I seriously doubt Mem Fox has someone tell her the pronunciation for every new word she encounters, then spends time drawing a box around it and trying to memorize the shapes. She starts at the beginning of the word, putting a sound to the letters and letter groups all through the word, then adjusts pronunciation and stress till she says something meaningful. Whole-language supporters believe that kids can just figure the alphabetic system out on their own, and that by so doing they will develop a greater love of reading. However, they ignore all the children who can't or won't figure it out for themselves and the horrible human price that is paid by them when reading skills are not explicitly taught. Whole language and even so-called balanced reading programs (WL with a little phonics thrown in) have been shown over and over and over to be ineffective detrimental to a large percentage of children. WL supporters work to appeal to our best ideals of childhood--discovery, enthusiasm, rich literature--but the reality is so very different. Many children desire if not need explicit instruction, direction, and careful practice to achieve full literacy, and full literacy is where the real fun begins.:001_smile: Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

I don't have a teen yet, but I have a young son who is extremely difficult. I found the book Hold onto Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld really helpful in reframing what my goal is during any "event." Gordon Neufeld's DVDs The Power to Parent are fantastic as well. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

PP is a solid program, however its layout is atrocious. All the pictures, borders, text for adults, and text spacing make it visually confusing; there is nothing leading the eye in the correct motion. I would suggest retyping the words in a cleaner format. I suggest putting a small graphic in the upper left of the page. You can put light guide lines under the letters and words. I then place an arrow line going from the end of one line to the beginning of the next. Have your daughter slide her finger under the letters as she reads. When she comes to the end of the line have her slide her finger along the arrow line, guiding her eyes to the right spot. If you do this consistently, she will comfortably develop proper eye motion. Here is an example from an early lesson. I can't figure how to show the arrow lines, so you'll have to use your imagination.:001_smile: :)pe ac me an ne me ec ma ap Hope that helps, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

We are using the Oxford University Press books, I believe they are called The World in Ancient Times. There are separate books for Asia, South Asia, and Africa. They are well written and easy to use. They are available on Amazon, under the title "The Ancient ______ World" Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(

A few thoughts . . . The Patrick Stewart Lion in Winter is intense, you might want to prescreen. I believe there is an older version that might be a bit more tame. You seem to mostly be focusing on England so you might want to look at some books about eastern Europe, Asia, Americas or Africa. You could peruse amazon or perhaps contact your local University history department for more suggestions. The Story of Art is a wonderful book that has a very readable section on art and artists of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, including sculpture and architecture. The newest edition has nice images for all the works mentioned. I personally think this is a great way to do history in high school as you can go in depth and its certainly more interesting. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

My husband has had celiac sprue for about 10 years. After years of experimenting with different flour combinations, a happy accident with my 5 yo produced our best: 1/2 oat flour, 1/2 rice, with a little xantham gum thrown in (I think 1/2 tsp per cup of flour in a recipe). You can substitute one for one with your favorite recipes. You can buy gluten-free oats through Bob's Red Mill if your worried about cross-contamination. My husband is extremely sensitive to gluten, getting sick pretty much immediately if he gets "poisoned," and he has never gotten sick from regular rolled oats. We just buy rolled oats in bulk at the co-op and grind in a mill with brown rice. We usually put it through 2 times. Good luck! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

There really is no reason 'the' can't be sounded out, it contains perfectly reasonable parts. TH spell /TH/ in words such as 'that', 'this' 'thus' 'then' 'there', etc. You can easily teach the 'e' for the sound /ee/ to rhyme with he, she, we, be. This pronunciation is appropriate for words that start with a vowel sound, like 'the apple'. You can also teach the 'e' for the more common pronunciation /uh/. I described it as a 'lazy' sound. So if it's not sticking as a sight word use her strengths and teach her to sound it out. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd)7) ds(5) ds(1)

