My DD is showing gifted traits and my plan is just to let her go thru the materials at her own pace (accelerated) and get stuck into anything she wants to know more about. We just go with the flow really, i just keep giving her more new challenges and she steps up.

Would love to see what you have planed in full Sagira! Will you be putting it on your blog?

Mine do puzzels, read books, listen to an audio book. I should also mention that we school in chunks of time, we may sit and school for 30 mins then they have free time while i do dishes or washing, then back to school for another 30 min etc. During their 'free' time they may do puzzels, play, look at books, help me, go outside, whatever they like really.

:lurk5:

Thanks ladies! Will just get some regular CD's then.

Does anyone use this? Does anyone know anything about it? Just wanting some more info/feedback on practical application. Sounds interesting.

Our Math on the Level just arrived yesterday. I have not yet had a chance to read thru it thoroughly just skim over but i am very excited. I don't know anything about TT but if you are considering MoTL then you need to consider how much time you are prepared to put into teaching your DC math. It provides a lot of different ways to teach a concept and also doesn't introduce a new concept until the child is developmentally ready which is excellent but it does need teacher prep. You have to decide what you are going to teach and in what order also which questions your DC is going to do that day for their 5 a day. For me it is great because my kids love learning thru play and a lot of what we need to learn at this age can be presented in very fun ways i had not thought of myself. It means they wont be forced to do math but will still learn and i can introduce new concepts as they are ready. I am not sure what you are looking for in your curric, but if you are looking for open and go, fully sequenced then MoTL isn't for you, sorry!

We are LOVING FIAR for my DD (4.5) and DS (almost 3). They just can't get enough of the books and the activities.

Thanks again Elizabeth, your truly are a wealth of information!!

ajjkt - can't answer to first part of your Q sorry. With the lists we are working down as the words then all follow the same pattern and the child can recognise the letter to sound pattern. I think you can use the list anyway you like. To begin with we are just using it as a reading list and to become acquainted with sound patterns in words, but we will revisit it and use it as a spelling list too.

Sarah i have only seen 2 phonics programs. The first which i can't remember the name of focused on teaching the letter sounds, every sound that letter makes, then every possible blend combination of that letter before moving to the next letter, DD was just confused by that. She didn't have any tools to blend and wasn't making any connection because the sound wasn't a letter sound or a word. The second 100EZ focuses on learning the letter sounds but in a definate pattern which limits confusion of long or short vowels and other things. I definately think the order in which the letters (sounds) are presented has a bearing on how easy or difficult the child finds it. Also i think the way 100EZ encourages saying the word slowly - sounding out and blending at the same time helps immensley! It's not s-a-t it is sssaaattt. Do you get what i mean? She now has excellent tools to blend unknowns. For us, now that DD understands the letter sounds and how to blend them with the letters along side i can present her with new words and she has the skills to try the blend until she is satisfied the word she is coming up with is a real word. Also i have now shown her some of the syllables from Websters and she has sounded them correctly first go because she has learned the basic blending skills already. She is seeing the syllable as a little word i guess. She is recognising sound patterns in groups of words like 'ag' in bag, rag, hag. She is starting to understand the basics of spelling, sounding the word out. For me personally 100EZ has given my DD and excellent foundation and Websters will grow that foundation. I know that for my DD she could not have started Websters cold at age 4 which is when we began our learning to read journey. I have no experience with Phonics Pathways so can't comment on their similarities or differences with Websters or other programs sorry!

I think the numbers over the words might be similar to what is in Websters. If it is the same then it shows the type of vowel sound i think??? Might have to go grab Websters and have a look for you.

You don't say how old he is. What sort of phonics instruction did he get? Do you do copywork at all? Is it just the spelling list words he gets wrong or does he spell wrong in his everyday writing too? Might help to get an answer if you give a little more info.

:lurk5: Love to hear what you have to say too Elizabeth B.

We cover up the pictures. I think it encourages the kids to be imaginative about what they read. You are suposed to ask what they think they will see in the pic before showing it. It gives me an idea of the way my DD thinks and she has become a little more imaginative as we have gone along. The pictures are not always directly what the child interprets from the story.

Hi Anne, Thanks for joining us. My DD1 and DS are very similar and appear to be learning along similar lines so i think the same method of learning to read will work for DS, but i take your point about them all being different. No, i have not read, or even heard of Dian McGuinness. More google for me, lol. I agree with what you said no need to teach the blends that can be sounded. I am not teaching and blends that can be sounded out and don't plan to. However some syllables have a sound in their own right and don't follow the individual letter sounds and they are the extras that i will use.

