My son started Reading eggs in mid first grade while his guided reading level was C. By the time he finished RE, his guided reading level was still only level D/E and his decoding skills were not automatic. RE helped on his reading confidence but not on the fluency. Therefore, we went back to traditional way of learning to read. We did Dancing Bear fast track, guided reading and I SEE SAM. We also reviewed vowel teams using O-G method. We did try eggpress and my son does not like it much so we just dropped it.

I can't agree with you more. My 8 yo is at the same stage. He has passion and goal but does not know how to reach it. Sometimes I have to push him. Once he sees the progress, he will enjoy and told "YES, mommy, you are right. I can do it with more practice!" For now, I have to set the practice schedule and method that fit both of us. Whenever we learn new song, I spend the next day (about 1hr) to get the new skills down. We listen to the recording or watch someone's demo from youtube so he can be familiar with the song first. Then we go over the music to make sure he knows the notes and rhythm. Then we fix whatever he is struggling to play (new skills) in the class. We play through it over and over again till he gets it correctly or he can self correct his error. After that, he will only need to bow through the new song 5 times daily (let his finger familiar with playing the song) plus some old songs for review and fun during weekdays till next class.

My son is Chinese English bilingual. My son is little behind in language but not bad enough to raise the red flag. He maintains both languages orally till 5 years old. After his K teacher raised concern about his expressive language, we dropped bilingual enviornment and switched to English only at home for two years but still continue sending him to Chinese school once a week to learn to read and write. His English oral expression has improved in these two years. At 8 years old, he now can clearly tell me the details (in logical order) of a movie he watched at school. However, sometimes he still has some hard time to express some complex critical thinking questions clearly but his ESL teacher thinks it's normal for ESL students. Both school and his home tutor use O-G to help him on reading since late 1st grade. He has good reading comprehension and spelling ability but need to expand more on his vocabularies in different subjects. Chinese is a completed different language than English. Chinese character is like a picture and you have to rote memorize every shape and pronounciation. The grammer and sentence sturcture are completely different from English or western languages as well. So I will expect him to have some hard time to switch between 2 languages especially he continues learning Chinese characters to read and write while he learns to read and write in English. However, I would like to prepare for worst case so I jumped in O-G directly when I know he is behind in his reading. His tutor is using wordly wise 3000 and guided reading different types of books for his vocabularies. I am ELL myself. The way I learn English is different from the way my son is learning. We learn spelling words/vocabularies first, grammer/sentence sturcture next, and then writing in paragraph at last. My son's first grade writing curriculum was writer's workshop and only can write something happened in the real life. He had hard time to come up with things to write, but I know he is a creative kid as he made up many nice stories orally when he was younger. Therefore, I know that he needs writing structure and hand holding to write. I coached my son during summer by using Evan Moore daily 6 traits and Winning with Writing when he failed his writing assessment at 1st grade (he got ZERO in final writing assessment). I guided him step by step to practice organizing his thoughts in orders and putting his thoughts in the basic writing framework (Begin with topic sentence, several sentences for details and ending sentence needs to refer back to topic). The biggest issue he had in 1st grade is talking and writing something irrelated to his main topic. It took me a while to get him come up with detail sentences that referred back to his topic. By the beginning of 2nd grade, his new teacher told me that his writing is almost up to grade level. In addition, I found that guiding him to put his thoughts in orders and the writing framework also help on his expressive language as well. You may try to start from here.

We are in Suzuki book 2 and have not yet started note reading. His teacher started to introduce different notes (1/4, 1/2, 1/16 etc) at the end of book 1. My son learns violin directly without any basic music experience so it took him a while to get used to bowing different length of notes. His teacher wants to start him on note reading when we started book 2 but still have not yet had time to do so. I will have to remind him again next time.

Thanks. Does it mean that there is no more new materials after 6 grade? My son is 2nd grade and we are currently working at K-3 materials. I think we have long way to go before we hit the end. Did you do their reading progress indicator assessment? My son was placed as grade level 4.1 but I manually assigned his reading level at first grade level.

Bumping this old thread and wondering if anyone can have some feedback.