I found a lot of success working at the sentence level. My daughter would say she didn't understand the sentence if she thought she didn't understand. So I would have her give me her best guess. This seemed to ease some of her fears about being wrong and let her think about the sentence. I had to train her to be willing to talk about her idea of the sentence. Higher level sentences tend to have more complex structure, use of idioms, similes, and metaphors, as well as more and more varied vocabulary. If you help your son see these parts (a lot like you probably helped him see the parts of a word) you can greatly increase his confidence in his understanding. I taught my daughter to pay attention to the subject and verb--not in a grammar sort of way, but to answer the questions who or what is the sentence is about and what are they or what are they doing. I used sentences pulled from various pieces of literature and textbooks. Then we looked at phrases (mostly prepositional, but also clauses and phrases using conjunctions, etc.) and would ask how does this change the basic meaning of the sentence. We would also discuss idioms and look at what they literally meant and what they were suppose to mean. Then I would have her read the sentence again and retell it to me. We didn't really have to do this kind of work for long and she got the habit of paying attention to the parts of a sentence. You can then move on to the parts of paragraphs (Ernest Hemingway said that the heart of writing is the paragraph (I'm paraphrasing)), linking the thoughts in each sentence together by just asking how does this change the original idea. Sometimes, as in literature, it moves the story or idea forward in time. Sometimes it adds more detail. Sometimes it contradicts the main idea. You can also help him to think about what a word might mean based on the words around it. Just brainstorm the meaning of a word he's unfamiliar with then look it up. This skill is helpful as he gets into texts where the vocabulary is the main sticking point. Once he can see the parts of a sentence and how they fit and how sentences (ie, ideas) fit together in paragraphs, he should be able to tackle most readings. My .02, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

A couple of questions . . . Can he put two sounds together? Could he smoothly say /ca/ or /pe/ if he sees 'ca' and 'pe'? Does he have trouble saying the sounds? If you had a list of letters, can he say the sounds for the letters quickly or does he need to think about it still? I am not familiar with R&S reading instruction, so this may not be relevant, but can he recognize the words he reads in their materials outside of the context of their materials? Could he read the same sentences or words without the picture clues? Does he struggle with finding words for things in general? Or have memory issues in general? Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

His facility with sight words is hampering his ability to decode. He wants the rest of reading to be as simple as memorizing. Unfortunately, this strategy will only derail him as he progresses. I would suggest dropping all sight word work until he is comfortable at sounding out words. Use a notched card, a 3x5 or business card with a square cut out of the top left corner. Uncover a letter at a time. If the letters work together, as in 'sh' for /sh/, uncover both letters. As you uncover each letter, have him say the sound. When the whole word is uncovered he can blend the sounds together. While OPG is a thorough program, for many it is not easy to use due to layout. You might try Abecedarian, Reading Reflex, or the I See Sam books. Alternatively, you could get his word decoding working well and then jump back into OPG. Hope that helps, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

It seems reasonable to test him on the words for 2-3 days then, if he gets it right, move on. When I was doing spelling lists with my daughter, I would give her the list, let her study, then test each day, studying the missed words (a la Spelling Power). If she got words correctly 3 days in a row I would drop the words, though every few weeks I would do a review. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

I teach the possible sounds for a letter or a letter group and the habit of trying other sounds if one doesn't make sense. So, if they read it wrong and can't seem to figure it out, I say, "What other sound can this spell?" If they can't remember I will say, "This spells the sound /___/" but make them sound through the word for the practice. I choose not to teach rules because these are confusing to my kids (When this looks like this but don't have that then do this, except when you don't :-)). I just teach, "In these words, this letter(these letters) spell this sound" Then we practice. I'll point out patterns if necessary. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

If he is having visual issues I would stop using books with pictures for a while, or at least cover the pictures until he has read the page. I know that sounds harsh, but the pictures are a distraction, making it easier for him to lose his place and mess up his left to right tracking. Just a thought, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

