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What is your favorite phonics program/way to teach dc to read?


gandpsmommy
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I taught dd to read between the ages of 4.5 and 5.5 yo using The Reading Lesson. It worked very well with her. She was reading on a second grade level upon completing the book in December of her K5 year.

 

I have been using it as a starting point to begin teaching ds, who just turned 5 in Oct., to read. We finished the first lesson, and he is progresssing more quickly than I had anticipated, but I'm a bit concerned about the later chapters of the book. Dd has always been a bit advanced for her age and intuitive. She did fine with some of the very limited explanations of phonemes in the last few lessons of the book, but I know that ds is going to need more.

 

Any recommendations? I have heard of Explode The Code, but I don't know very much about it. Is it a complete phonics program or just a supplement? I had looked at The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading when dd was younger, but it looked too complicated and didn't appear to be a good fit for us. Any other recommendations?

 

I have been using the book as only a starting point with ds. He seems to learn best by doing something active. So I have been writing large letters on printer paper and scattering them about on the floor, using them to play games with ds. I have him hop or sideroll to the different letters, calling out the name of the letter or the sound of the letter. I put them in a row and have him hop onto each one, saying the sound of the letter as he hops. I let him use his toy guns and shoot the letter I name or shoot the letter that makes a certain sound. I let him drive little cars and trucks over the letters, dropping marbles from the vehicles on the correct letter. I let him pick up the correct letter in his toy dinosaur's mouth, etc. So, if I could find a program that includes something active or could easily be adapted to such activities, that would be terrific. Any ideas are welcome.

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I used the ideas in Reading Reflex to teach all 3 of my kids to read.

 

I thought it was easy, painless, and intuitive - much moreso than traditional phonics programs (though it is very definitely phonetically based). And it cost me a grand total of $16 including all materials. Well, all you need is the book. :D

 

It's not a workbook - it has you work with letter/phonogram cards and a white board for various basic exercises, and gives you ways to check and teach phonemic awareness and decoding skills, but after those you can just use the ideas in the book to teach a kid how to decode any word. There are no sight words or rules to memorize.

 

It was a originally written as a remedial program for dyslexic kids, so it works well for kids with challenges too.

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I used the ideas in Reading Reflex to teach all 3 of my kids to read.

 

I thought it was easy, painless, and intuitive - much moreso than traditional phonics programs (though it is very definitely phonetically based). And it cost me a grand total of $16 including all materials. Well, all you need is the book. :D

 

It's not a workbook - it has you work with letter/phonogram cards and a white board for various basic exercises, and gives you ways to check and teach phonemic awareness and decoding skills, but after those you can just use the ideas in the book to teach a kid how to decode any word. There are no sight words or rules to memorize.

 

It was a originally written as a remedial program for dyslexic kids, so it works well for kids with challenges too.

 

I used this to teach my kids to read too. I liked that it had no distractions or frills. The kids enjoyed it and it doesn't appear to have left any gaps. My two kids who are fluent readers can decode at 6th grade and college level. My other child who isn't quite fluent can decode at 4th grade level. I used it with my kids as beginning readers and the layout of the book caters to this although it was designed for remedial reading instruction as stated above.

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I like:

 

Spell to Write and Read Phonograms w/pictures for my child who is a VSL learner.

 

For my book learner, I love, love, love Rod and Staff Reading. I use the phonics workbook for unit 1, then we do the unit 1 reader and reading workbook and worksheets. Once we get to unit 2 I spread a lesson over two days and use phonics workbook, reader, reading workbook and worksheets.

 

The phonics workbook is extreamly thorough and we just work on the letter sounds and phonograms. I did not do the sight word work but it is there if you have a child who needs/wants to do it. I like the reading workbook for working on early grammar useage and comprehension skills. The worksheets are just for fun and the reader is nice and gentle.:001_smile:

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We have used Sing, Spell, Read and Write K-1 with all of ours (no. 5 to start soon). I've found the songs and games work with all different types of learners...I tweak the program depending on the needs of the child. I usually supplement with Explode the Code books for independent phonics work. We use other handwriting, language and spelling programs in grade 1 (SSRW just for reading).

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I used Funnix with my youngest, found it incredibly easy. It's a computer program that child and parent do together. The instruction comes via the computer although both child and parent need to respond to it. It was written by the son of Sigfried Englemann, the guy who wrote 100 EZ lessons, and is similar in style and content.

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What is your favorite phonics program/way to teach dc to read?

 

I like to use ETC Primers (A, B, and C), and then when finished with those begin OPG with lesson 27, coupled with ETC 1 and just keep going. We use 1 lesson per day in OPG (unless the child gets stuck...we do not move on) and 2-4 pages in ETC (depending on child).

 

I know many use ETC alone as a complete phonics program and have had great success. I, however, feel that it is best used as a supplement to an intensive phonics primer. It is great for phonics re-inforcement, handwriting practice, and beginning spelling.

 

:001_smile:

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It's the truly classical way to go! (Actually, the truly classical way is to teach them to read Latin first by syllables, but that seemed a bit much for me, I don't even know much Latin myself yet.)

 

I explain how to use it in the Webster link below. Working from the white board held my daughter's interest better, also doing spelling as well as reading really cemented the concepts in her brain and gave her something a bit more active to do. We did both oral and written spelling.

 

At the end of working through the speller, they're able to read 3 and 4 syllable words without problem. When they used it in the 1700's and early 1800's, the children read from the Psalms in the KJV of the Bible when they finished learning how to read (and spell) with the Speller.

 

You also start with 2 letter syllable blending, that's a lot easier for young children to process than the common 3 letter words that most phonics programs start with.

 

I have about 20 different phonics programs. However, Webster's Speller is far, far superior to anything on the market today. If your child is reading below 12th grade level, working through Webster's Speller should get them there! (Yes, a 5 or 6 year old can be reading at that level, and correctly pronouncing obscure words from the KJV, the focus on syllables and spelling can't be beat.)

Edited by ElizabethB
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We're using a few things here. I started out using Montessori Read and Write. It has many fun games and activities for a pre-reader/pre-writer. My favorite activity is the Sound Game, which teaches kids to segment words into their separate sounds. At this time I also taught letter sounds. We read/spelled words from the early lessons in OPGTR for a while after this. And recently we've been using AAS 1 and dd loves it. She would much rather spell than read.

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The manual is the Writing Road to Reading. It does everything: reading, spelling, penmanship, basic capitalization and punctuation, simple writing. It's flexible as well as comprehensive.

 

:iagree: This has been one of those "If I knew then what I know now" finds in homeschool curriculum for me. My dd, now 5th grade, learned using SSRW. She was an advanced reader but horrible speller. And forget knowing any phonics or spelling rules! My research led me to WRTR to help her and now I've taught my 6 yo ds using the Spalding methods. It works and only costs $22!

 

HTH,

Jennifer

Edited by Jen the RD
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