What program did you use to give your child a firm phonics foundation?

[mama2cntrykids]

My two boys did MFW 1st and are strong readers. They are now in 4th and 2nd. The 4th grader reads close to a HS level. The 2nd grader is also above his reading level but not as high as his older bro.

 

I imagine my dd will do MFW 1st as well when she's old enough. We tried MFW K earlier in the year and it bombed with her!

[Storm Bay]

Some that come to mind: one, two, eye

 

We've never taught most of those words as sight words, so I was surprised to see such a long list. How about the word aye? What phonics rule does that meet?

 

I still lump the as no longer phonetically accurate, though, which is one of those things I simply agree to disagree with people about. Language and pronunciation are not only changing, but aren't the same everywhere. We say Tomato phonetically, but in my mind everyone who pronounces that a in a way diferent than a long a is no longer saying that syllable phonetically.

 

On another note, I hated teaching things that don't rhyme when they look like they should, such as the ough words. Also, words like bush & brush, especially in our house where we have 2 different schools of thought on

how to pronounce words that can go different ways depending on where you grow up such as with much & poor. My dc & dh put those two into the wrong category ;). Plus, where I grew up leg & egg don't rhyme with beg.

 

Teaching reading is hard work and I'm glad my dc are well past that stage now! I found learning to read very easy, but teaching it with all the exceptions was challenging. And, yes, there are so many things that aren't consistent in English. eg are you in a good mood?

[Lovedtodeath]

 

Some that come to mind: one, two, eye

Oh, yep! When we learned how to spell them Barbara Beers says they "aren't plumb and level". I will have to pay more attention. :tongue_smilie:

[momofabcd]

Oh, yep! When we learned how to spell them Barbara Beers says they "aren't plumb and level". I will have to pay more attention. :tongue_smilie:

Maybe "of" also. It's not plum and level:)

[johnandtinagilbert]

Good to know. Too late for my dc now, though. However, one could argue that we need to go by how we pronounce it now; in fact, that's most likely what at least some of miy would have done.

 

Now the word "thee" is the singular form of "you" in outdated English & I simply used that for pronunciation? Did the spell "the" the same way?

 

Reading came so easily for my dd's, and also for ds once we addressed a vision issue, but not prior to that.

 

I also have dd's who like to pronounce all of the silent letters for fun, such as in night, which ends up as a 3 syllable word when they do that.

Yes, the article, the, was previously spelled with double e. There were several words, which have left my mind, where the double e was dropped, but still pronounced as the Long sound. There is a rule, "A, E, O, and U usually say their names at the end of a syllable." This takes care of the ;) I always have a simple explanation: We have grown lazy in our speech over time, so we say, thuh, now, but the original sound is thE.

 

There are many, many words where this holds true. Just consider Massachusetts and how much they have changed ending vowel sounds. Same for NY and how much southern states change mid-vowel sounds. Hard to imagine that we once sounded like the Irish...thus babi ;) for all you PR users! :lol: Dialect is fun to play with. Makes for some silly times in spelling!