If I understand you, your son reads words in isolation well, but when in context, that is in sentences, he struggles? If this is what you mean, there are some simple things to try before heading to the vision therapist. A common problem for struggling readers is with their focusing. Good English readers see clearly what they are focused on, usually 2-3 letters, then decreasing clarity as you move to peripheral vision. Good English readers are also asymmetric in their peripheral vision in that they have broader peripheral vision to the right than to the left. Good readers suppress the information coming from their peripheral vision so that what is being focussed on is what is being processed in the brain. Some readers do not have these characteristics. All the letters they are seeing are getting the same brain attention as those that are being directly focused on. This creates a lot of confusion for the reader. It is not known if this is an acquired problem or an inherited problem. The simplest way to remediate this type of problem is to use a notched card, developed by Hilsie Burkard of the Promethean Trust and co-writer of the reading program Dancing Bears. Take a 3x5 or business card and cut a square out of the left corner. Place the card over the text, exposing one spelling (a letter or letter group that represents a sound) at a time. Have him say the sound for that spelling then blend them together when the word is exposed. As he becomes quicker and smoother move to exposing a word at a time, then several words, then a line, etc. The card masks the text so that the reader doesn't get confusing information. An MIT study found this type of intervention extremely helpful (assuming the reader knew all the other skills and information necessary for reading, that is, had been taught sufficient phonics information). I did not know about the card, but I did similar work with my daughter. It took about a week of intensive work and then she read great. Hope that helps! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

The first thing to know is if your children are part word guessing (reading the first few sounds in a word, then guessing the rest from picture clues, context, or just random guessing) sight reading (, or reading all through the word. For future ease of reading, you want to make sure they can comfortably read all through the word. The reason is that if they are part word guessing or memorizing whole words without an understanding of the parts they can hit some roadblocks ahead. Not everyone does, but some do. If your kids are fine reading all through the word, then you need to see how well they infer new sound-spelling correspondences from their reading. A sound-spelling correspondence is a unique letter or letter group that spells a sound. Here are some common correspondences for the sound /ee/: ey key ee see e he y happy i police ie field ei receive ea meat If they infer well, that is, work through a new word fairly easily, until they figure out a reasonable pronunciation and they tend to remember the correspondences when they are applied in new words then you are probably fine doing what you are doing. If your kids are memorizing or part word guessing then phonics instruction is invaluable, especially emphasizing reading all through the word. Phonics really just means sounds and is used very loosely. Some programs teach a sound for each letter of the alphabet and call that phonics. Some programs only teach that letters represent sounds occasionally putting more emphasis on memorizing words as wholes. This is called incidental phonics. Analytic phonics focuses on teaching the sounds of the letters in the context of words. So an analytic phonics program would present the word 'cat' and teach this is the word cat, the first letter says 'k', etc. Synthetic phonics teaches the correspondences in isolation and then teaches explicitly blending all through the word for reading and segmenting all through the word for spelling. A synthetic phonics program would teach c-/k/, a-/a/, t-/t/ and then present cat and have the child figure out the word themselves. This method is the most efficient and effective and is the method preferred by almost all other alphabetic languages. Some programs include "rules" to try and make reading easier, however, often these rules are more spelling-oriented and therefore not so helpful with reading, as well as being in error much of the time. Such a rule might be "when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking" which is completely untrue in many cases, or "i before e except after c" which is a spelling rule and also false much of the time (neighbor, weigh, etc.). In order to make the rules be more accurate they often become unwieldy. What you really want to know is do your children understand the alphabetic principle which is that letters and letter groups represent sounds and that these are blended together from left to right to approximate spoken words. English has 44 sounds represented by some hundreds of possible letters or letter groups. It is considered the most complex alphabetic language. If they grasp this and can apply it to new words, then they don't really need formal phonics. Reading out loud with someone in increasingly more difficult text, pointing out the elements of new words, will most likely be sufficient. Wow! That got longer than I thought, but I hope it helps! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds (1)

It sounds like he sort of panics when he comes to a longer word. He may not WANT to work through either because it makes him sound "stupid" as the words don't flow out as shorter words do or he's eager to understand the story and thinks guessing will get him there quicker and easier. If this is the case there are a couple of things you could try. 1. Add in lessons that are just long words. Do it every day. Webster's Blue-backed Speller has a large number of words to work through. 2. Purchase a program called Rewards which is specifically geared for multisyllabic words. 3. If he CAN do it, but WON'T or DOESN'T, you might try dealing with his unwillingness with external motivation. Give him a piece of candy or some other reward for each word he successfully works through on his own, plus a bigger treat if he works through all his multisyllabic words on his own. If none of these work after a while, write back and we can brainstorm some more! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

