? about OPGTR

[momsuz123]

Hi, I ordered OPGTR this week, without really knowing much about it. Act of desperation I guess, and that I trust a lot of you on here. My 6.5 y/o dd is struggling with reading. She has never liked reading, but is showing some progress. It is so hard when kids are so different. My oldest is an amazing reader, loves reading all the time, and I barely taught her how to read. AAS has helped my 6.5 y/o dd with reading in that now she actually tries to sound out words instead of the memorizing she was doing in kindergarten in ps. What is OPGTR like? Is it an activity guide, does it have reading in it? The reason I am asking is I am also debating about trying AAR level 1 or 2. But I know patience is also important. We do a lot of read alouds, and she does read to me everyday, beginner reader books - but she doesn't like to do it, ever.

Any advice or suggestions?

Thanks

[Ritsumei]

I use OPGTR with games that we either make up or get from Happy Phonics, depending on the day and the lesson we're on. I find OPGTR to be stab-my-eyes-out boring on its own, but so very systematic and thorough. I love the systematic and thorough part, but neither my son nor I can stomach doing it as the book suggests. We'd have tears every.single.day. So we play games. I take 5-6 pages of paper, set them on a cardstock cover, and then sew down the center to make little "books" and I turn some of the stories that OPGTR has for the new reader and put a sentence on a page (sometimes I need to make up an extra sentence to make it fit the book), and I often change the names to family names, then I illustrate with stick figures, and while he still doesn't like to read the stories, he will do it. I figure that the prep time that goes into doing it this way is time well spent: word lists that we use in the games (I write the words on 3x5 cards) go into a ziplock with a card as a label for what lesson it is and what sound it covers on top, then the whole thing goes into a shoebox to save for future children. I'm getting a pretty good collection of little stick-figure books to keep for when I teach #2 and any others we get. So, even though it's a little bit of work to do it this way, I don't mind.

 

I keep hearing that it's pretty normal for kids not to like reading at first: it's work. Monkey would rather play some math any day of the week!

[go_go_gadget]

OPGTR is a scripted program for teaching reading via phonics. There are a few activities, but mainly it's lessons on the rules of phonics, with a few sentences (eventually paragraphs) featuring the day's material at the end of each lesson. It's fairly dry and there are no pictures, but in my experience is incredibly effective. We supplement with the Phonics Practice Readers from Modern Curriculum Press (and skip the sentences/paragraphs in OPGTR), but those are the only two programs we use. I recommend it highly.

 

Some people do use AAS as an all-in-one spelling/reading program, which could also be an option for you.

[ABQmom]

I would have to agree with all the other posters. My experience has been about the same. I had two kids that learned with it fine, and two that did not. For the two that didn't--OPGTR is just too lifeless--they needed/need color and pictures.

[justLisa]

:iagree: I used it with my now 6 year old Not super exciting, but SUPER effective and inexpensive. her.

 

This. We do a short lesson and then review from one or two. This is not the only thing we use as that would be pretty darn dry.

[Dahliarw]

I REALLY wish that instead of the paragraphs right in the book they actually published readers with illustrations and just told you what pages to read (the text could be the same). That would make it more interesting for my ds. But it does work. And I find that if he reads all the words correctly (from the lists) with no struggle I can skip the paragraphs or cut back on them and it's fine. We just read other books instead.

[go_go_gadget]

I REALLY wish that instead of the paragraphs right in the book they actually published readers with illustrations and just told you what pages to read (the text could be the same). That would make it more interesting for my ds. But it does work. And I find that if he reads all the words correctly (from the lists) with no struggle I can skip the paragraphs or cut back on them and it's fine. We just read other books instead.

 

The Phonics Practice Readers from MCP are perfect for this. Set 1A is all short vowels, 1B is long vowels, etc. We use them instead of the sentences/paragraphs at the end because both of mine initially found the "wall of text" intimidating, and we continue to use them after that because they're actually longer (shh!).

[Tawlas]

I'm using OPGTR very slowly with my four year old. We're still in CVC words. I use magnet letters to spell them out instead of having him read them off the page. The little phrases I write in a hardcover note book with a fat black pen. We play a lot of silly games, read BOB books and others from the library, and just try and have fun with it, but I use the OPGTR as a guide to where we should be aiming for next. We also skipped all the letter sound lessons.

 

I do like it because I feel like it's helped me adjust my expectations where they need to be. For example, reading the word list first myself, then together, then him rather than just turning him loose on the list. It's much less frustrating! But if reading just consisted of the book, I don't think we'd be enjoying as much as we have been.

[Dahliarw]

The Phonics Practice Readers from MCP are perfect for this. Set 1A is all short vowels, 1B is long vowels, etc. We use them instead of the sentences/paragraphs at the end because both of mine initially found the "wall of text" intimidating, and we continue to use them after that because they're actually longer (shh!).

 

Thank you! I'll look into them. We're over halfway through OPGTR, so hopefully they line up later on.

[ondreeuh]

I'm using OPGTR very slowly with my four year old. We're still in CVC words. I use magnet letters to spell them out instead of having him read them off the page. The little phrases I write in a hardcover note book with a fat black pen. We play a lot of silly games, read BOB books and others from the library, and just try and have fun with it, but I use the OPGTR as a guide to where we should be aiming for next. We also skipped all the letter sound lessons.

 

:iagree: This is what we are doing as well. OPGTR is setting the scope/sequence, but I am not using it as a script. We are using the Nora Gaydos readers, BOB books, LeapFrog Word Whammer, and some Lakeshore toys to practice reading and spelling CVC words. When I feel like he is pretty fluent, then we will pick up at lesson 41 (2 consonant blends) and follow the progressing in OPGTR, but with additional materials (like the next Nora Gaydos and BOB books).

[KristenR]

I try to balance the "boring"-ness of OPGTR with Starfall.com and more.starfall.com as the kids get older.

 

I wouldn't give up OPGTR for anything- it is amazing and thorough. Starfall is the perfect compliment for us. And if you have a touch screen you can really start kids on it at a young age.