My DD found that there was too much repetition and while she seemed to enjoy it at first and learnt from it, she was tired of it before the end of the trial and didn't ask for it again after the trial ended. I think it just became too much of the same thing for her - but then she likes to jump around a lot in any program/curriculum that we do.

I also have a budget concern. I have used OPGTR to teach phonics for reading (my DD was already reading a fair amount before we started phonics so didn't use OPGTR as scripted) and now I am wondering whether I can still use OPGTR to teach spelling (obviously with changes since I also want her to learn spelling rules which I believe is where AAS strengths lie amongst other things) So without derailing the thread has anyone done this and how did it work if you did? Oh, if I did this, I would also plan on using letter tiles (or some version of letter tiles) along with it.

How much do you encourage kindergarteners (and pre-K children too) to color in? My DD is supposed to start kindergarten next year January and if we put her in school then they will expect an enormous amount of coloring - I think they use it to keep them busy and also to help the fine motor control for writing and according to a teacher to build their pride in a completed work. My DD (4.5) hates coloring in, never asks to do it and usually will only put effort into it for the first minute before scribbling the rest of the page. I have taught her letter formation and she prefers writing to coloring it seems as at Sunday school she will write her name very beautifully on the back of her worksheet but will only color in half the pictures whereas her friends spend endless time coloring very neatly but cannot write their names at all. Do you think I should expect some coloring and if so how much and for what purpose?

I do not think that being bored in school will make a child hate to learn. It may very well however make a child hate school or at least the educational side of school, but that happens with children who are below average in school work too. And I do not know any child who is average in everything. In actual fact keeping them stimulated at home will spur a love of learning because it is what children want. My DD is alredy well accelerated - she is meant to start K next year and has more than covered all the work in K and a lot of 1st grade work. Her handwriting is not up to standard for 1st grade work, but that is because her fine motor skills are 2 years behind a 1st grader - she is actually still ahead of her age with handwriting. We are trying to decide what to do with her next year - whether to keep her home or send her to school, but the decision is complicated by a number of factors. If she goes I am sure I will do some afterschooling to keep her interest in learning open.

I think you need the IG because the LA contains quite a lot of creative writing assignments where activity sheets are not given for them to write on. It is not really a workbook approach at all so the activity sheets to me seemed "extra" unlike some other workbooks I have tried where you really do not need the IG/TM.

I think she should determine where he is with the skills needed for the 5-7 year old section before deciding. By preK version I presume you mean Peak with Books which is actually fine for kindergarten too and is being used by quite a few people here. If she wants to go with the 5-7 curriculum then she could always buy a unit and try it out and see how it goes and go on with Peak with Books if it doesn't work out. I would be a bit wary moving ahead if he cannot write as there are a lot of worksheets - it might be better then to work on his handwriting first.

From what I understood by reading that article children were being taught arithmetic, but not in the fashion it was usually taught at that time - there was probably less abstract, more word problems (though perhaps not stated in the formal worksheet style that is often used) To teach reasoning does not mean that you do not teach arithmetic - more likely is that they teach problem solving rather than formulae for solving addition and subtraction. Children would still have needed to know how to count in order and someone had to teach (and yes drill that) - it may be expected that they know it before they get to school - then the parents had to drill it at home. Math understanding is very important - and it is often not taught to the extent that I have met children who can "solve" 5+3 and write 8, but when asked to count out 8 blocks or show the sum with concrete objects they cannot do it - they have no clue that numbers are quantities (the child in question was 8 years old!)

I think it depends on what level you plan on teaching photosynthesis. I taught my daughter about photosynthesis at age 3 (Co2 or "something in the air that we breathe out" + water from the rain or the water we pour on the plants = (is used by the plant to make) sugars or food for the plant to use + oxygen which is what we breathe in) She didn't need to know at age 3 the chemistry behind this - at that age they do not need proofs and just accept everything you tell them. 6CO2 +6H2O = C6H12O6 + 6O2 will probably mean nothing to her for a very long time, yet she knows plants use "air" and water to make food and "air" that we breathe in.

Personally I think the scientific method needs to be taught first but it can be taught with whatever area of science you teach first (or in fact with whatever area of life you are looking at) Physics and chemistry are pretty broad areas to cover - what exactly in these areas did they propose teaching first? I have started with the natural sciences because that is the area that I know best and seems to interest my DDs most (even from before they are 1 year old) but then perhaps if I looked hard enough I'd find that physics fascinates them a lot too (they play with toy cars and roll balls around) and chemistry is always interesting (they eat soap and like to bake)

Sounds like he is doing really well and I also think reading is the most important for all other subjects. Language arts itself is quite broad - you need to do spelling and grammar at some point as well as literature study (which in elementary is more just reading the books and discussing them) and then there is writing (handwriting, copywork and then composing - narration and different forms of writing) What else is he doing at the moment? Maybe you could also concentrate on other subjects now - history, geography, science, math, art - at least he can now read much of it himself.

