Thank you so much all for your help. Merry, thank you for the info on morphemes! That was really good to know. I think I've decided to go with AAS. I'll keep Apples & Pears in mind as a backup plan, in case AAS doesn't work out. Although it does seem that most people who use AAS end up really liking it. Level 1 looks like it will be super-easy for my son, who already has very good phonemic awareness and a firm grasp on spelling CVC words. I think I'll try to work through both Levels 1 and 2 in first grade. Ellen :)

:tongue_smilie:I know this question has been raised before, but I wanted to find out more before I choose between AAS and Apples & Pears for my son's 1st grade spelling program. What I like about AAS: -explicit, sequential teaching of rules -dictation of sentences including review words What I like about Apples & Pears: -emphasis on morphemes (word parts) -scaffolding strategies (e.g. first copy a word, then fill in missing letters, then write it from dictation) Since I've never taught my ds spelling before, I'm not sure which one will work better for him. I have a feeling that he would respond well to explicit teaching of the spelling rules; he does tend to like things laid out clearly for him. From what I've seen, Apples and Pears seems to be scarce in that area. But, I also think he would respond better to a scaffolding approach rather than being presented with a rule and asked to spell words sight-unseen based on the rule, which seems to be a main component of AAS. He does NOT like going into a task blindly. I am also very drawn to the morphemic approach to spelling. It looks like AAS thoroughly covers adding suffixes, which is a big part of morphemic spelling, but it looks like it might not focus on morphemes in general as much as Apples & Pears. So I am torn. I wish I could combine the best of these programs into one. I'd appreciate any and all of your thoughts and personal experiences with either of these programs. Thanks! Ellen in Baton Rouge ds 6yo - Blend Phonics, Rightstart B, Copywork dd 2yo

Thank you for all your thoughts! A few days ago I found Blend Phonics (FREE from donpotter.net) and it seems like exactly what I am looking for. It's basically just daily word lists - all the words in a list follow a pattern. It's not grouped by onset-rime word families, but rather by phonogram, spelling rule or word parts such as "le" or "tion" (morphemes?). You go through the spelling of each sound, then the child blends the sounds together and says the word, then you prompt the child to make up a verbal sentence with the word, in order to make the mental connection between the written word and the actual meaning of the word. (I also have ds copy the words, which serves as his daily handwriting practice.) This is the basic process as described on the website: (Teacher writes a "b") TEACHER: The name of this letter is b. It says /b/. (Teacher writes an "a") TEACHER: The name of this letter is a. Its short sound is ă. (Teacher writes "ba") TEACHER:Blend /b/ and ă to make /ba/ (Teacher writes "bat") TEACHER: Now we’ll add the letter t that says /t/. What is the word? STUDENT: bat TEACHER: I’ll draw a picture of a bat. Johnny, if you have a ball, what do you do with the bat? JOHNNY: I hit the ball with the bat. Here is an example of a daily word list: PHONOGRAM: ar bar dark mark scar barn far mart star car farm park start chart hard part tar charm jar spark darn lark smart I like the fact that the lists are grouped in phonics patterns, because this seems to helps my son to internalize the structure of written language. Reading words together that share the same pattern makes the pattern click and stick in his mind. Plus, I like how each list is not practiced to exhaustion; each day you do a new list using a new pattern. She even says that if the day's list is very long, you can just pick the words that you think will be most interesting for the child. All this is good because my son really hates repetition, and probably doesn't need it because he has a very good memory. I think the idea is just to quickly and thoroughly expose the child to the basic patterns one at a time, and then they practice it through their reading (in this case Bob Books.) The entire program is supposed to be done within 4 months, and at that point the child has been introduced to the structure of 85% of the English written language. I've been using it with ds for a few days now, along with the Bob Books, and so far it seems to be going well. I skipped the CVC part since he already knows that really well. After I finish Blend Phonics, I'll probably go straight into a spelling program, which will cover phonics in more depth over a longer amount of time. At this point I'm trying to decide between AAS and Apples & Pears, but I'm leaning toward Apples & Pears. (I looked into Spelling Mastery and was impressed, but it's just too expensive.) Ellen

bumping this...

