BTDT HSer how did you teach ur kid 2 read?

[Sahmqui]

I want to know what program, books, curriculum, video, etc you used successful to teach your child to read.

 

 

• Did you use a phonics base, spelling base, or memorization base method to teach them how to read?
  
• When did you start letting them read on there own? (allow them to choose, and what books did you allow)
  
• How did you advance their reading to reading chapter books by themselves (ex. Magic Tree House, etc)?
  
• When did you introduce sentence structure? (punucation, subject, predicate, etc)
  

I am trying to see pattern or time line here. I am very new to teaching subjects but not new to teaching (I teach my kids w/o even knowing it). I know that I want my child to have the ability to read anything, I just do not know how to get there. For example, when to introduce phonics rules, sentence structure, nouns, etc. Or wait until their 8 or older. I just I want to see the success of reading and the progression from learning letter sounds to reading at a college level :)

 

Thanks in advance for answering my question so that I can see your progression and success :D

 

BTW - my 2 DD are working together learning letter sounds, DS reads at second grade level, and the baby just listens.

Edited July 14, 2009 by Sahmqui
typing while nursing so excuse the spelling/grammar errors

[HSMom2One]

I taught my dd to read by reading to her every single day from the time she was a baby. By the time she was five, she all of a sudden started reading to me out loud and completely shocked me. It didn't take long to discover that she could read words to me at random as I pointed to them. Somehow, she broke the code all by herself.

 

I'm sharing this with you now not to boast, but to encourage you that reading aloud is the most powerful tool in educating a child to read. Surely there are some methods and books that will enhance that, but reading aloud is by far the most important. Even after your child learns to read, keep reading to them.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[EKS]

With both of my kids I did phonics based with some sight word drill to help with fluency. Then I had them read aloud to me daily and I just upped the reading level very gradually until they were reading chapter books. As for grammar, I didn't introduce it at all until they were reading fluently at about a 4th/5th grade level--for my older one that was when he was in 4th grade and for the younger one it was when he was in kindergarten.

[LizzyBee]

We read to our oldest dd a lot. When she was 2 I taught her the alphabet and sounds. At 3 she was reading a little bit. I thought she was memorizing her books, but when we "tested" her, she actually knew the words. At barely 4, her reading really took off. We did part of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons just to give her some phonics before she got too far ahead. I think we only got to lesson 20 though. She is a natural speller - she has a knack for choosing the correct phonogram even if she doesn't know the word.

 

Second dd went to ps kindergarten and at the end of the year was the 2nd best reader in the class. But when we began homeschooling her for 1st grade, I realized she was sight reading even though her school taught phonics. We did 2 years of Phonics Pathways and then 1 year of Spell to Write and Read. Her reading progressed slowly, but spelling was pure torture. The year we used SWR, she began pulling her hair while calling herself stupid. It turns out she is an extremely right-brained learner and Calvert Spelling on CD finally unlocked spelling for her. All that phonics torture finally paid off and she began successfully sounding out new multi-syllable words around 5th grade. Now reading is her strength and she reads constantly.

 

Youngest dd is dyslexic. Phonics Pathways was not good for her at all. So many words on the page was just overwhelming. We tried All About Spelling, but it moves too fast. I can't remember what else we tried. but Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was the only thing that worked, and she just finished it last week, the day before her 8th birthday. She is still not a fluent reader, but she is very excited about how much she's learned and she's anxious to learn more. We've worked on phonemic awareness with reading poetry and nursery rhymes, a program called LiPS (Lindamood Bell Phonemic Sequencing), and a book from EPS called Literacy Leaders. We are now starting Barton Reading and Spelling, a program for dyslexic kids.

 

So there you have it - 3 kids, 3 completely different experiences. Of all the programs I've used, 100 Easy Lessons is my personal favorite.

[MIch elle]

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - until lesson 50 - stopped did Bob Books - back to 100 EZ until lesson 75 - stopped - read Bob Books - 100EZ until lesson 100 - Bob Books - then Phonics Pathways - ALL this was done over grades 1-3

 

Grade 2 - CLE reader 1 ; short easy readers

 

Grade 3 - short books, CLE readers 2 and 3; R&S English 3

 

Grades 4-8 - chapter books, CLE readers w/lightunits, R&S English 4-7 (for the oldest)

Edited July 15, 2009 by MIch elle
add. info.