I am using Horizons K and MEP 1 with SM 1 and it seems to be fine. We are working more slowly through SM 1 than the other two at the moment but I switch it around a lot - my DD does two of them a day so if two seem to work better at some stage I stick with those two and usually only change if there is some resistance or we need a break.

:iagree: As for blending I would not keep questioning her on it - just do it for her and keep doing it. You sound it out and you tell her what it says. After doing that for a while you sound it out and then leave a small gap before telling her what it says so that if she knows she can fill in the space. Start with cvc words and other simple phonics. I probably would teach some words as sight words though don't leave the phonics altogether - teach just enough to get her reading with your help.

I have laminated flashcards for all the phonics sounds and so during bath time I pick a few that I can make words out of to teach the next sound (for example we did the AR sound last night) and then I will put them on the tiles in the bath (wet and stick) and tell stories using the words and switching cards. eg d-ar-n, there is a l-ar-k in the bathroom! H-ar-k, can you hear it? Listen, maybe it is under the bubbles (- much splashing while trying to find it) and then I will put up some letters with the same sound that do not spell a word but we sound it out anyway and she laughs which gives us a breather. That l-ar-k needs to go to a f-ar-m. Wait, wait, it will come to some h-ar-m if you don't pick it up carefully! (More acting out of the story in the bath) Listen to what the bird is saying: (and some more nonsense words) - I think it needs you to teach it to speak correctly. (At this point she can play with eth cards herself if she wants to - usually she doesn't much though) That is usually long enough for my daughter. And as long as there is plenty of splashing and acting out she is happy and the one year old gets handed the cards we are finished with to dump in the water so she is happy too.

Yes it has definitely got harder since my DD2 turned one. And it is also the reading and math (and the writing too sigh) where I need some time. My LO does not have a regular nap schedule either so I cannot plan for it at all. I have a big drawer of art supplies that I give to my youngest when doing math with the oldest - it is very messy and not ideal but anything clean would not work. It requires a lot of cleaning up afterwards but it is worth it for the time I get with my elder one. I have also shortened my DDs lessons - we only do half a page of math now. Reading is harder - I read the baby a book first - I did try getting my elder to read to the baby, but it doesn't work well. After reading to the baby I let her empty a low bookshelf (sigh messy again :)) while I do reading with the elder (again only for as long as we can which is shorter than it was before) and then I read a chapter book while the baby clambers on the bed and sometimes BFs while I read (and this is not peaceful like it sounds) If I want to do phonics it happens with laminated flashcards in the bath where the 1 year old is more confined and happier to play with her toys. Writing is probably the hardest to teach right now and I must probably remember to only even attempt that during nap time. Your baby sounds like mine - terrible napper, terrible eater and into everything! And mine is so clingy that even DH cannot help - he gives her back to me after having her for less than 5 minutes!

Your DS sounds similar to my DD. I have started to teach her letters for handwriting and we do write words, but it will be a while before she can write much. However she has needed to learn some spelling and that is because she types to her father on skype during the day - we made the font really big so she could read what he typed to her and of course she wants to reply so has learnt some basic spelling that way. I will not start a spelling programme til she is writing better, but if she continues the way she is on skype then she may not need a spelling programme by the time she is writing well. Maybe you could teach him to type words if he is keen on learning spelling and do the handwriting separately? I would not however use AAS to help with the reading as it seems it would take a while for him to get to the level he is already reading at - rather use another phonics programme or help him with the words he gets stuck on and point out any rules in context since he seems to learn reading naturally anyway.

http://www.candy4wayphonics.com/Learning%20Syllabication.pdf

I think it probably is a length and vocabulary issue. The vocabulary issue you may need to attend to either during the reading instruction or before he reads something - if you are still reading aloud to him a lot and explaining where necessary then vocabulary will naturally expand. You could also always get a vocabulary workbook but I think that is a bit pointless if he is reading advanced books. The length issue is always corrected by segmenting words - you can teach prefixes and suffixes to solve some of it and knowing how to chop a word up into syllables usually fixes the rest of it as that also helps with the phonics - if you know where a syllable ends it is easier to know how to pronounce certain vowels. For now though to avoid having to struggle with an enormous concept and practice endless words before actually getting to read those words in books I would just do it for him simply to show him that he can try by himself already. Are you still making him read aloud to you each day?- this is much easier to fix than letting him skip the words if he is reading silently to himself. With my 4 year old who still oftens needs a finger under the word when she reads I slide my own finger under the word and stop in the middle (him-self or in-te-rest-ing) and she has learnt to sound out to a certain point herself and then break a bit to say the next part and when she has sorted out the parts she goes back to say the whole word as a single word.

My daughter started reading early readers at 3 years of age mostly by sight reading I believe though she had tried to sound out the word "opposites" from the cover of one of her books when she was 2 years old. By 3.5 I knew she would need some help to move to other books and I do believe in phonics so I started OPGTR but did not use it as scripted. A year and a half later she is now reading very well though requests most reading to be shared reading (I read some and she reads some - usually a paragraph each) Children can learn to read in many different ways and many do very well despite how we teach them. There was an article somewhere that said 50% of children will learn to read no matter what method you use, 25% need sequential phonics and I forget what they said about the other 25%. I guess you will have to play it by ear with your son though I do suspect that most boys do better with a structured phonics approach (no statistics, but it was Johnny and not Janet who supposedly couldn't read back when only sight words were being taught) If your daughter is doing great you didn't handle it wrong for her - you did very well and so did she, but you may still need a different approach with your next child.