Work well I SEE SAM Dancin Bear reading Raz kids Singapore primary math Dreambox(for fun supplement only) No time to do Apple and pears Wordly wise 3000 (i outsource it to his reading tutor after my son is solid on phonics) Winning with writing (half way done, will pick up in summer) Growing with grammer (overlap with WWW and school curriculum so we drop it at half way)

My son is still in reading remedy program at shcool. I am not sure how much they read at school per day. At home, we will do Dancing Bear C 10 minutes as reading instruction, and one story from I SEE SAM set 6 (about 500-700 words) as his read aloud. In addition, he will also read at least 1 leveled book (I set his level low to start with) with comprehension quiz from Raz-Kid per day but he normally does more than 1 book. I require him read, listen, read again and then take the quiz at last so it will take him about 20 minutes per book. Once a week, he will do 30 minutes guided reading with his reading tutor. Normally they will do 2-3 chapters from MTH or similar leveled chapter books with details discussion for the story settings and problems. Receently they switch to some history story book in order to expand his social study vocabulary. The level of that book is about 3rd grade. He does his own free reading as well and I do not count those in his reading log. Sometimes he reads magzine; sometimes he reads comic books.

My son goes to JEI learning center for summer camp last year. They offer school year program as well. I like their booklets. They have certified teacher teaches small group of students for concept first and then students do their own level of booklets base on their own assessment and progress. Then teacher will grade the work and identify the weak area to work further. The mateials increase difficulty in baby step so children won't get frustrated. My son has been asking to go back this summer. I know there is another similar learning center called eye level. Their math program contains basic math and critical thinking math which my friend's math gifted child enjoys a lot. I personally do not like kumon but it has some advantage. We do some kumon booklets at home for timed math but not overly killed with it.

Once you login, there is menu item called Dashboard on the top and you can click edit detail button next to your child's name. The adjustment function will be on your right.

If login is new, then he will be required to take placement test once he starts to use it. Or you mean that you want to change his level to the beginning? The level adjustment function is at parent dashboard.

I am actually wondering about the same thing as geodob mentioned above. I had my son read a simple book from Raz-Kids this morning as we still have 15 minutes before we need to head out to school. He read it by himself first. There is only one word "gnawed" that he really has trouble with. Then he listened the model audio and learn how to pronouce "gnawed". At last he read again with more fluent speed but still has some minor errors (dropping ending sounds, he can self correct some this time). For the lower leveled reader, there are often repeated pattern in sentences so it serves the purpose for repeated practicing. However, I obersved my son and found that he automatically combine two sentences with same subject by using AND while reading aloud. But this does not happen when there is only one sentence each line. He also likes to use contration while reading aloud. Those do not impact his comprehension at all but will make him fail the reading assessment at school because he does not read word by word.

Yes, that's what I told him. If he can try his best to read all ending sounds and try not to skip the littel words, he can move up to higer level bucket that containing chapter books. His tutor has been working on books with his interest level even though some books (DK eyewitness series) are beyond his instructional reading level at this moment. But overall, I am happy that he finally has motivation to read chapter books now. I remebered he fight with his tutor and cried in September because she pushed him to read 1 chapter of magic tree house.

In my son's school, he has to reach 98% accuracy for independent reading level and 95% for instruction level. For early levels, each book has less than 100 words in it. That means you cannot skip or misread for more than 2 words in the whole book. My son recently told me that he is assigned two reading buckets at school. He reads at beginning 2nd grade level (his true reading level) in classroom while reading 3 levels down when he works with reading specialist in pull out session. He also had issue for skipping little words and dropping some ending sounds (-s/-es/-d/-ed). At home, his tutor (also a reading specialist) encourages him to use finger as aide and slow him down when doing guided reading. She said it helps a lot to bring up his accuracy. She knows that he is capable to read more difficult passage so she is pushing him along to harder works. They have been reading chapter books since beginning of 2nd grade when my son was tested as mid first grade reading level at school. My son now complains that the assigned readers in school too easy and boring but teacher does not allow him to read chapter books because he still often miss the ending sounds.

Can he try to use his finger as aide? Not really counting finger by finger but look at the fingers to help for visualization. Start to work on numbers within 5 and then within 10. After he is comfortable, move on to great numbers. You can also buy some kumon workbooks for him to practice. It is very gental and starting from adding 1. Also there is a book called Two plus Two is not Five which is highly recommended by some members here.

Does he count on fingers? How about addition within 10? Can he respond faster?

We used Daily 6 traits Grade 1 over the summer and it met public school expectation for writing. http://www.amazon.com/Daily-6-Trait-Writing-Grade-Practice/dp/1596732865 Everyday during summer, I asked him to draw the picture and then write down the topic he wanted to write. The writing framework starts with topic sentence for the beginning. Few sentences in the middle for details. And one last sentence for ending and it has to go back to the topic. At first, I needed to prompt him for the sentence and reminded him the structure all the time. Toward end of summer, he can stick to the framework pretty well.

