as I look through the book some of the material seems difficult to imagine a 4/5 year old grasping.

LMC, how long has it taken you to do OPG? We do about 1 lesson a day 5 days a week. I know future lessons could be split over 2 days and we will occasionally have a week off.

LMC, thanks! I do find that she asks more questions with read aloud. We don't do every sentence in OPG if there are a lot in one lesson. I usually choose ones that practice the new skill as well as previous skills she needs help with. Since we do progressive phonics and some BOB books (if she chooses these), I find she practices the skills enough. We just made it through lesson 36 (qu, and s as the /z/) which I thought would be more challenging. It was the first lesson I thought she might struggle on, but she did great. She seems to like the rules and remember them.

My daughter is on lesson 36 of OPGTR and doing great. She is however, not a fan of the tiles. She much prefers making her own flash cards where I say the word slowly and she writes the letters to form the word. Is this a suitable substitute to the letter tiles? I usually pick a few of the words and slowly say them so she can pick out the individual sounds. We do play the other games such as the beginning and ending sound game with notecards. Any other fun activities for review? We do read the progressive phonics books, but I don't think they move as quickly as OPG does.

Is explode the code comparable with OPG? I just saw they released an app and I was looking for an independent way for DD to practice what she's learning in OPG.

Thanks! We do have access to that Leapgrog video and I plan to get a phonogram app for her to play. I am surprised with how well she does with rules. While reading she'll say "when I is alone it says 'ai'" and she's taken to writing out her own vowel flash cards. I think she may be naturally a rule follower. She started decoding CVC words on her own, but I am excited and nervous to move past that point. So you would go over comprehension as well? I tend to ask some basic questions pertaining to the sentences and she seems to understand. I think this will come with fluency as well. Even though she knows words by sight she'll sometimes sound them out and then say it. I think this lends itself to choppier reading and a bit of a lack of comprehension. She's doing great wth the Progressive Phonics books. We just finished book 2 and she is comprehending those. We read each one twice.

Happyhappyjoyjoy, DDs preschool (which she won't stay at for K-12) uses 100 Easy Lessons in their reading intervention program. Not sure if that's for general or just remedial use. The school she will attend (classical) is phonics based, but they have these kids from K up and are able to integrate it into all of the curriculum. I agree, it is obviously not the only way to teach reading and I know many kids and adults who learned the way m friend described. I also use pictures for context and comprehension. And dd has learned some sight words mainly by gaining fluency.

We don't actually live in the same state. She's in PA. Is this type of reading really what they teach when you get your masters in reading specialist? We fortunately have great classical charter schools that use Riggs. And DD attends a public pre-k program, but is not learning to read there since it is play based. But our public schools (Denver) were just granted more freedom in curriculum choice. Not sure what that entails for grades K-12, but our pre-k teacher was excited about it and I know if DD stays there for half day 4 year old pre-k, she'll learn phonics. Although probably not more than she already knows.

Thanks! That helps understand where she's coming from better. I am thankful that we will have a charter school that uses a phonics based program. This is also why I am glad that I am the one teaching my daughter to read rather than a school who is stuck with a certain curriculum

I was talking to a friend who is a public school 1st grade teacher and pursuing her masters in reading instruction so she is knowledgable about reading. I told her that we are doing mainly phonics with DD. We use OPGTR and some of the phonemic awareness games in AAR Pre as well as Nora Gaydos books, BOB books, and Progressive Phonics (the books are our readers). My friend seemed a bit concerned and said "well they need more than phonics, they need sight words, picture cues, and other skills". Has me feeling a bit inadequate. Is picture cues more than just seeing what's happening in the pic? We obviously have the sight words from OPG, but I don't intend to teach any extra ones. We do segmenting activities with AAR and dd can rhyme like doctor Seuss. She can blend, recognize beginning sounds and tell what letters are in a word if we stretch it out. We ask questions about the picture, but most stories we read are decodable. So I'm a bit curious about what "skills" outside of phonics that we might not be covering?

Thanks! I read the threads and they seemed helpful. We do get out and go to parks, the zoo, and the science/nature museum regularly. We live in an apartment downtown so we have to travel to get to the outdoors, but we do so on a regular basis. At home she has lots of free time and open access to arts and craft supplies. Most of her toys are open ended and imaginative play which she does a lot. She's taught herself to write most letters and I haven't started with handwriting really yet.