When my daughter encountered difficulties learning to tear, I read everything I could, old and new, on the subject of reading instruction. I tried about a dozen programs with very little progress. The book that changed things for me was Diane McGuinness' book, "Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It." Though the book talks about a couple of programs (Jolly Phonics, Reading Reflex, and the author's own Allographs) these were not the main point of the book. She discusses the history of writing and the different kinds of systems that developed. She discusses the basics of the principles of an alphabetic language and the struggles with reading English because its "code" is opaque--that is, contains multiple complexities in its sound-spelling correspondences. Once I read this book, I knew exactly what my daughter needed -- and that it didn't exist yet. So I made my own. Worked like a charm. After 9 months of intensive work based on the principles outlined in this book, she went from a non-reader to an high school level reader. This book is written in an easily accessible style. Don't get bogged down in her specifics--I came to disagree with many of her practical solutions. For further information you can look at her more scholarly books, "Early Reading Instruction" and one about language, but the title escapes me right now. Best of luck! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(7) ds(5) ds(1)

I haven't had an opportunity to read all the posts so if this has already been addressed, please forgive me. Has your son been checked for tongue-tie? My son had it and I caught it at 3 weeks, but had to fight to have anything done about it. My sister's daughter had it and is two, having speech difficulties and . . . having to fight to have anything done about it. My sister is a labor and delivery nurse, and has a coworker whose child had tongue tie which was not found or corrected till she was 5 and required lots of SP. She now checks all the babies when she works and has 1-2 babies with tongue-tie per shift. To check, see how far your son can stick his tongue out. Does it go beyond his teeth? His lips? Check the underside and see where the frenulum is attached. Is it forward? Does your son's tongue have a heart shaped front? If your son has tongue-tie, you can have it snipped. I think by 2 they have to put them under to do, but not sure. Best of luck, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

Echoing pp's, some kids really struggle with abstract information. However there are things you can do to move him along. 1. Daily practice, and even multiple times a day. But in very short increments 5-10 minutes. 2. Work on only a small group of letters, maybe 3-6, at a time. Don't move on till he is confident with these. 3. Work on sounds, NOT names. The goal is having him read, not alphabetize. This eliminates the overall amount of information he has to learn in the beginning stages. When he's reading small words well, you can add the names back in. 4. If he is amenable and capable, have him write the letters, saying the sound as he writes (traces, forms in sand tray, etc) 5. Have him start blending two sound units: a m am m a ma Have him say the sounds then blend them together. Tell him the sounds if he can't remember. Have him track with his finger. While this won't directly address his memory, it's an important reading skill and will help you feel like he's moving forward. 6. Make up pages with the letters on them: a a a a a a a a a a a a a a Have him track with his finger, saying the sounds as he comes to each letter. 7. Play a game I call Honk!, adapted from Phonics Pathways. Make flashcards of the letters (several for each) you are working on. Also make a few cards with a funny picture or stickers on it. Turn them over quickly and you both say the correct sound. When the picture comes up you each do a silly action. 8. Play sound bingo, as described in Reading Reflex. Using only the letters you are currently working on, fill in a 5X5 grid. Use the flash cards to play, turning them over and saying the sound for the letter on the card. Have him trace over the letters in the boxes with a marker, saying the sound as he writes. He's young, so you may just want to come back to it in a couple of months. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, try these suggestions and relax. Best of luck! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

Have her evaluated for depression. While I agree that there can be underlying causes for moodiness (for my husband it was celiac sprue), some people also have real, neurological problems. If she had cancer, you probably wouldn't hesitate to give her medication that is utterly toxic. I don't see the difference in giving her medication for depression. Its all about evaluating risks and benefits. All treatments have side effects; but then, so do all illnesses. Our minds can get into feedback loops that make it nigh on impossible to get out of. If she does have depression, medication can be an important component of healing--not the complete answer. Behavior/Cognitive Therapy is another important component. I have been through rounds and rounds of depression since I was young. While I hate being on medication and going to therapy, I hate it less than being depressed. The therapy is not necessarily about trauma, but about developing the life skills you need for the neurology and situations you have been given; how to talk yourself out of things, how to see the other person's point of view, how to nurture yourself and set limits for yourself. Find a doctor you trust and who listens. I would go to someone specializing in kids. Don't wait and make her and yourself suffer any longer than necessary. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