[Sahmqui]

Thanks, I'm trying to get a feel on the best approach to advancing DS reading skills without moving to fast. All the while finding the right fit for DDs.

[WiseOwlKnits]

We did the Leapfrog videos from the time DD was 2.5 - 3 and they are awesome. They taught DD so much that when we started "learning to read" she already knew a LOT. When she was 4, she decided she wanted to learn to read so we started Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - it's a book we'd discussed (positively) in one of my reading classes when I was working on my Master's. We also did the BOB books, Cat in the Hat, etc. Now she's barely 5 and reading effortlessly on a 2nd grade level.

[Lovedtodeath]

We used suggestions in the Accelerated Achievement demo disk. I added more rules very quickly instead of waiting for fluency on three letter short vowel words. She was reading very well at three years old. We used lauri letters and scrabble tiles, alternating who would spell the word and who would read it. Nonsense words are a good thing. I read Jim Trelease's the read aloud handbook and generally follow his advice. "Twaddle" is just fine (as long as that is not all) and we put CC on the television. She went into K (turned 5 that summer) reading at a third grade level. The K teachers used sight reading and really made her regress. I pulled her out and we have been working through OPGTR, mostly by using handwriting sheets (startwrite) based on the lesson, with the rule at the top for her to read herself. She hates actually reading out of OPG. She is now at about 5th grade reading level.

 

I bought our books for history and read them myself as I was scheduling them, read them with DH and strategically left them lying around and she has read most of them herself as a result of that "unschooling" method.

 

We started FLL, but I am not sure how necessary I think it is. We are still early in the book and just now got to pronouns without any mention of verbs yet. We dabbled in spelling, but are starting it in earnest sometime between now and September.

 

I hope I remembered everything. HTH!

[Rainbows]

I waited until DS was 5 because he did not want to learn to read, and I didn't want to push him too early. I looked into Phonics Pathways, OPGTR, 100 EZ lessons and Alphaphonics, but they weren't a good fit for DS. He found them too boring and dry, plus he tends to enjoy workbooks

 

We ended up starting with the Explode the Code books A, B & C, then did books 1 & 2 ( I think we did 2). Then we moved onto McRuffy Phonics which he LOVED! He found the stories and the characters funny, liked all the colors and liked the workbooks. Its a complete LA program but it didn't take a long time to do daily (and I plan on using the next level for first grade)

[Brenda in FL]

My fiorst two kids started to learn to read at about age 4, using the phonics based - How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 EZ Lessons. It was EZ for the first child - more slow going with the second - but she made it through right before turning 6. Grammar instruction started at age 6 with First Language Lessons.

 

The third child was exposed to lots of reading aloud (as were the first two) and the Letter Factory DVDS - one day at just turned 5 or late 4 I discovered him sounding out a word. So I pulled out the Bob books - and he already knew the mechanics of sounding out phonetically! With him I just progressed right through the Bob books and then onto early readers.

 

They all progressed differently with Chapter books. My first is a reader - so he had no problem going from readers to chapter books at the end of his K year. I started with MTH and would ask him questions to see if he was comprehending.

 

Second child - not much of a reader. Her first grade year we took turns reading from Charlotte's Web (which incidently helped tremendously in her reading ability). She still preferred picture books on through 2nd grade and really still does (mostly fairy tales). She has to be really interested in the story to get through chapter books.

 

The third child probably has the best reading ability at his age, yet he had this mental block when it came to reading chapter books! I finally got him into MTH by just reading one chapter and leaving him hanging for more! One day he was adamantly refusing to read chapter books - the next day he had checked out 10 MTH books from the library!!

 

We also use the phonics based Spelling Work Out.

 

I pretty much have always let them check out what they want at the library - They needed guidance at first and sometimes still do (I don't know why my 11 yo can't browse the stacks and find an interesting book to read!) However, I didn't let them read Captain Underpants, Junie B. Jones, etc. I mostly steered them towards books I had read. Anything popular and new - I will look at first and I find alot of it is not worth reading - I don't know why anyone would let their kids read those Diary of a Wimpy Kid books!! Sorry, if anyone reading this does - but my kids have enough trouble maintaining good attitudes - oops - I'm beginning to rant here - sorry! I'll stop!

