phonics - SWR vs. A Beka - what is different?

[kristin0713]

I am already sold on a cursive-first approach. I bought the A Beka K-4 workbooks and found the teacher's guide and a lot of the other reading materials used. I like the workbooks, but hate the teacher's guide. It is so scripted and designed for the classroom--drives me nuts. I also prefer how Cursive First starts the lower case letters on the baseline. Other than that, the cursive instruction seems similar (from what i can tell) but I'm wondering how the phonics instruction is different in Spell to Write and Read compared to A Beka? Has anyone used and compared both programs? It is so hard to get a feel for the SWR online. I want to do one or the other, since they both combine teaching phonics along with writing (cursive.) Any insight?

[kristin0713]

wow, this board moves fast. can i bump or is that against rules?

[Lovedtodeath]

Bumping is fine. We used a slight bit of Abeka. I really don't know much about it. I do know that Abeka starts with consonant> short-vowel >consonant words, and I believe Abeka initially teaches one phonetic sound for each of the letters. SWR will teach every sound that a letter makes right from the get go (hard and soft g-- gum, gem, a has three sounds-- hat, a ble, ball) and will include words that have the long vowel sound because it is at the end of a syllable. (Like e vent) again, right from the get go.

 

I hope that helps and that you get some more replies. :)

[Kipling]

I am already sold on a cursive-first approach. I bought the A Beka K-4 workbooks and found the teacher's guide and a lot of the other reading materials used. I like the workbooks, but hate the teacher's guide. It is so scripted and designed for the classroom--drives me nuts.

 

I can't answer all your questions about the different programs, but if you already have Abeka, you might want to give it a try to see if you can make it work. I have used some Abeka with my dc, but I don't use the teacher manuals. Like you said, it is very scripted and designed for classroom use. However, I do like Abeka's phonics program and cursive writing. So, I have used their phonics workbooks and handwriting books and ignored the teacher manuals (I bought them when I first started teaching my oldest child and later sold them on eBay). For dc#2, who is in K right now, we do 1-2 pages a day for phonics and handwriting, and I just teach the concept on the page.

[kristin0713]

Thanks for the replies. I decided I'm going to make the switch...just need to get the funds now for the curriculum. I joined the yahoo group yesterday and read through lots of info and I don't want to combine the two programs. Since we are not too far into it with A Beka, I'd rather make the switch entirely and continue with SWR through the end.

[Lovedtodeath]

You might want to look at The Phonics Road before you make final decision. It is scheduled with DVDs. I wish I had started with it. We are using it now. It is so easy!

[kristin0713]

Thanks--does that include handwriting? Cursive or print?

[Guest]

agh...I hate to answer because I'm really not what you'd call experienced, but since you haven't gotten many answers, I'll throw a little bit in.

 

We started with SWR. I really like the program. Both programs will teach the different sounds that letters make, but they'll teach it differently. SWR will say from the get-go, C says "ck", "s" and they'll also learn the rule as to when it says which. Abeka will teach that C says "ck" BUT later the student learns that C can say "s" before e,i, and y. So, just different approaches.

 

However, (and a big "however," for me) SWR stresses spelling before reading. That was what made us switch over to Abeka. I tend to fall more into Susan Wise Bauer's camp, where she says in WTM that you want to get the kids reading fast, right away. So, we went over to Abeka to learn to read. My kids are early readers, and my son was getting too bogged down with some of the SWR stuff. He picked up reading in a snap, and now he is ready to go back to SWR. Abeka is a SOLID phonics program. It's time consuming, but so is SWR, so that's kind of a moot point, I guess. We have finished Abeka Letters & Sounds K & 1st. We have decided not to do 2nd next year, because looking over the teacher's guide (which I do use) the 2nd grade is pretty remedial. We'll be going back to SWR in the fall. My son is reading GREAT. He is also spelling very well, which I attribute to Abeka.

 

We did not choose to do cursive first, so I can't comment on that.

 

Like I said, we did use the Abeka teacher's guide, but I just got used to knowing which parts I use and which to ignore. It's really not that complicated, just a lot of stuff we don't use. (But, I did have almost all levels of Abeka's teacher's manuals given to us.) So, that's what we do. I did teach my son to write via SWR methods and am using the same way to teach my daughter. (Using a clock, doing the clock-letters (round) first.)

 

Do you have access to an SWR seminar? I highly recommend attending one. I helped organize it, which cut down my registration cost.

 

Good luck! Both are solid programs, IMO.

[Lovedtodeath]

Oh yes, I forgot all about cursive first. duh. Sorry. Phonics Road 1 and 2 are in print.

[momofabcd]

Oh yes, I forgot all about cursive first. duh. Sorry. Phonics Road 1 and 2 are in print.

 

I think you could easily teach cursive with Cursive First and begin Phonics Road with Cursive instead of print. The phonograms are the same with both programs.

[kristin0713]

What do you like about Phonics Road compared to SWR?