JenneinAZ, A simple (and inexpensive) way to start is to use a notched card while your son is reading. Cut a square out of the upper left hand corner of a business card or 3 x 5. Uncover one spelling at a time having him say the sound as the spelling is uncovered: b bea beach. As he becomes (or already is) proficient at this level uncover a word, then a line at a time. This technique was shown in several studies out of MIT and Germany to be effective in remediating a specific kind of visual problem in which a reader has a difficult time paying attention to what is in his central vision, rather than what is in his peripheral vision. In the study, they first tested kids labelled dyslexic and they ALL had this visual problem, which is a dysfunction in their form resolving field (FRF). The study does not speculate on the cause of this particular problem. B/D confusion can be helped by appropriate handwriting instruction in which the left most part of the letter is ALWAYS written first (circle part for d, line for b), having your child say the sound as he writes. My daughter was helped by a technique pioneered by Mae Carden, a turn-of-the-century teacher. The most important part of a dog is his head, so the head is drawn first in a d (the ascender could be an ear or a tail). The most important part of a bee is his stinger, so the stinger is drawn first on a b. This method requires your child to quickly identify the first sound of word, so don't use it if he can't. I made up similar stories for p (pick up the pan by its handle), g (a girl's face and her pony tail) and q (a queen's crown goes on her head, her train comes behind). I drew appropriate pictures on the letters. When your child comes to these letters, ask "What comes first?" then let your child work through the logic to figure out the sound. Don't let them just guess at the sound as this can just reinforce the confusion. Best wishes, Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

I don't think you need to go through testing. Correct instruction, paying attention to what your son does as he reads, and patience will probably be enough. Correct Instruction There are many varieties of phonics instruction. I would suggest reading Diane McGuinness' book "Why Our Kids Can't Read and What We Can Do About It" to educate yourself about quality phonics instruction. Other good sites are dyslexics.org.uk and syntheticphonics.com. I noticed in your tagline that you are using HOP. As I recall, HOP uses word families, that for some kids can be harmful as it takes the focus away from decoding all through the word. In a nutshell quality instruction: 1. teaches left to right blending, all through the word. NO guessing, NO picture clues, NO context clues. The reason for the big no's is that for struggling readers these tactics take away from the practice they desperately need to read efficiently and fluently. If your son spends his time guessing, then he is not reading. Pay attention to what he does when he reads--is he reading a few sound then guessing? If so he needs intensive work with just words, making sure he says all the sounds. Word families can be confusing for some kids, as I said because it puts the emphasis in the wrong place. In a list of words with the same ending sounds, the child only has to pay attention to the first sound or two and then say the ending sound, so there is precious little practice working all the way through the word. 2. teaches enough of the English code. English is one of the most complex alphabetic languages and for many kids it is nigh on impossible to intuit enough of it to read fluently. Most phonics programs teach less than 150 of the 300 most useful sound-spelling correspondences (a letter or group of letters that represent a unique sound, 'ie' spells the sound /ee/ in 'chief' and /ie/ in 'pie'). 3. teaches the morphological (meaning) layer of the language, so words long words can be easily chunked and understood. Prefixes such as un-, im-, ir-, suffixes such as -ion, -ing, -able, and roots such as -port-, -struct-, etc. all have meaning and learning them can increase fluency and comprehension. There are several quality programs available that will do these things: Abecedarian (teaches about 180 correspondences), I See Sam (teaches about 180 correspondences), Phonics Pathways (teaches about 150 correspondences). While you are remediating his decoding, I would suggest NOT having him read readers or other material that you have not made sure only contains that which you have explicitly taught him. You want to undo the guessing/memorizing habits and practice the all-through-the-word decoding habits. As he actually practices this, his fluency will increase over time. For a while you might want to just work with word lists until you feel confident he is reading and not guessing. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)5rsa