 

Enjoy teaching your kids!! Teaching them to read and enjoy books is such a joy!!

[ElizabethB]

While I have only taught one of my own children to read so far, I have been a remedial phonics tutor since 1994. My students have been mostly 3rd to 5th graders, but also adults and a few K and 1st grade students.

 

I have used about 20 different phonics methods. The best for both remedial and beginning phonics in my opinion is Webster's Speller followed by a rule based spelling program.

 

Most of my remedial students have some degree of guessing problems from sight words--usually just the 220 Dolch sight words is enough to keep them from sounding out words well and getting into guessing habits.

 

I had planned to wait until my daughter was 5 or 6 to teach her to read, but she started learning words by sight from being read to at age 3 1/2, so I started teaching her phonics. We did mostly games and only a bit of book work (and only when she requested the phonics books) until she was 5 and in K. By K, I had discovered Webster's Speller and used it with my daughter. She was reading at a 3rd to 5th grade level when she started K, and could read out of the KJV Bible and sound out just about anything after 5 or 6 months of doing Webster's Speller no more than 10 minutes a day. We also occasionally played my phonics concentration game for fun. She learned her letter names and sounds at 2 with the leapfrog DVD.

 

I was initially letting her read decodable texts, but noticed she was guessing when reading them, so I switched to only working from Webster's Speller for a few months until she had learned enough phonics to sound out any word on her own without guessing, then I started allowing her to read aloud to me again from stories and her science book.

 

The 2 letter blends in Webster's Speller are easier for a young child to learn with than the commonly taught CVC words, 2 letters are easier to blend than 3. Also, they are then directly applicable to 2+ syllable words.

 

Webster's Speller only teaches a few words, it mostly teaches by pattern. My daughter learned best that way at age 5. I taught her the rules anyway as we went along, but they did not sink in at that time. We went over them again in 1st grade and they started to sink in, but she's only now beginning to truly understand them, and they have only been fairly easy for her to learn since she turned 7.

 

I have a bunch of good webpages for how to teach info.

 

1. Sight words--why not to teach them by sight, how to teach all but 5 of the most commonly taught 220 Dolch sight words phonetically.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html

 

2. How to teach a beginning student. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/newstudents.html

 

3. How to teach a remedial student who has learned sight words. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/remedialstudents.html

 

4. How to tutor. Includes a step by step guide to using Blend Phonics as an easy transition to Webster Speller. Also, documents with spelling rules, syllable division rules, and syllable division exercises.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/howtotutor.html

 

5. Webster's Speller. The link below in my signature, also these threads:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70153

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97408

[Mamasteff]

In my experience as a classroom teacher, there are different ages for learning to read, just as there are for rolling over, getting first teeth, standing, walking, etc. In particular, I have had a significant number of boys who are not "fluent" readers until late 2nd grade - so I wouldn't worry too much.

 

That said - the most useful things are:

1) Read to them EVERY DAY. (FIAR or just reading the same story daily for a week is helpful).

2) Run your finger underneath the words as you read them. If they memorize the story during those 5 days, keep using your finger or another pointer to follow along in the book.

3) Give them "their own word" in the story to read. If it is a book about Grover, their "word" is "Grover." Every time you come across that word while you are reading aloud, you pause and look at them expectantly. They will "read" their word. As they improve, they can look for 2 different words ("Bert" and "Ernie"), then add in other words that are used throughout the book. Eventually you can give them 2-5 of "their words" from the most commonly used words in English: for example, "Your words for this story are: AND, THE, and OF." Then you need to remember to pause and let them "read" those words in the context of the story.

 

I had a student read a repetitive picture book (The red door. The red ball. The red house... etc.) and praised him for "reading" me the whole book. Tried to tell his dad what a good job he did "reading" and Dad responded, "That's not reading. That's just looking at pictures." Hmmm. That would be a "how NOT to encourage/ teach your child to read." Encourage ANY positive progress.