Has anyone tweaked SWR or Phonics Pathways significantly? I've been going in circles with different phonics/reading programs for my 6yo ds for the past year or more, and none of them has been a good fit for us. Lately he's just doing Bob Books alone, but I really do want him to have some sort of systematic phonics instruction. I've decided that instead of making yet another curriculum purchase that we really can't afford anyway, I'm just going to have to figure out how to tweak one of the programs we already have so that it will work for us. Here's a quick rundown: my son hates reading lists of words; he needs mastery approach without too much repetition; he likes building words with letter tiles; he likes copywork. He already knows many of the SWR phonograms. So this is what I've come up with: One possibility is just to teach him one new SWR phonogram (or rule) each day, having him use letter tiles to build lots of words containing the phonogram, and then having him copy and then read back to me one sentence that contains the day's phonogram as well as review words. My other idea is doing one page of Phonics Pathways every day, having him build the words using tiles instead of reading them; then I would only ask him to read just the sentences, and use one sentence as copywork. Do you think that would be enough? (I don't think he actually needs very much repetition, as his memory is quite good; too much repetition actually makes him tune out and underperform. However, I do want enough for him to learn it well.) By the way, in case you were wondering, the reason SWR didn't work for us "as-is" was because 1) He despised reading the lists of words 2) Spelling was not clicking at all for him. He remembers phonograms and rules very well, but a visual memory of the words was just not happening for him with the spiral SWR approach. I think his visual memory would click in better if he saw words listed together illustrating the pattern, e.g. the second sound of "ch" -- school, scholarship, schedule, chord, chimera, etc... Any and all thoughts will be appreciated! Ellen :bigear:

For at least a year, I've been trying to find the right phonics program for my kindergartener. We tried SWR, Explode the Code, and Phonics Pathways -- he hated all of them, and none of the programs were really working with him, even though he has great phonemic awareness and learns letter sounds easily. He learned all the SWR phonograms easily, for example, but after List A, he could never remember how to spell most of the words no matter how much we worked with them. With Phonics Pathways, his blending skills actually seemed to deteriorate as time went on. Reading lists of words in isolation seemed to muddle something in his brain. Explode the Code seemed to be tedious for him. He really does not like a lot of repetition. I finally decided to just put away all the phonics programs and just sit down and read Bob Books with him every day. Finally, this is something that is working! We read 3 books per day - 2 review books and 1 new one, and the process of reading is finally starting to click !!! Experiencing the words in the context of a story seems to help him connect with the process; each word is a puzzle to be solved to get to the reward of the story. We are half-way through Set 2, and at this rate he'll go through all 5 sets by January. I'm pleased with his progress as far as that goes. But, now I'm wondering what I should do about systematic phonics? I do briefly analyze the phonics of each new word in the Bob Books as we go through them (using SWR phonograms) but doesn't he need to complete a full phonics program to cover all the bases? I plan to use the Pathway Readers after we finish the Bob Books, and starting in 1st grade I'll start him on All About Spelling. So I know he'll get the phonics eventually as part of spelling, but I wonder, will it hold back his reading progress if he doesn't complete a systematic phonics program early on? I thought about just teaching him the rest of the SWR phonograms (we only got about half-way through them), but if I did that, should I teach them as we encounter them in our reading, or try to teach them in isolation again? (He really hated doing the SWR flashcards.) :confused: Ellen ds 6 yo -- Bob Books, copywork, Rightstart A dd 2

My ds6 is very bright but does NOT like "doing school." I've found Phonics Pathways to be very time-efficient: it gets straight to the point and gets a lot accomplished in just a few minutes without any busywork. I'm looking for curricula in other areas (math, spelling, grammar, etc.) that are time-efficient in that same way. Please post your favorites! Ellen :bigear: ds6 dd2

Hi all, I'm looking for a 1st grade math program for my ds, and I'm looking for something that approaches math in the same way that Phonics Pathways approaches reading. We tried Reading Reflex and SWR and my son ended up really disliking them. He didn't like having to spell his way into reading or build words with letter tiles. Then we started Phonics Pathways and he is doing great with it. He does well with the simplicity of it and the straightforward sequential approach. He has a good memory and likes to just get straight to the point without extra tasks. Along those lines, we tried Rightstart Math and he hated it. He really seemed to dislike having to use so many different manipulatives and didn't like the way it meanders around topics in an exploratory way (I liked those things about it, by the way, but it just didn't work for him.) But, he is an analytical/deep thinker and I think he will like mental math. I'm thinking he might do well with a pictorial workbook approach like Singapore. I'm also considering MUS, but I think he would get tired of the blocks and the repetition. MCP Math also seems fairly pictorial too. Miquon Math looks interesting. So, I'm looking for a math program that (like Phonics Pathways) has a straightforward teaching method, sequential building of skills, without a lot of manipulatives, but with a good bit of mental math. Any suggestions? Ellen in Baton Rouge ds6 dd2