The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading

[sewingmama]

Anyone used this program? Can you tell me how it works and what you liked/disliked?

:001_smile:

[momacacia]

I'm using it with my 6yo dd now. We are about 3/4 the way through Level 1. We move slowly, health issues going on for now. :)

 

I really like PR. There are others who can tell you how it is as students get older, but. See you are starting out, so . . . . I really feel prepped to teach by the DVDs Beers has done. Once you get the hang of it it is fairly open and go. I love that 20 weeks in (or sooner) my kid has all the tools she needs to read almost any word she wants to, not matter how "big." It works well for us, because I never taught letter names, but only sounds first. So, she naturally fell into learning a few more sounds for some of the letters and then the team phonograms.

 

I like that it is not a dumbed down program. My daughter's name starts with a "ch" making a /k/ sounds from the Greek. At one point Beers talks about ch making three different sounds from the old English, Greek, and French. My dd thinks it's cool we are speaking Greek when we say her name and I just love that this plants language roots I t her mind so early.

 

If you are teaching print vs. cursive first, I can't think of better print to emulate than Beers on the video. It is perfect. I really feel my dd will "own" the English language by the time we have gone through more or all of PR. Of course, we are not that far not it, and I'm sure others will speak up, but it has been a very solid start for us.

[sewingmama]

Thankyou. At the moment I have ordered Phonics Pathways and was planning on going the AAS route - but I don't know - I'm still thinking about it :D

[johnandtinagilbert]

Hi. I have a ton of post about PR (all the levels) on my blog. I LOVE it and am currently using Schola products with 7 dc! Let me know if I can answer any further questions.

[sewingmama]

Thanks for letting me know about your blog - the official website seems pretty scanty on the details.

 

I noticed that you mentioned that you spend about an hour a day with your youngest. There is no way my DD (who will be 5 in June) would agree to that :001_huh: On the website it says that you can break the instruction up into 15 minute blocks but I don't think she would cope with four sessions a day - she's fairly resistant to writing at the moment but willing to try learning to read -she knows her letter sounds but is stuck on the blending. She gets frustrated easily. I'm worried about it being too much and turning her off it all before she even starts. Would the program still work if we just did one 15 minute session a day?

 

I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol:

 

I wish I had never come across that post that mentioned PR - I had never heard of it before that and I was settled in my choices - now I'm up in the air all over again :D

 

Oh and I also meant to ask - Is it scripted? or do you just watch the DVD and explain it to the child in your own words - I'm not sure how well I'd do at that.

Edited April 20, 2011 by sewingmama

[Heather in VA]

I used PR Level 1 and 2 with my youngest. I know this is a less popular opinion but I was very glad that my daughter could read when we started. I like it better at that point rather than as a learning to read program. That isn't to say they have to be reading Shakespeare, but at least reading some to me is a better time to start. We used something else before PR.

 

Heather

[AngelBee]

Thanks for letting me know about your blog - the official website seems pretty scanty on the details.

 

I noticed that you mentioned that you spend about an hour a day with your youngest. There is no way my DD (who will be 5 in June) would agree to that :001_huh: On the website it says that you can break the instruction up into 15 minute blocks but I don't think she would cope with four sessions a day - she's fairly resistant to writing at the moment but willing to try learning to read -she knows her letter sounds but is stuck on the blending. She gets frustrated easily. I'm worried about it being too much and turning her off it all before she even starts. Would the program still work if we just did one 15 minute session a day?

 

I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol:

 

I wish I had never come across that post that mentioned PR - I had never heard of it before that and I was settled in my choices - now I'm up in the air all over again :D

 

Oh and I also meant to ask - Is it scripted? or do you just watch the DVD and explain it to the child in your own words - I'm not sure how well I'd do at that.

What we did for dd4 and ds6 this year (K) is go at half speed (at times slower). My plan is to use PR1 for K and 1st grade. It is FULL! :)

 

That is my plan for now. Maybe I should blog about it to help newbies out (not that I am overly experienced as we started late in K)

 

I also just finished PR1 TODAY at an accelerated pace with dd9 and ds11.

[DragonflyAcademy]

So far, we watch the DVDs together.. often I'll introduce the lesson and the words on one day.. we'll write them all and review the sound cards (DD is in 1st grade.. ) then the next day we'll watch the lesson and she'll use the wipe off board and add anything to her building codes. We review the sound cards on the following day and go over any missed words from day 1. We also do a reader. I'm trying to finish PR1 by the end of summer (we started last month) so she can start PR2 in September. My ODS, who is in 4th grade, will do PR 2 over the summer and start PR3 in September.

My little guy, who is 4, often listens into the lesson and will sing the songs on and off during the day..I won't formally start him for another year..

We've tried Phonics Pathways.. and also AAS.. this program is just a much better fit for us..

[Missouri Okie]

Since it's so writing intensive, I think it is better suited for a first grade.

 

My son is in K, and we have been drilling the letter and vowel/consonant team sounds ad nauseam. His writing skills are just now to the point where I think we could move on to writing the words. We started the word lists in January but stopped because he was writing so slowly. It wasn't worth the frustration to keep going with the words.

 

In the meantime, we continue working on OPGTR, HWT and drilling those letter sounds and learning the rule tunes NOW in advance of when he'll use them when we start again on the words.

[sewingmama]

Since it's so writing intensive, I think it is better suited for a first grade.