[Laura Corin]

* Did you use a phonics base, spelling base, or memorization base method to teach them how to read?

 

Phonics - a British programme called Superphonics

 

* When did you start letting them read on there own? (allow them to choose, and what books did you allow)

 

As soon as they wanted. I steered them towards quality literature, but allowed them to choose books for themselves as well.

 

* How did you advance their reading to reading chapter books by themselves (ex. Magic Tree House, etc)?

 

Just built their confidence with lots of easy books, then started chapter books with them, alternating my reading a paragraph and the child's reading a paragraph.

 

* When did you introduce sentence structure? (punucation, subject, predicate, etc)

 

I introduce this very lightly and slowly. We probably used Madlibs from about age 7. At that time also we started using Junior English, from Galore Park, which introduces parts of speech very slowly (Hobbes just reached prepositions at age nine). The boys have absorbed most of their spelling, grammar and punctuation from reading good books.

 

Laura

[Carrie12345]

I want to know what program, books, curriculum, video, etc you used successful to teach your child to read.

 

 

• Did you use a phonics base, spelling base, or memorization base method to teach them how to read?

• When did you start letting them read on there own? (allow them to choose, and what books did you allow)

• How did you advance their reading to reading chapter books by themselves (ex. Magic Tree House, etc)?

• When did you introduce sentence structure? (punucation, subject, predicate, etc)

 

 

 

I read to them and read to them and read to them. Then we did a bit of Hooked on Phonics and Explode the Code (still using ETC).

 

They've chosen their own books from the beginning, and increased their difficulty on their own.

 

We started grammar with First Language Lessons toward the end of this past school year, not long before my dds turned 6 and 7.

[kalanamak]

 

We ended up starting with the Explode the Code books A, B & C, then did books 1 & 2 ( I think we did 2).

 

I did this, along with Plaid Phonics K and A in K4 and K5, moving into SWR with Phonics Pathways for tracking practice. The Bob books started in K5, and we just mustered along until suddenly, late in 1st grade, he took off.

[Lovedtodeath]

 

3) Give them "their own word" in the story to read. If it is a book about Grover, their "word" is "Grover." Every time you come across that word while you are reading aloud, you pause and look at them expectantly. They will "read" their word. As they improve, they can look for 2 different words ("Bert" and "Ernie"), then add in other words that are used throughout the book. Eventually you can give them 2-5 of "their words" from the most commonly used words in English: for example, "Your words for this story are: AND, THE, and OF." Then you need to remember to pause and let them "read" those words in the context of the story.

progressive phonics does this, and it is free! It teaches words in families with fun poems. The words for the child to read are in red.

[Sahmqui]

Thanks, it is god to now that this one prrogram will not be use for all the kids. I thought I would have to shake it up a little.

 

Thanks for posting it is really helpful to see what others have done.

[Ummto4]

Every child is different.

 

Here is the timeline and steps for my son, who is now 7.5, a bit delayed and needs everything in a step-by-step fashion:

 

- Sounds of letter: 5 years.

 

- Blending: started when he was 6 years old. He needed 1 month to master blending. I used letter cards from Walmart. I put one vowel at the right, and a stack of consonant cards at the left, and let him practice with different types of blending. I used guidance from phonics pathway to let me know which blending I should do first, e.g. s-a, m-a, etc are quiet easy. But he tripped on d-a,b-a, etc because he kept on saying: duh-a, buh-a, etc.

 

-Drill the CVC words using 3 programs (another 1.5 month):

a. Phonics Pathways. At the beginning, I used cards to help him to blend CV-C, but then he could proceed with phonics pathways.

b. Bob books (the very first box).

c. Progressive Phonics book 1-5.

 

- Drill the CVCC words (consonant blend and consonant digraphs) using Phonicws Pathways (2 weeks).

 

- Become v. bored with Phonics Pathway, so we moved to Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt till lesson 98 (4-4.5 months). RME used mostly phonics with some sight words thrown in at the beginning to enable the child to read more natural sentences. Its scope and sequence is also a bit different than most program, because the program wants to introduce the child to more natural sentences earlier. NEvertheless, it's a good phonic program. (see: www.valeriebendt.com) WHen we're at the end of RME, he's supposed to be able to read everything at 2nd grade level. But of course he needs to practice more to become fluent.

