Check out Spell to Write and Read. It's a derivative of Writing Road to Reading with many more helps, games and a wonderful yahoo group that answer any question you have. Definitely taught me to look at our language in a new way!! Christie

I use Spell to Write and Read. My 6 yo daughter has learned all 70 phonograms and can "read" them within 3 minutes. Her favorite is "ough" which says /O/ /OO/ /uf/ /off/ /aw/ /ow/. It's quite a fun game. This program only teaches the 3 sounds of A because the words you listed above use different phonograms. * AR says /ar/ as in car * AI says /A/ as in train * AY says /A/ as in say Did you ever notice that AI and AY are a pair. One may be used at the end of an English word (AY) but the other never is (AI) because English words do not end in I. (spaghetti is not an English word, it's Italien.) SAID is an exception. In Spell to Write and Read there are only 15 exceptions in 2,000 words. READ uses the EA phonogram which has 3 sounds: /E/, /e/ and /A/ (as in meat, head, and great) EAR, HEAR, EACH, TEACH and READ also use the EA phonogram and where it says it's first sound /E/ AIR, HAIR and FAIR use the AI phongram which says /A/. You have to think about how you're making the sound and how it's blending together. say /A/ /R/ and you can get it to blend to be AIR. The r and the l often make our mouths distort the vowel sound as we're "sliding" into the r sound while saying the /A/. Spell to Write and Read has one powerful component, the THINK TO SPELL. My daughter was stuck on HAIR but we kept drilling, "Think to Spell /h/ /A/ /r/" and she got it. I typed this without looking at any notes. Don't be intimidated by vertical phonics. It's an incredibly powerful tool for analyzing our language. You learn the phonograms one at a time along with your child. You learn to analyze the words one at a time along with your child and suddenly it all makes sense! I would absolutely HATE to be unable to explain why the A in father says /ah/. Our children's minds are amazingly flexible and they'll pick up on this stuff before you do. There's a yahoo group for Spell to Write and REad that is active daily with wonderful trainers who are ready to answer any question. I learn a ton from reading the daily digest and get much encouragement from it. IMHO, Vertical PHonics is the only way to go. Christie PHillips

There is no way we could have time to do the activities. I wistfully scan them and think, "Maybe, in 4 years, when we're back to Ancient History again... maybe then my oldest daughter might get excited about some of these activities and decide to do them with my 2nd daughter..." But for the most part, no. We're just quite blessed to even squeeze history in and get everyone fed for lunch and laundry done and baths taken! So basically, I read the story while she colors a page (if there is one), ask the review questions and take her narration, and that's it. We've done 1, maybe 2 of the activities this year. Shoot, I just recently figured out the library order-online and pickup books at the drive-thru feature, so we ARE getting some library books to go with history now too. The best, though, has been the audio CDs. They stay in the car and they're not allowed to "listen ahead" of where we are in school. They request history EVERYTIME we're in the van so we've had to set down the law "NO HISTORY ON SUNDAY" - even Mom gets tired of it sometimes! But its the best review tool ever. Christie P

Thank you! Yes, Pictures in Cursive is what I was looking for. :) Thanks!

Saw one once that had a piece of artwork (a painting) and the student copied phrases underneath that described the painting. "She has bare feet." But I've forgotten the name of it and can't find it online. Christie Phillips

loved it! Thanks for posting that. :) Nice to be able to say that hs-ing is not the cause of all my troubles - I'd just have a different set if they went to ps. I like the problems we have hs-ing. I think I'll keep these. :)

Thanks!

thanks!

Spell to Write and Read,. Very active helpful yahoo group. demystifies the english language using 70 phonograms and 28 spelling rules. teaches kids to read by spelling first, their first reader is their spelling book and sentences in their own handwriting. by analyzing each word sounds first THEN writing it and seeing the visual, it createas a stronger mental connection that they won't forget. Lots of activities and enrichment activities as you go along. spelling dictation videos here:

Just completed Jewish People Word Search. It said "with the leftover letters, after all the words have been found, answer the bonus riddle. Just write down, in order, the letters that aren't yet circled. They spell the answer." My leftover letters, in order, do not form anything recognizable. Also, I don't see a "bonus riddle" for the leftover letters to answer. ALSO - the directions said "all the answer words from the clues are in the word search and only run from left to right." Well, my answers did NOT only run from left to right. JOSEPH was down, ABRAHAM and PHARAOH were all doing down. UR and COAT were diagonal. So did they alter the grid of letters at some point, remove the bonus riddle, and forget to change the directions? Thanks! Christie P

