I went to public school. I did go to prom (I think my junior year. Junior/senior prom). It was pretty uneventful. Of course this is probably because my platonic guy friend was my date and he refused to dance. Anyway, don't some homeschoolers hold their own prom? Rotating classes had its perks, but there is also a sense of anxiety if you forget where you are supposed to go and when. I occasionally have nightmares where I am late to class and don't know where I am supposed to be going.

Interesting. I taught mountain as a schwa. I put "air" words in their own category (like fair on that chart above. http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/sound%20letter%20spell1.pdf ) Some of those words have not come up, but I have a tendency to say "cap tin" rather than "cap tehn." I would probably teach it as a schwa. Vinaigrette sounds like "uh" (schwa) to me when I say it. Not sure about others. I am noticing that there is some overlap in phonograms so I admit that while I did teach "ui" as a phonogram, some of those work with the "bu" or "gu" (LOE phonograms) as well. Build. Guide. I just noticed the ABC's and All Their Tricks puts "affair" on the AI page. But I have kept "air" separately. They list mountain and captain on the AI page under "unstressed." Ah, so many ways to categorize things I guess! One of our products is Genki phonics and they put "air" on its own page.

Ok I just saw this. I would consider how important it was for my kids to play with theirs. If it was important, then I would juggle my schedule a little. Swap out one of my previous week "off" days (you said you do 4 days) and turn their off day into one of the PS off days. Or have the kids meet up sometime that doesn't interfere with school. Meet in the afternoon, do school in the morning. Or whatever. Our schedule gets so thrown off when we do things like co-op because it's a huge time suck but we do it mostly for the socialization. If they are good friends and you want the socialization, juggle. Maybe the moms want to see you, too.

Unless you told them that your children are ahead or advanced, I would never assume that is why they are rolling their eyes. I would think they are rolling their eyes because they think, "big deal. You don't finish the textbook/workbook/etc. What's gonna happen?"

I wonder why they put "very" on the list? I mean, the "y" sound at the end is found in lots of words (happy, baby). What is unique about very? As for "buy" LOE teaches a phonogram "bu" (silent u) to explain some words like build. And they also have "gu" for words like "guest" and "guess." I added those to our flash cards. I personally taught "ai" as having two sounds. "ai" as in "braid" and short e as in "said" and "again." If memory serves, those are the only two weird ones. (edited: other weird ones for ai included against, aisle, and plaid. Thank you, The ABC's and All Their Tricks) I added some other weird ones to other cards as well. Here are some charts I used to help make our cards: http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/letter%20sound%20read%20new%202011.pdf http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/sound%20letter%20spell1.pdf Those charts have been so useful. I think user Elizabeth B runs the page.

Ds learned the vowels based on the letters "AEIOU" (sometimes Y) and phonograms. I don't even think I got around to telling him the singing thing because I learned that later. But I may end up bringing that up (either with him or dd later). Less obvious examples of vowel sounds are in our book Doodling Dragons and I made my own flashcards with examples so "i" will include "onion" (y sound) and I've taught that "happy" makes an "e" sound where the y is. We mainly just went through phonogram cards. We didn't play with our mouths for each letter of the alphabet. Humming and singing are different to me and I would matter of factly correct a child if that was an obstacle. But obviously if whatever you do/did works for you, then by all means continue. I'm not here to change what you do. I'm merely citing my own personal go-to rule of thumb for the OP or any other posters to do with as they please. I would probably teach "work" as /wor/ /k/. http://www.thephonicspage.org/Phonics%20Lsns/Resources/letter%20sound%20read%20new%202011.pdf Like "word" on the chart. If I didn't choose to teach it that way, I would teach it as /w/ /or/ /k/ with "or" being an R-controlled phoneme. I don't care if that's right or wrong to you. Really, it's okay if you think it's wrong. We have homemade tiles (based on AAS) that represent phonemes, but I have never made him write his own like with the forward slash. Based on your posts I'd say we spent very little time on syllables compared to you. Most of what you post about would not even come up for debate here. You probably won't see posts by me about IPA anything.

Based on this thread, I'd say there can't be many real sight words. We own a Sight Word Bingo game, but really, most of those are a joke. What they actually are is, "high frequency words." I think the terms get used interchangeably and should not.

