on sounding out and being able to blend simple syllables with the letter magnets and once he was confident with 2 and 3 letter words, we would read compound words "hotdog" "cannot" and 2-syllable words such as "topic" etc and blend those words. And as soon as he is ready get him started on a set of readers. I See Sam are popular (and free) and will do a good job getting him up and reading simple and small words.

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My sixth (and last) DC is similar to the one you describe. :001_smile:  His fifth birthday is our state's cut-off for kindy. I'm going to use Sing ,Spell, Read, & Write with him this fall. The K level has train theme workbooks, but the exercises are useful and not busywork.  I expect him to whip through this level, and I'll have the 1 books ready too, which has a race car theme. There's a racetrack progress poster you can get to go with it.  If you just googled it and fell over from sticker shock - we're not using the whole thing. The workbooks, instructor guide, and music are all you absolutely need. The readers are helpful if you can get them, but there are probably plenty of similar readers at your library. (Or maybe you could get the SSRW ones from interlibrary loan.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

It may not be the answer you're looking for, but I wouldn't start phonics with him yet.

 

When my son (second child), who is the iconic mover and squirmer, wasn't interested in learning to read at 5 I was coming ncerned. His older sister pieced together her first CVC word before her third birthday - what was wrong with my boy?!? I knew he was capable cognitively. The problem was, he wasn't ready to sit and work. I decided to wait until he was ready, about 6 or 8 months later, and I am glad I did. He learned quickly, and painlessly, because he was ready to sit and wanted to learn. Our sessions were 10 minutes, and it was the same squishy comfortable setting as reading a storybook.

 

I suggest waiting until he wants to sit and learrn, because it will come quicker and be more pleasant, and he won't be behind. You are giving him the best foundation right now by reading to him so much!!

 

ETA: when my wiggler was ready we actually snuggled up with 100EZ, which is low on bells and whistles and uses little movement (we didn't even do the sound spelling). But Phonics Pathways or The Reading Lesson would probably work similarly.

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My little guy sounds similar to yours.  He'll turn 5 at Thanksgiving and he loves books and is begging to "start school".  I figure I'll start with him in the fall but not push him - I plan to let him lead his schedule since I'm basically starting him a year early.  I used Logic of English Foundations for my daughter but she was ready to write and start the entire program (as a K'er).  My little guy isn't that far yet (and an entire year younger than she was when we started).  While I think he's ready for the Phonics piece, he's definitely not ready for the writing component.  So I'm at a loss as to what to do for him this coming year.  I may just start LOE Foundations A with him and just split up the lessons into 2-3 days or something, skip the writing but use tiles for the spelling.  That may work.

 

I LOVE how wiggle-friendly Foundations is.  There is some seat time, then there's a game, then they're running in circles, then they're playing basketball.  It's definitely a program for the wigglers and makes learning fun - almost as if they don't know they're learning or "doing school". :)

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LOE Foundations is super fun and great for wiggly kids!  If he isn't ready for the handwriting, don't worry!  Just use a chalk board, white board, or sensory materials for writing and don't worry about getting letters on paper.  My little girl struggles with pencil grip, so the handwriting is tough for her.  I just leave that part out.  When I we come to spelling parts, she uses letter tiles to spell the words.  It is working well and she loves it! Her pencil skills will catch up with her learning abilities later, and I don't want to hold her back until then. 

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