Hello, hello! My first post here. :)
Alright, so my son is four years old and is interested in learning to read. Yippee! He's very bright (knew the sounds of letters when he was 2 years old) but pretty impatient. I'm looking for a phonics-based reading program for him that:
A) Explains the various phonograms and spelling rules in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. My son is very detail-oriented and loves clearly laid out rules.
B) Also explains things thoroughly for me as his teacher. I tried Alpha-Phonics and found the teacher explanations inadequate (the first few pages have words making short and long A sounds without explaining why it makes the short A sound one time and the long A sound the next. Way too frustrating!).
C) Has a clearly laid out curriculum I can follow. As much as I've heard good things about The Writing Road to Reading and Spell to Write and Read, I've read from many people that it took a lot of effort to put together a curriculum. I'm not interested in all that work if I can find one already prepared. :)
Okay, so, based on those three things, I've narrowed it down to Logic of English and Phonics Road to Reading.
Phonics Road:
PROS: methodical, thorough and heavy on explanations. Also includes the reason why words are spelled the way they are (Latin roots, etc.) Love that!
CONS: connects reading with writing. Not sure my son is ready to write all the letters so it seems like this approach might really slow him down? Also, it seems like the videos tell you what to teach but are not explicit in laying out how exactly to teach?
Logic of English:
PROS: also methodical and thorough.
CONS: maybe a little too much fun and games? I'm not really into frills when it comes to teaching reading. And Foundations A and B don't seem to cover that much material for the price. Plus . . . there are doodles of friendly dragons. Honestly, that really turns me off seeing as we're big on St. George and the Dragon here! :)
QUESTION: Anyways, could you please chime in here with recommendations for or advice against either of these two programs. Have you used Phonics Road or Logic of English to teach a beginner reader? What was your experience? Would you recommend either program?
Thank you! :)