When my daughter gets to a big word I cover it up and then uncover it in sections she can manage by herself. So Metropolitan would probably be uncovered as metro-pol-i-tan. Depending on how she gets this I may also show her the following: You know how to read this part of this word: tan (get her to say it), what do you think this part says: poli and this: metro. Ok then we can put it all together metropolitan (which we usually say "metropolitan" and then say it correctly as I think most people pronounce it "tin" at the end but that shouldn't affect your child too much) And then of course you must tell him what it means else it is a bit unfair to expect him to read what he feels is a nonsense word when it takes so much effort from him - it needs to be meaningful. Then: Wow, look at that long word you figured out all by yourself! Later on I would teach her to uncover the word herself. It is easier for little ones to do this by just sliding a paper from left to right across the word so you do need to have practised segmenting words properly before leaving it to them else you will still get some strange pronunciations. On another note though: that book seems to have a few too many sticking words: maybe find a book with some long words but not 3 in a row to start with - that is enough to intimidate anyone who is just starting to learn these skills!

My DD is due to start kindergarten next year January. If she does stay home (we need to decide fairly soon) we will continue what we have been doing this year: Math: Horizons K and MEP 1 (Singapore we are moving through very slowly also and jump around in them so will see what we do with it) Phonics: OPGTR, possibly starting some spelling when she is done Handwriting: doing my own thing with this, starting copywork Language Arts: May start WWE1 when the handwriting improves enough, many many read alouds for literature Reading: Read books to me aloud each day, may start some silent reading expectations if I feel she is up to it History: Continue on with SOTW1 at a very slow pace Science and Geography: various read alouds, would like to do a study of natural sciences esp human anatomy as she seems interested in it Art/Music: haven't decided yet Bible: Have her read The Beginner's Bible

The sounds of a: a in : sat, map, can a in : car, far, star (also British English for words like fast and path) a in : train, rain, sane, mane, day, play a in : awe, paw, paul, taught, ball, fall a in : said (as e) and read a in : ear, hear a in : each, teach, read a in: air, hair, fair That's all I can think of now (I believe there are 9 and I am not sure whether they were discussing the ea combinations either) and so no, I probably would not go with vertical phonics because they usually leave some of these out and most are taught as 2 or 3 or even 4 letter sounds more easily later on. But it does show that just because they see an a in a word does not mean that it will make the short vowel sound. As far as I know "a" is the worst of all the vowels in having numerous ways to say it.

I read somewhere that the average child (whatever that means) usually starts reading independently when they reach the level of an average (that word again) 8 year old. So basically late 2nd early 3rd grade level of reading - when this was written I am unsure as I know that phonetic decoding ability is not all it takes - they also need stamina. Many of the books written for teaching reading these days are much shorter than those written decades ago which means it could take even longer to get them up to speed. My DD is reading early and decoding at a fairly high level, but is nowhere near ready to read a whole book (even a very short one) of her own accord. She also seems to enjoy reading with someone and sharing the reading. I would just keep at it - maybe expect him to read slightly longer passages with you. If you are doing shared reading you could change from expecting a sentence or paragraph to expecting a page before you read some. He will get there - give him time and plenty of practice.

We started at cvc blends when my DD was 3.5 - she had known her letter sounds for a long time already so we skipped it. I also did not use it as scripted and used it for word lists with a rule more than anything. I also taught the double consonants very quickly since I do not believe in teaching these as sounds together since they are very easy to sound out (m-i-l-k rather than teaching that lk makes a sound) We made it to lesson 110 and by then she was reading almost anything and picking up the other phonics rules by herself. I have stopped for now though would like to cover the multi-syllable sections with her soon and possibly silent letters at some stage. I will probably skip the R-controlled vowels as she seems to know those already. I used the book for just less than a year with her I would guess.

I started with Horizons K with my 4 year old even though she knew much of what they taught early on simply because it taught her how to write the numbers well and she needed that early on. I then added in Singapore 1a and MEP 1 - I found doing a few programs slowed her down a bit and gave her the change she needed - she tends to like changing things around often. When she herself is choosing most days she chooses MEP.

Reading Eggs did not work for my child though she has loved www.zoowhiz.com though I doubt it will last very long (we only recently started that one so its still too new to tell) I would probably get my children to do something else while I was busy with the other - they should be old enough to fix themselves a snack, play outside, read a book, build something with lego, finish a short worksheet of work you have just covered with them. My DD has also learnt plenty playing games like Where's my water and Cut the rope on our tablet - not exactly classical education but they keep her entertained for a while and require some logical thinking. I would probably use free apps simply because my DDs interest changes too rapidly to make buying any programme worthwhile especially if I am expecting her to use it independently.