Yes, the charter does Riggs. Actually, both charters that we are looking at do Riggs. So she'll be ahead in K, but I'm sure others will be reading and she likes learning so I don't think she'll mind review.

thanks! She can write and does ask how to spell things. Yesterday she drew an octopus and asked me how to spell it so that she can write it. She'll write her name (upper and lowercase) and write simple CVC words that she's memorized. I think we will wait for spelling and just spell as she asks or correct her spelling when she does write.

DD will be 4 next month. She started sounding out words on her own and we started OPGTR and she is on lesson 34 and doing wel reading. CVC words. She is also doing the beginner readers on progressive phonics and does excellent with those. I expect her to do well with The CVC lessons in OPG and maybe slow down with blends and such. She will attend K at a charter school starting in fall of 2017 due to her birthday. Our cutoff is Oct 1 and she has a Dec birthday. They don't usually let you skip grades and due to her small size (she's Barey 30lbs and 3ft at 4) I probably wouldn't let her. My question is, do I do a spelling program with her? I saw they recommend one half way through OPG. I'm assuming we will be half way through or done by the time she starts K. Or do I let the school deal with it? They use Riggs. Are there free/cheap spelling programs? She has some apps and does well spelling CVC words.

Thanks. We are doing a combination as well. We're on lesson 33 of OPGTR and DD is doing well. Depending on the lesson we do 1-2 a day. We're doing the phonemic awareness games in AAR-Pre so she still gets ziggy. So i don't use the parents guide for AAR-Pre, just the game cards and some of the sheets

We also use OPGTR and DD (4) doesn't seem to mind the pages, but I do. Like pp said, I just write out the words and sentences on a separate piece of paper for each lesson. We also use progressive phonics which I do on our iPad and dd LOVES those.

Yes we use progressive phonics as well! I'm glad you gave me the scope of the lessons and that blends are introduced gently. She is doing great with CVC words, but I don't expect her to necessarily progress as quickly. she loves the progressive phonics and we read from the daily. We are on our second read through of the beginner books book 1. And she insists on reading 3-4 stories at a time even though I offer to stop after 1. We just got some Now I'm Reading books from the library and she woke up saying "mom I want to read those books!" And is sitting looking through them.

Sounds like we do a lot of the same things! We do read aloud a lot and if it's a word she knows, I will stop and let her read it. We are only on lesson 30, so it's still review for her. Once we hit new things I plan to slow down and do a lot more review. I think the different phonograms and sounds might slow her up. So we will take it at her pace. She also doesn't seem to mind review. We've read the progressive phonics 1st beginner book twice and she doesn't mind. She actually begs to do it and I had to stop her! Did your young reader struggle with more difficult phonograms and various letter sounds for vowels? We haven't gotten there yet, but it seems tricky!

Thanks. Today we combined 2 lessons and it did take up about 15 minutes. I had another question. Dd can read all of the words in the 2 lessons, but her fluency slows down comprehension of the sentences. I'm assuming this is normal. I found the sentences to be a little long. "Nan can pat the tan cat". Dd could read it but it was choppy. She has greater fluency with "at" words, but has to sound out the others. Should I keep moving on and let sentence fluency develop as we continue?

A little background. DD will be 4 next month and is in a public PreK-3 Program that is 3 hours per day/5 days per week. It has been great for her socially and we plan to keep her there and begin at a classical school for K in the 2016-17 school year. DD showed interest in learning to read on her own. We had started working through All About Reading Pre-Reading and were less than 1/3 of the way through when DD suddenly seemed to grasp all of the letters and sounds. One day I caught her sounding out the word "hot" on a toy. She has an excellent grasp on rhyming, can recognize beginning sounds of words, and can read CVC words fairly easily. She's gaining fluency with the "at" word family, but could sound out any CVC word. We are currently reading the Progressive Phonics Beginner Book 1 for the second time (to gain fluency). DD continues to want to learn to read and tries to sound out words in our environment. We do a lot of reading aloud. My plan is to use Ordinary Parents Guide and to continue some of the games in AAR Pre-reading since DD hasn't mastered segmenting or counting syllables and AAR has great games for this. Plus she loves Ziggy from AAR. We started OPGTR today and I skipped the 1st 26 lessons which cover letters and sounds. My question is, do I skip further ahead since DD can already read CVC words? She didn't complain about the easiness of the lesson (taught short a sounds and endings "an" "ad" and "am"). We completed the lesson in 5 minutes and then played a word building game with those endings. Would it be best to skip ahead to where DD currently is or to just start at lesson 27 and keep going from there? I don't mind going slow since DD is still incredibly young and can't start K for another 1.5 years.