ETC review? Learning letters/sounds waldorf ? too.

[woolybear]

Ds is going into second grade. He is not reading yet and only knows some of the letters/sounds. Last year he completed ETC books A and B. He was not retaining any of it so I took a break on it and just worked on learning the letters. My older ds used ETC as well and it took awhile for it to help him as well. So, I thought maybe we should continue with it this year. However, since he didn't retain much (or any? I'm not sure) I don't know where to begin with this.

 

Should we do some kind of review? Start all over, but move at a faster speed since it should ring some bells. Try something else? I was using more of a Waldorfy approach this spring/summer. Some of that seemed to stick if we found a good picture symbol to go along with the sound. ie. mountains for m. I like this approach for him, however, it just seemed to take forever and I do not want to be doing the alphabet all year with him.

 

I'm rambling here as I'm pretty tired, so I hope this is coherent. I'm just not quite sure where to go next with this. I was going to start Phonics Pathways, but I actually am thinking he needs to learn his letters better first.

 

Any thoughts on all of this? Should I just go to sleep and maybe it will make more sense tomorrow? Or at least I will.:tongue_smilie: Thanks for reading my rambling.

[Aludlam]

Well, my kids learned the letters and sounds in only a few weeks from watching, "Letter Factory" by Leapfrog. I would highly recommend it. I ordered mine a long time ago from Amazon, but a couple of months ago I saw a two pack (there are other DVD's like Talking Word Factory, etc) for a slightly discounted price at Target. I think you might be able to find all or some of it on Youtube. Our library also has it.

 

hth

[sbgrace]

I was going to mention the Letter Factory video as well. Most kids get the letter sounds pretty easily with that video!

[woolybear]

Thank you! I put it into my Amazon cart. It's only $7.99 there.

[Aludlam]

Thank you! I put it into my Amazon cart. It's only $7.99 there.

 

That's a good price. You won't regret it.

[Closeacademy]

For second grade, my dc are usually not really reading at the beginning. What I do:

 

I do a quick review of the alphabet sounds--1 per day. Each letter has it's picture, key word, sound, and physical movement. We just review and it is done in just over a month.

 

Traditionally in Waldorf you are supposed to do word family houses. Basically, you make a house for each word family (at, et, ook, etc.) and put words in those houses. This didn't work for us.

 

SWR phonograms work for us. So I link up each phonogram with a key word, picture, physical movement and an Aesop's fable. If I can't find a fable then we do one of the Saints that week. We go through the phonograms and a few of the rules at the rate of 1 per week. By the end of the year things should click.

 

Hope this helps.:001_smile:

[buttacol]

The Letter Factory is awesome, and my son became obsessed with letters at 4 years old.

 

We have used a different phonics book put out by the same publisher of Explode the Code. They are called Primary Phonics and although teaching the same skills are different in format. I think there is a lot more repetition and the pictures are clearer. Plus it incorporates the color words. Explode the Code can also be done online for quite a bit more money than the workbooks, but if your son is more capable working on a computer, it could help.

[kmacnchs]

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