You know more than me on these typics. Half of what you say is Greek to me. I'm just trying to understand and explain things on a simple (to me) level with the goal to communicate it to my child. I don't imagine I will ever be discussing syllabic anything. I don't even know what you're talking about and will have to google that to follow along. But with the singing example, it seemed like a fairly easy thing to demonstrate to a child vs. all this talk about air flow.

Ok. Well, in my mind it's obvious. If I were standing in front of an auditorium and had to belt out a sound, I would be hard pressed to do, "zzzzz" and be heard. I think most people could agree that in singing, "Do Re Me Fa So La Ti" you hear the second letter carry the note. Take away the vowel and it's nothing to belt out. If this still is not easily understood, I'm sorry. The example of "help" and "hlp" on the link I thought summed up the main gist.

I had looked that up, too, but it doesn't mesh with the sleep schedules if the kids are sleeping that much AND napping on top of that. At least, with the child my son's age. Edited: Nevermind, the bolded said a max of 11, but the paragraph said up to 12 hours total.

who wants that for their listening pleasure? I think it is obvious what the author means and this retort is nitpicky. Perhaps said in silliness but still.

Hmm I don't know if a well child visit would necessarily tell you a vitamin deficiency? If that was related. My 7 yr old sleeps like 11 hrs? He hasn't regularly napped since he was very young. I need a lot of sleep to feel refreshed. More than the average adult I think (9 hrs).

I don't think you'll have to worry. That thing is a beast!! I remember when I had to lift it to get a model number to ask KA something and it was a huge PITA. ha

This might help explain the singing thing better. https://www.logicofenglish.com/blog/52-phonics/382-what-is-a-vowel When I talked about holding a note up thread I meant like if you sang, "dashing through the snoooow" you are hearing and holding the "o" in snow. Kinda hard to do with any of the other letters, KWIM?

I don't think I'm explaining it effectively here. Also, the title of the book is Uncovering the Logic of English: A Common-Sense Approach to Reading, Spelling, and Literacy so what happens in Chinese or Spanish seems moot. I don't roll any rs in English.

I gave this way too much thought. I caught myself doing "sss" both ways. I follow the rule of thumb in the Logic of English book. Vowels are letters you can sing. You know, like hold that note.

No. I also have low expectations that people would do the same for me. I cannot imagine most people willingly doing that for someone that sounds like they rank as an acquaintance. I would probably compare that invitation to someone asking me to come to a "party" that is code for, "buy my stuff so I can make a profit."

I just got one of those books with my audible credit. Thanks!!

I never gave EF any thought really til this thread. Definitely food for thought. Dh and ds might both be ADD (or ADHD).

Someone updated with some info from the blogger's blog that wasn't included in the original link. I still have no idea how she spoke to him so it's a little harder for me to paint a picture of the dynamic. Not saying those words are healthy, though.

I'm wondering if reading these words is supposed to shock me. She could have been yelling, "ugh, with the f'n glass again?! How hard is it to reach your arm over one foot and open the dishwasher? Heck, sometimes it's OPEN and you don't even put it in there." I mean really, we have no idea the back and forth that occurred leading up to this. They could have been equally abusive. I'm tempted to put abusive in quotes, but that's because I feel pretty desensitized by the notion of this or could imagine much worse.

I actually taught it as the "lazy" sound. I got that description from a YouTube video and just went with it. I thought it made it easy to teach. I don't think people are being lazy to say "uhbove" (above), but that's just how I describe it. I may or may not have heard the term "schwi" before this thread. I was just throwing all the sounds under the term "schwa" though that may not be correct. As long as my kid can read/speak I don't really care.

wait, did I miss something? The blogger was abusive? Where did that get determined? I saw people suggesting that he was but I thought it was all speculation.

Yes. That is how I'm feeling reading some of these posts. edited: typo

What if it was something else? Would it eventually wear on you? What if everytime your spouse returned the car, the tank was almost empty. Let's say you asked them (repeatedly) to please fill up the tank or at least not leave it so empty. You are running late and don't have time to stop at the gas station and that's when you lose it and think if he'd just fill up the flippin' tank I wouldn't be so stressed out. So, do you rationalize that anger away and tell yourself that it's fine that he doesn't share your priority and you should just remember to make time for the gas station every time you leave? I don't know, maybe that would never drive you batty. I am just trying to think of other examples besides the glass where I could see it grating on someone's nerves. Pee on the floor by the toilet. Shouldn't bother us, it's not their fault/priority to pay attention? There's got to be something that would irk everyone I would imagine.