[Lovedtodeath]

I haven't used SWR but I love the fact that Phonics Road has a schedule. SWR is more detailed on some things... like finger tapping for sounds and syllabication.

 

Here are some threads that can help you. There is a Phonics Road social group too.

 

Has anyone gone from SWR to Phonics Road?

 

Writing Road to Reading v. Phonics Road to Reading

 

Have you taught your DC to read with Phonics Road?

 

The PHONICS Road to Spelling and Reading (opinions needed) (Tina's detailed review)

 

Maybe this one will be helpful to someone trying to make a decision:

If You used PR but have stopped...

 

If I want to use the Phonics Road and teach syllabification

[PeterPan]

Kristin, is this for a *4* year old?? I think that would color people's responses. At that age NO ONE, not Sanseri, not Spalding, not SWB/JW, no one thinks you ought to tie reading and writing. So if you buy SWR right now (which is what I used with my dd btw), you're only going to use a small portion of it and modify to fit her age. There should be a chapter on working with preschoolers. You're going to work on lots of phonemic awareness, the sounds of the phonograms, forming them in sand or with other manipulatives, letter tiles, etc. You can spell words orally or with the tiles or with gross motor skills and play games.

 

As the others said, SWR/WRTR are about spelling them into reading. There is no sounding out. If you want sounding out, stick with Abeka. I went with SWR because I was concerned my dd would have my dh's spelling problems (which I didn't realize at the time have a name, dyslexia), and it worked out beautifully for her. In fact, given that she didn't become able to sound out words till this year (age 11), it's probably a good thing we didn't wait for sounding out to teach her to read, lol. On the other hand, many kids can sound out to learn to read. Do as you wish. Most methods work out for most kids frankly. The running joke is that it's the 3rd program you try that works, because the dc is finally old enough. My dd is quite bright and reads like the wind, but she didn't start to read till February of K5 (almost age 6), despite all my best instruction. Each dc has his/her timetable, and you can't rush it.

 

At age 4 I would do the early skills: letter sounds, rhyming, a letter of the week study, lots of word play, chapter book read alouds and audio books (more important than phonics, frankly), etc. Pretty soon the dc will be reading so fast you'll wonder why you wanted to rush it. By mid-first my dd pretty much had no use for me and read-alouds. Enjoy it while you can, that's what I say. :)

 

PS. No beef with PR, I tried a level myself, but it doesn't have a level for a 4 yo or even K5, does it??? You don't need to take the structure and tasks for a 1st grader and make a 4 yo do them. There are too many other options.

[kristin0713]

She will be 5 in a few weeks. I'm thinking of starting this in the summer or fall. We haven't done too much of the A Beka phonics. I have had her practicing writing the cursive vowels on a set of felt "sandpaper" letters that I made and in sand and she loves it. She also has been doing some of the writing in the workbooks. We do a lot of phonemic awareness activities but have mostly done the short vowels this year--no decoding yet. I'm not rushing her :001_smile: I'm trying to go along with her desire to learn and move at her pace but I want to start out with the program that we are going to stick with.

[Lovedtodeath]

PS. No beef with PR, I tried a level myself, but it doesn't have a level for a 4 yo or even K5, does it??? You don't need to take the structure and tasks for a 1st grader and make a 4 yo do them. There are too many other options.

Well.... it starts with spelling only 5 words per day, and it has games and letter tiles to use, so it can be used exactly the way I taught my daughter when she was 3 years old. :)

[kristin0713]

THANKS for all those links, I have lots to read up on! :)

[kristin0713]

Also, to clarify, we have had the A Beka materials since last summer when she was 4.5. At that point, she had been asking me to teach her how to read. But I quickly realized that she wasn't ready for the whole curriculum--so we have just been doing the felt letters and sand, and some writing in the workbooks, and phonemic awareness activities. I just want to be doing the right prep with her, since she is asking for it, and I want to have the curriculum so we can move forward when she is really ready.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I think you could easily teach cursive with Cursive First and begin Phonics Road with Cursive instead of print. The phonograms are the same with both programs.

There are already people here using CF and PR together.

If writing ever becomes a problem, use other things like sand, rice, shaving cream, a white board, etc. The core or PR is learning the phonograms, then putting them together to spell. If you can spell it, you can read it. It works AMAZINGLY well.

So far as not sounding out...I'm not sure about SWR/WRTR, but PR is a close cousin to SWR and you sure do sound words out to both spell and read them.

The main difference between SWR and PR is scheduling and modeling. There is a training DVD for SWR; however PR models every lesson for you. If you don't need the modeling, fast forward. It also applies a daily schedule to all areas.

The best thing about PR is the crossover in application. What you learn in one area of LA is used in another, so you are constantly building and reviewing in practical application, as opposed to arbitrary practice (that you'd find in an Abeka workbook).

There are many examples of PR on my blog. You can get a good idea of where it starts from the Letter of the Day posts all the way through to the Lesson Planning PR4.