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[NavyWifeandMommy]

We are at a standstill with 100 EZ lessons and I have tried games but my son just isn't getting that blending of the words quite together , like saying cat without stoping after each sound. 4 yo is catching on better than him and he's 5. I ordered Get Ready For the Code books a,b &c. He looked excited to do them. I am going to start them next week. He does good with sight words and knows a few because he wants to read his books but when it's time to put together the sounds it's not so easy. He likes workbooks so this is the route I am going to take for now. I do have a goal of him reading by the end of this year (2009) with his level 1 or step 1 books.

[In the Rain]

Can he push sounds together orally? Both of my girls played numerous rounds of the push-it-together or pull-it-apart game while we were in the car. I think it helps when they are reading on their own.

 

Also, I remember giving older dd flashcards with some of the words that I wanted her to say quickly: cat, Sam, sad, etc. Seeing them this way, out of the context of the book, seemed to help. It took a very short time (under a week?) before she caught on and would just say the easy words in her books.

[Chris in VA]

One little thing that helped us was to practice blending words that have a "continuous sound" as the first sound--Mmmmmmm, as opposed to a stop, like P.

Another thing was to draw a slide for the letters to "go down." Put the first letter on the top, the second in the middle and the last at the end. Mmmmmmaaaaaaaat for example!

The thing that helped the most, however, was to use Phonics Pathways way of putting two sounds together, a consonant and all the vowel sounds--ma, me, mi, mo, mu--then adding that last consonant to make a CVC word. If he can blend the first two sounds (maybe with the slide idea) then add the third, it might be easier.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Chris in VA

[Pink Fairy]

At this age I would take a break. I've taught 4 kids to read, and every single one would hit a wall at some point. I learned that a two week break would make all the difference. When we came back whatever concept was troubling them would be resolved. It's not magic (but it felt like it!), I just think the brain needed some time to grow and internalize what we'd been learning.

[8filltheheart]

My experience in teaching my kids to read is that using 100 EZ's approach is more difficult than others.

 

Programs like Sing, Spell, Read, Write, and Abeka (I think.....it's been a while since I looked at it) teach them ba, be, bi, bo, bu so that they learn to pronounce the sounds together. After these sounds are mastered, they start adding final sounds.

 

For example,

 

ba g

be g

bi g

bo g

bu g

 

If you don't want to invest in another program, I would suggest creating your own chart with all the consonant/vowel combinations. (I would skip ci and ce for now)

[FairProspects]

Phonics Pathways goes through all the two letter vowel-blends first too, and I do think that is helpful to ds. The other thing you could try that both PP and Abeka use is the blending train. Make train cars out of poster board and put vowels on 5 boxcars. Make post-its with consonants to put on and take off the engine car and then you can go through a full vowel blend with the train by moving the engine next to each boxcar:

 

ta

te

ti

to

tu

 

My boys love trains and I do think the concept helped with blending. You also might want to take a break for awhile and come back to blending. I first tried blending with ds 5 in July and no dice, nada. We tried again in Sept. and I was really nervous, but it clicked then. I think he just wasn't ready in July and that extra 2 months made a big difference for him. HTH!