The doctors only understand part of the problem. The reason for concern in bilingualism is not the bilingualism itself but a situation common in immigrant children and children of impoverished backgrounds: bilingual deficit disorder (I think that's the term). Anyway, what it means is that the child does not become an expert in either language and therefore does not develop the upper levels of expression and though that are invaluable in adult level communication. So, as long as your children become expert, able to read and understand and speak about complex topics, in at least one of the languages there is no cause for concern. It is important for your children to hear and be required to speak at higher levels of comprehension to develop their linguistic capacity to the fullest. Many immigrant children, already linguistically impoverished by their lives in their native lands, become further impoverished as their parents try to help them by speaking in broken English. Thus, they don't get the advantage of expert level in their native tongue, nor is school and kid English (which is what they'll experience) enough to move them into expert level in English--at least for a long time. Many of these kids also struggle with learning to read English because of its complex orthography and poor teaching methods. Therefore they don't get the benefit of reading high level material in English, or for that matter their native language. Anyway, you are correct, that you probably don't have anything to worry about, however the doctors are expressing a valid concern. Best wishes! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

Diane McGuinness' book, "Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It" as well as the discussion section of "Reading Reflex" by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness. The methodology they advocate is called linguistic (or synthetic in the UK) phonics and is somewhat more streamlined an approach than Orton-Gillingham. In short, synthetic phonics emphasizes explicit and thorough instruction of the spellings a letter or letter group can have (the sound /o/ can be spelled dog, law, applaud, cough, etc.) and the sounds a spelling can have (break, meat, bread). Sight words are not taught, instead certain parts of the word are called "tricky", such as 'eo' in people; the kids still sound out the word, rather than memorize it. Generally rules are eschewed in favor of patterns. So, for example, silent-e is not taught, instead i_e is taught for the sounds /ie/ as in ice, /ee/ as in police, and /i/ as in genuine. You can learn more about synthetic phonics at syntheticphonics.com and dyslexia.org.uk. This is the type of instruction that has been mandated for primary instruction in England. As I have talked to tutors, both here and in the UK, one thing they seem to agree on is to NOT have kids read outside books while they are receiving intensive phonics intervention. The reason is that you are trying to undo old habits and establish new habits; if the kids are asked to read material they have not been explicitly taught, they fall back on the old methods. Good luck! Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

There are roughly 4 levels of spelling understanding in English: Phonetic which addresses the sound-spelling correspondences ('et' spells the sound /ae/ in ballet, beret, buffet, cachet, crochet, bouquet, etc.); Changes, which addresses how word spelling changes when the word changes form(story to stories); Patterns (or rules) which try to address which spellings are used in a certain letter environment (the spelling 'ck' is never at the beginning of the word, usually at the end following a short vowel, and sometimes in the middle); and Morphemic (or meaning) which addresses prefixes, suffixes, and roots. I'll give you resources for each. Phonics Here is a phonics manual from the turn of the century (found using donpotter.net) which has really nice word lists divided by spelling patterns. http://books.google.com/books?id=nBcKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA111&dq=phonics%20man&lr=&as_brr=1#PPA47,M1" Changes Here's some nice site addressing word changes: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/susan.htm http://www.davidappleyard.com/english/spelling.htm Patterns or Rules This one is not my favorite as so often the rules are so complicated as to be useless to the young child (If this and this then this except when this or this, etc.). These rules are often only applicable in a fraction of the words, so I don't tend to emphasize this aspect. However, if you are so inclined, Wiley Blevin's book Phonics A to Z s has a list of rules and the percentages for how well they work, which will allow you to decide which ones you want to use. Morphemic The Program Vocabulary Through Morphemes from Sopris West teaches the spelling of commom morphemes from the meaning side. Other resources: http://efl.htmlplanet.com/morphemes.htm http://www.affixes.org/index.html Some might add a fifth category etymology (word history), however that is probably not necessary at this point. Because so much of English spelling is not based on the sounds but on the meaning or the etymology of the words, it can be difficult for some kids to internalize spelling independent from context. This has been true for my daughter. Adding a dictation component is important for ensuring the spellings really are learned. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)