We tried WWE 1 when DS was at first grade. It was very frustrating for him. School is using writer workshop for writing and he had hard time with it as well. I also think that he needs more guidance on how to write but not free writing or creative writing at this stage. Not surprised that he got 0 score at his final writing assessment because what he wrote was completely irrelevant to the topic teacher gave. During summer, I dropped WWE and switched Evan Moore daily 6 traits and Winning with Writing 1. And I had him write a journal with at least 6 sentences with pictures on most of days. By beginning of 2nd grade, his teacher told me his writing surprised her. By looking at his first grade profile and comparing what she sees now, she thinks his writing is almost catching up at the 2nd grade level. I think WWW is working for him so I continue with WWW 2 this year and pair with growing with grammar. I may change to EIW for third grade.

My son is 8 and we just started DB c. My son has same problem of dropping ending sounds but improves gradually. However, reading specialist at school does allow him to move up reading level due to this particular bad habbit. He is upset that his reading level still cannot move up after he works so hard. I am looking for remedy as well. If he can slow down when reading and uses his finger as an aid, dropping ending sounds situation can be very minimum.

Thanks. Is c-rods this? http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Cuisenaire-Rods-Introductory/dp/B000F8T9HW Or maybe I can use some lego bricks?

Tanikit He has not issue with smaller number. The way he thinks is 2+3+x=5+x=7. He is very familiar with addition fact within 20 so he can come up this answer like nothing. Same way he thinks for bigger number(15+29+x=44+x=71). He will try to add 30 to 44 and finds it will be over 71. Then he will try adding 20 and finds he needs another 7 to make it 71. That's how he come up the answer 27. I just cannot get him to jump to 71-44=27 which is the way I will use to come up 27. Sometimes I think it's not he has issue with this word problem, but he does not fully understand how to use bar model which is fairly new thing to him.

Yes, he understands fact family equation in smaller numbers. The problem is actually from GO MATH they use in school. At home, we are at end of SM 2A. GO MATH uses the same way to solve the problem as SM but it's progressing at much slower pace. I will try to practice the fact equation with bigger number with him. Thanks

Thanks for all the advice. My son does the 10 number bond very well and also has good grip of place value. He has better sense on addition than subtraction at current stage. I am ok to have him using adding up to calculate the problem since it is age appropriate. I will try to be patient and hope he can get better understanding with more practices on number manipulation.

I was reviewing subtraction chapter with my 2nd grader last night and found he had trouble comprehend question like below: John has 15 stickers and Mary has 29 stickers. How many more stickers do they need to make 71 stickers in all. The way school taught them is using bar model. First you draw a bar for 15 and 29, and then come up with total number 44 by adding 15 and 29. He has no issue with this part. Second bar will show 44 and ? as parts and 71 as total. He had a little bit issue placing the number on this part but was finally able to do so after some practicing. However, when I asked him to write the number sentence to get the answer, he could only come up with 44+?=71. And he gave me the answer 27 directly. I know he is using "adding up method" to find out "?" answer. How do I get him understand to use 71-44? I try to use blocks and clay dough to demostrate the bar model, but he still has hard time fully understand it. He understands subtraction concept but just got stuck when it came to this kind of word problem with bar model. We tried similar word problem from Singapore CWP 1 with small numbers (numbers all within 10) before. He can tell me the answer right away without thinking. I think he is able to use adding up method much quicker in his head when numbers are small. However, when number becomes bigger, he got stuck because it takes time to use adding up method in his head and he has trouble to switch the way he thinks to subtraction. How I can help him to understand this kind of word problem? Thanks in advance

I don't know what exact materials my son's school is using for science and social studies. However, I start to hear him talking geography, histroy related things when he comes home recently. I bought him a globe puzzle last December and we put it up during holiday. He loves to stare at it and try to find the location of the cities/states/countries we visited in the past. My son also mentioned that teacher let them watch Liberty Kids. (so I bought the DVD as well) They also read some books for social studies. For science, they mainly work on life science and they also use Brain Pop Jr. My son loves to watch those science DVDs as well. We have Magic school bus collection at home. He loves them and read all the MSB books as well. We borrow DK eyewitness DVD and books from library. Also utilize Amazon prime streaming to watch popular mechanic and other educational programs for free when we have time. We visit Science Center 2-3 times per year (free museum program from Bank of America). We also have NJ Aquarium annual pass and normally visit 4-5 times per year.