Thanks for all the input. I will try to go the route of only reading it once. I agree that they can rise to the level of our expectation. Though her wordy narrations come too fast for me to write it down (if I expect to be able to read it later!) So I do have to STOP her and make her pause so I can catch up. She has already improved. She's comfortable answering in complete sentences... and I'll have to think about whether to correct at the moment or afterwards. (She's not yet reading what we're writing. Maybe when she's at the level of reading it, I can have her read it and we correct it together.) Yes 0 I do have the AG and we use the Narration Questions. And I like the idea of reading their summaries to her afterwards so she can get an idea of what we're going for. (I enviously drool over the crafts and projects but we have NO time for them!) And I'll try to ask, "tell me one thing you remember" :) I have uploaded the SOTW CDs to my computer and can make a playlist that only includes the chapters we've already covered. She loves to listen to them during free time, and I figure it's 'free' review so, once we've read it and narrated it, I see no problem with her listening to them as often as she wants. Thanks for the input! Christie

My 6yo DD is getting into the routine of narration. However, I have noticed certain things... :) "So, what happened in the story?" "I don't know." So then she wants me to read the entire thing again! I'm thinking of letting her listen to her History on Sunday afternoons with the CD so that when I read it to her on Monday it's not so new and she will have heard it more than once. (I like to actually read it to her so I can elaborate or answer questions.) I do the review questions, but then she would rather I write down her answers to the Review Questions and let that be her narration. I've discouraged that but will use leading questions (as little as possible) to try and get the narration started. Once the narration does start - it can go for an ENTIRE notebook page (in my handwriting). She includes every single detail. If it's a Bible narration, she wants to quote everything everybody said. I can tell for this little woman, summarizing is going to be difficult! So, any ideas on how to teach summary? I tried to encourage only 3-5 sentences and got about 8-10 today. :) And how much editing do you do as they talk? Sometimes what she says isn't grammatically correct, or she'll start the narration with "They" rather than saying "The Egyptians". I do verbally, gently correct and have her restate it, but with such run-on sentences as she gives, it's difficult! (I've actually had to limit her to one joining conjunction per sentence. Yesterday she gave me " A and B and C and D" where A, B, C and D were all stand-alone sentences themselves! :) It's funny and challenging! I do see where this process is going to produce better writing because we can be working on these things in her thinking before it ever comes to the point where she's writing it down on paper herself. Thanks!

I so feel your pain! My husband's schedule is different every day and every week. Sometimes 6a-4p, sometimes 10a-8p, sometimes 3p-1a or 4p-2a. Most weeks he works Saturday and Sunday, so his two off days are during the week. Even if he is off, he sleeps at least until 10 or 11 am. I get up at 5, walk, shower, dress, do basic chores (load of laundry, unload dishwasher) then the kids get up at 7 am. Dress, make beds, hair - breakfast at 8 am - brush teeth, clean table and school at 9 am (mostly 9:30 am). School til lunch, but still we're pushing it to get it done before lunch, so maybe lunch is at 1 pm - or else we have a subject or two after lunch. (Oldest is 6 and this is our first year of 1st grade. New subjects this year include SOTW, Cursive First and Spell to Write and Read) My main headache is what to do with almost 3yo who doesn't take a morning nap and refuses to stay in the playroom (gotta remember to put that gate up!) Was just brainstorming that we could do subjects that the 3yo likes (Bible, History and Cursive) before lunch mainly because there are coloring pages in Bible and History that she can color, or the hands on manipulatives for Cursive (wall clock, salt box, tracing raised letters) and then try to save Math and Spelling for after lunch when 3yo is "supposed" to be napping and not distracting me and my 6yo! Anyway - it's always a challenge to try to find what works and when you do find it, it'll change in 1-2 months! But my DD has helped! She wants to visit a friend tomorrow and I was wondering out loud how to get our school in. "Mom - you know how I sometimes get up with you early and go walking? What if we do school then (5 am) before breakfast then we can visit our friends?" Well - it is my rest day from walking - so if she's game... why not? ;-)

My 6yo is starting to work some word problems in her math (Math Mammoth) and I'm having her underline the numbers in the problems (i.e. Jack has _six_ cars....) so that when she gets to bigger and longer word problems, she will be in the habit of underlining the important information to make it stand out. (you know how they always love to throw in something that isn't required to solve the problem!)

Just bought MM in March. Printed 1-A and 1-B double sided on fast draft (uses less ink), hole punched and put in 3 ring binder. Tabs separate 1-A, 1-A Ans, 1-B, 1-B Ans, Cum Rev, and Tests. Taking out 1 page a day and having her work both front and back. BTW - I went through both 1-A and 1-B with coloring pencils and it only took one evening to color in anything that really needed color. (Money was the worst! All those pennies! And Money had to be printed as photo quality or the coins weren't clear enough, but it's a small section.) I had priced printing at Kinkos (my original choice) but it was SO VERY expensive!! And there was no way I could tweak it to make it cheaper. In the end, one new cartridge of black ink (only $32) was MUCH cheaper than printing at Kinkos, and I desperately needed it anyway, and now I have about 75% of the ink left over for the rest of the year. So only $3 for the paper, $32 for the ink, and I'm probably set on ink for the next 6 months too.