 

- For practice, we started with Elson Reader Primer and Treadwell Primer (both are old readers from public domain websites). We started this just before his first grade (august ).

 

 

- Starting first grade, we use different old first readers because it's easier for me to have everything leveled like this. We used 5 first readers, 2 introductory second readers, and 1 second reader during his first grade. I also use school readin time to advance his vocab and understanding. Those old readers have complicated sentences !!

For independent reading, he started with the the easiest from "I can read series", Dr. Seuss books, to Frog and Toad (mid first grade) to Nate the Great (now, at the end of first grade). I haven't tried Magic Tree House, but I guess he'll be able to tackle it now.

 

- PHonics: mid first grade, I coached him so that he got more fluent with multisyllabic words. We used:

a. Phonics Pathways: for -ing, -ed, -er, etc.

b. Webster Spellelr: for more-than-2 syllabic words.

 

Right now, phonic-wise, he can read complicated words, like: superconductor, microbusiness, etc. BUT, his comprehension has not caught up. That's why he's reading Nate the Great instead of Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, etc. He can read those, but he can't read + understand those books at the moment. I guess if I guide him with reading, he'll understand. But at the moment, we just use those books for read aloud.

 

-2nd grade plan: continue with Webster speller for phonics, and for school time reading, we're going to use graded- old readers from googlebooks, may be 4 second readers, 1 introductory third reader, and books like Fifty Famous People/Fifty Famous Stories by Baldwin.

 

- Independent reading: I will use his 2nd grade to transition him to real books.

 

My daughter (#2) does not need everything to be truly incremental. She does not need a lot of blending practice and CVC drills. So she moves more quickly. She's doing Reading Made Easy right now, and expect to finish it during the summer (before her K year).

 

NOTE: Just pm me if you're interested to know what old reader I used.

HTH.

Edited July 15, 2009 by mom2moon2

[Ummto4]

I just want to add that for teaching punctuation and mechanics, I used copyworks and dictation.

 

- copywork: integrated with science and history. I mainly point out to him the capital letters, comma, etc. NO grammmar yet.

- dictation: use spelling plus dictation and spelling plus list starting mid first grade. I also explain to my son the spelling rule aka SWR as we go. I incorporate word building activity as listed in spelling plus dictation resource book. Of course during dictation I want him to pay attention to punctuation.

 

Starting second grade, I'll start point out some basic grammar in addition to punctuation and mechanics we will get from dictation/copywork/PLL:

- subject and predicate.

- noun and verb.

- agreement of noun and verb.

[Lovedtodeath]

 

Thanks, I'm trying to get a feel on the best approach to advancing DS reading skills without moving to fast. All the while finding the right fit for DDs.

For your DS I would use OPGTR or Elizabeth B's lessons. They move quickly enough and should have the thoroughness you want as well, covering all phonics. If I am remembering correctly, when Elizabeth used the Webster's method with her DD, she was at about 3rd grade level and after using this method she was at high school level and reading the King James Version on her own.

[jengjohnson]

My two oldest learned with 100 Easy Lessons. We follow up with the Sonlight reading list (grade 1 and continuing) as well as Pathway readers. My youngest is in 100 Easy Lessons right now, Lesson 37! They use the 1st grade readers in K, and stay a year ahead until 2nd when they seem to take off and read whatever they can get their hands on.

[dcjlkplus3]

We use Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading.

We usually start it at about 5 (may start a little earlier with the youngest).

It takes about 2 years to go through the whole book - we do this for 1st and kindergarten. While we are doing this, we start with Bob books and any other phonic-based books I can find (harder than you might think). By the time they are finished with the book they feel pretty comfortable readig whatever catches their interest.

Audio books sometimes help with comfort level - for example after listening to all of the Magic Tree House books, my daughter started reading them. She was comfortable reading them, because she already knew the story. After that, she KNEW she could read chapter books, because she already had.

 

Lots of books being read to them, audio books and seeing mom and dad read for fun and learning is essential, from baby on up.

[melis108]

I've used 100 Easy Lessons, Reading Reflex and Spell to Write and Read. My favorite is SWR.