I just finished reading "Why Noah Webster's Way Was The Right Way" by Rodgers and i think we will teach the syllables directly from the Speller post 100EZ. Now that DD is recognising blends in context (in the word not on their own) i think she will have no problem learning the syllables. But for her i don't think it would have been the right place for her to start the learning to read process. Off to read more now ...

I agree on the symbol front. I have learned so much since being exposed the the symbols with DD. Some things make so much more sense now. I was taught to read with a combo phonics & see, say approach that has nothing on what we are doing now. He is def an expert!!

Sarah, thanks for clarifying. I just went looking for the article and popped back in to say, do you know what it is called, can't seem to find it. Never mind. I am fairly confident that she figuring it out in her head and just reading the word aloud as we would. She doesn't substitute vowels and rarely gets words wrong, only new ones, which she always sounds and will sounds 2 or 3 times before announcing what she has decided the word says, 90% of the time she is right with her sounding too. I think she is doing well. I would love to keep this dialogue going because i think we can all learn so much along the way. For me DD is the guinea pig and what i work out with her i will use again with DS and DD2. We had just started using ETC which DD doesn't like so will not be continuing but plan replacing with Websters. For now just a reading list, but will be more than that as we progress. Once we finish 100EZ Websters will be our whole program.

I completely agree encoding is the hard part. I am a great reader and terrible speller, always have been. I am sure to learn heaps thru teaching my dc. I want them to be good at both. I am going back to Don Potter to read about the whole word thing, i didn't read it before.

I have just started using it. We are just using it as a reading list at this stage. We are also using 100EZ to learn to read. Ofcourse you could use it alongside SWR. Basically it breaks the words down into syllables which are more managable chunks of a word for the child to sound out. This makes it easier for them to read large words as they are only decoding a bite size chunk of the large word at a time, once they know the sounds for the syllables then they can pronounce the word as a whole. There is a lady on this forum who has a method for using Webster. I am sure she will be aloong and can answer better than I as we have only just started using it.

We started learning to read when DD was just turned 4. She really wanted to read by herself and already knew all her letters. I think she is one of those people who needed/wanted a whole language approach. She wanted to read the word not learn the sounds. It took us about 3 to 4 months to work thru the first 20 or so lessons in 100EZ. They give the letter sounds with phonetic symbols. Prior to this i had used a different program which teaches every blend combination in isolataion and uses phonetic symbols too and she would just glaze over. ma, ma, ma looks exactly the same but says 3 different things. I think that was just way to much for someone who wants to read the word not say the sounds. It was too abstract for her. Not everyone would find this a problem, i guess a lot depends on the age of the child and their learning style. I persevered with 100EZ because i realise how important phonics is. Once she could start reading some 3 letter words after learning individual sounds not blends she took off. She had that drive for more because she could see she was achieving what she wanted, to read words. We are now 3/4 of the way thru 100EZ and she isn't sounding, only new words, the rest she reads and quite fluidly, not stop start. So i guess i should have been more clear before. Teaching blended sounds was abstract but not the sounds of the letters. Now she is reading however i can point out that 2 letters make a certain sound in the word she is reading and she gets it. We read thru the 1st list in Websters last week, bag, hag, rag etc. She fully understood the ag sound but i am not about to intro the ag sound all by itself without showing it to her in a word that she can read or sound out. She sees that they rhyme and she gets the pattern. The first program that i was using taught ag as a sound before ever showing it to the child in a word. Websters also has all the sounds listed prior to the word lists. I skipped over that part for now. It may be something i look at in the future. Right now i am happy for her to read thru the word lists and finish 100EZ. By the way even tho we found 100EZ hard going at the start i think it is a great program and plan to use it again with DS and DD2. Like i said before i think DD wanted whole language approach which she wasn't going to get which is what made it a little tough to begin.

Beth, glad to see i am not the only one who thinks like this. I had these exact thoughts about how i would progress with my kids and history when they are older.

I am using 100 EZ to teach reading but have just found the Webster Speller. We are using the word lists in the speller as reading lists. They are grouped by sounds and so far so good DD is reading the words and even remembering how to spell them later. I don't really want to teach sounds by themselves without teaching the word because my DD being young it is too abstract for her. When she sees a word i can point out the blends which she gets so long as they are presented in context. I take a bit of a CM approach and she is not pro learning blends in an abstract sense. I love the way Webster divides up the words to make them easier to manage. I was taught a little like that in school myself so it feels familiar. I have also done this previously with DD when she asks what something well above her reading level says. Great thread, i ope the conversation is interesting.

Yes, i agree with previous posters i think rigorous means thorough and challenging for the child which means it will be different for every kid.