 

My son is in K, and we have been drilling the letter and vowel/consonant team sounds ad nauseam. His writing skills are just now to the point where I think we could move on to writing the words. We started the word lists in January but stopped because he was writing so slowly. It wasn't worth the frustration to keep going with the words.

 

In the meantime, we continue working on OPGTR, HWT and drilling those letter sounds and learning the rule tunes NOW in advance of when he'll use them when we start again on the words.

 

Thank you -this has helped a lot. The only thing my DD will write voluntarily is her name and she isn't even forming the letters correctly for that yet either (she won't let me correct her - she's stubborn as they come). There is no way I'm about to set myself up for the torture it would be to get her to use a writing intensive program straight out.

 

I really like the look of the program but I just have this feeling that it is not for my DD right now. I'll start out just teaching her to read with Phonics Pathways and use HWT to kickstart her writing and go from there - hopefully it won't be too long before she is ready to start PR.

Edited April 20, 2011 by sewingmama

[Ellesmere]

What we did for dd4 and ds6 this year (K) is go at half speed (at times slower). My plan is to use PR1 for K and 1st grade. It is FULL! :)

 

That is my plan for now. Maybe I should blog about it to help newbies out (not that I am overly experienced as we started late in K)

 

I also just finished PR1 TODAY at an accelerated pace with dd9 and ds11.

 

nm

[Snowfall]

I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol:

 

I don't think it defeats the purpose at all. We started off with learning the phonograms the PR/SWR way, but then I started teaching dd to read using Phonics Pathways. I'm glad we did it that way. It really hasn't been a problem at all. I promise. :001_smile: I mean, teaching her to read has been a problem (she just wasn't interested) but it wasn't because we used PP first or anything. I feel like they're a nice complement in the beginning. We're halfway through PP and we don't really do it much anymore, as I'm not sure we need it. She seems to be reading fairly well, and I'm starting to feel like PR is going to get her over that multi-syllable word hump as well or better than PP would. Hmmm...

[Veritaserum]

I'm using PR with four of my kids. My 6yo and 4yo are in level 1. My 6yo is nearly done with level 1 as scheduled. My 4yo is moving very slowly through level 1. We do one day of material every other school day. We do math on the off days. My 9yo accelerated through level 1 and is now accelerating through level 2. My 10yo is working through level 3. I really like this program. We've used several LA programs and this one has cured me from wanting to hop. :) I have a review in my blog (link in my siggy). :)

[myfatherslily]

I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol

I'll start out just teaching her to read with Phonics Pathways and use HWT to kickstart her writing and go from there - hopefully it won't be too long before she is ready to start PR.

 

I think this is a good plan. My DD started reading at 4.5 and her handwriting has always been great, but even then she was better off starting PR in 1st. We went through other reading instruction in Pre-K and K and she did just fine.

My DS5, who's a totally different ball of wax, is just barely starting to blend a bit, doesn't write much, and would also not be ready for PR right now:)

 

That said, I really, really like Phonics Road!:D

[johnandtinagilbert]

Thanks for letting me know about your blog - the official website seems pretty scanty on the details.

 

I noticed that you mentioned that you spend about an hour a day with your youngest. There is no way my DD (who will be 5 in June) would agree to that :001_huh: Hmmm I wonder which post that was? With my 5yo, we spend about 15-20m a day on PR, learning to read. With the boys in level 3, we spend about an hour a day on ALL areas of language arts. On the website it says that you can break the instruction up into 15 minute blocks but I don't think she would cope with four sessions a day - she's fairly resistant to writing at the moment but willing to try learning to read -she knows her letter sounds but is stuck on the blending. She gets frustrated easily. I'm worried about it being too much and turning her off it all before she even starts. Would the program still work if we just did one 15 minute session a day? That's what you should be doing for level 1, not an hour! There is no grammar until late in the level and the "writing" portion comes from spelling and letter practice. The program will introduce how to write letters and afford practice as you learn the sounds. Using PR to teach reading is pretty easy and you can use sand, rice, shaving cream, white board, etc, to teach the writing portion until your dd is ready for pencil and paper. Then, they provide the lined paper and it's not at all hard. The key for now would be for her to learn the sounds (ALL the sounds presented will build to the spelling list) and the markings (which are very simple to learn). If you can teach her the sounds and markings, even at a very slow pace, I'd encourage it. 15-20 min. a day is ideal and easy to work in.

 

I'm going back and forth about waiting a year and starting PR in Grade 1 and using something else in the meantime - but I guess that just defeats the purpose and she will have to relearn a new method and so I should just probably start her off how I mean to go on ..right :lol: It's really easy to teach reading this way. I was shocked at how easy, really! My 5yo, who is a normal, average, wiggly little boy, has done great with his letter sounds. His journey is partially blogged as "Letter of the Week". We're more like a few letters a week now and he is reading simple stories as provided in PR. He'll be 6 in May. We have never rushed, stressed, or cried a single tear in the process!

 

I wish I had never come across that post that mentioned PR - I had never heard of it before that and I was settled in my choices - now I'm up in the air all over again :D

 

Oh and I also meant to ask - Is it scripted? or do you just watch the DVD and explain it to the child in your own words - I'm not sure how well I'd do at that.

The lesson plans are written out and you take notes on what you need to from the DVD. The structure of the program is such that Mrs. Beers models for you on the DVD and you transfer what you've learned over to the program. It's pretty easy. Probably easier than you're thinking. The DVDs often start as a bummer for some, but in no time, they realize it's not at all a big deal.