Phonics Pathways/ETC combo- what does this look like in your house?

[lotsofpumpkins]

First, for some background- I taught my first two children to read using Rod & Staff Phonics/Reading. It was very thorough, and worked great. The only downside was that it was very time-consuming.

 

I started my 1st grader in R&S phonics the last part of his Kindergarten year since he has a December birthday and was already 6. He had completed ETC Book 1. He completed the first unit of R&S 1st grade phonics with no trouble. When we started his 1st grade year, he was at unit 2 of R&S, where they begin long vowels. He started getting frustrated because there was a new rule each day and he was having trouble grasping the new concepts. So, I decided to switch him to Phonics Pathways and ETC. Both of those cover consonant blends after the CVC words; long vowels come a bit later. ds did fine with the consonant blends, and was ready to learn the long vowels when we got to them again. He is now about halfway through ETC Book 3 and on approx 88 of PP (we have an older edition; he just finished the section on long vowels with a silent e, and started learning about ee and ea as spellings for long e).

 

Here is where I'm wondering if I'm doing enough with him. He does 2 pages of ETC per day; at the current pace, he'll finish up Book 3 plus another book by the end of the school year (I haven't decided whether to do Book 4 or 5 next, since I've heard some people save 4 for later since it is difficult). We spend about 5-10 minutes in PP per day; I just have him read from the book. Although ds is much happier with the pp/etc combo than he was with R&S, I am starting to feel a bit guilty that he will not cover all of the rules this year unless I pick up the pace. He spends about 1/3 the amount of time on phonics/reading that his older brother did; that's where part of my guilt is coming from. My now-3rd-grader is young for his grade (August birthday), plus reading did not come easily to him at all. But I pushed him in 1st grade, and he reads very well (and enjoys reading for fun) now. My 1st grader is older because of his late birthday, plus reading is coming pretty easily to him these days (once he got over the long vowel hump). Sometimes I wonder if I should have stuck with R&S for him, but with my large family, I figured using less time-consuming programs would be better. Plus, ds was getting upset about R&S and letting it affect his whole day. (The funny thing is, now he's talking about R&S sometimes, like he wants to go back to it. :lol: )

 

Sorry this is so long. I guess I'm asking how others use the PP/ETC combo so I can see if I'm doing "enough". Since he's not having any problems with it right now, should I require more pages/time each day? I would really like for him to be reading more "real books" starting in 2nd grade (starting with Frog and Toad type books and progressing from there), but he has a lot more phonics to learn first! I feel like I'm letting him get behind.

 

[besides the current 1st grader, I have 3 more dc to teach to read after him, so I'm trying to gain some confidence in the PP/ETC method, if that is what we should stick with. My 5yo is in ETC Book 1 now, and he also has a late birthday, so he's not even officially in Kindergarten yet. I don't want to wait until he's in 1st grade to teach him to read, so it makes sense to stick with the PP/ETC combo; just need to figure out if I'm doing it right!]

[sewingmama]

Well according to my house you are doing a ton more then we are :D

 

My DD hates both of those items. We continue with ETC but she is on Book 1 and if "forced" will do 1 page a day:glare: We also often only do 3 days a week because after the 3rd day DD pitches a fit and refuses to use the book again till she's had a 4 day break. So that puts us at 3 pages of ETC a week.

 

We gave up PP because she was refusing it but when we were doing it - no more then one page a day :glare: Towards the end when I gave it up she was refusing to do more then 1 line per page a day :lol:

 

We switched to Reading A-Z .com which works similarly to AAR 1 and she has been doing much better (but that's not what you asked).

 

So you are doing much better then we did. :)

Edited January 18, 2012 by sewingmama

[5Bmom]

We are different than both of you, lol.

 

DS loves ETC. It is his favorite part of the school day here. We do one lesson in 3 parts over 1 week. (3 pgs, 4pgs, 3pgs usually) and we reinforce with Starfall and BOB Books and flashcards I have made. We DO use the TM for ETC and he likes the extra acitivities in there.... the vocab, new sight words, and such.

 

We will be moving to ETC 2 soon and won't be adding in anything else, unless something really changes.The TM's cover all we need in a reading curriculum as long as we have books to practice on... and we will also add in Beyond the Code at Book 3 or 4 for reading comprehension.

[twoxcell]

My dd reads 1/2-1 page of PP to me each day as her main phonics instruction. She also reads 1 page or one story to me a day out of the CLP phonics readers. ETC for her is something she can do independently and she does 1-2 pages a day. She turned 6 in Oct. and is currently on page 101 of pp, 3/4 of the way through book 3 of the CLP readers and about half way through ETC book 2. My ds finished PP by the end of 1st grade and reads very well. I hope to have her through it by next fall. My ds was able to read Little Bear and Frog and Toad before he finished PP, and dd will start those kinds of books when she finishes the CLP readers there are 4 of them. HTH

[Torototo]

My DD is 5, 6 in April, and we do 1 page in PP and 2-3 pages in ETC. She is about a quarter of the way through book 2. I'll then dictate to her one sentence from the PP page we just reviewed. So far both my DD and I like this method. I feel both books complement each other and that my DD id getting a strong foundation in phonics.

 

We use All About Spelling in first grade so I'm not concerned about rules just yet. My goal for kinder is to build fluency.

[lotsofpumpkins]

Thanks for all the replies. It sounds like what we are doing is fine, except since my ds is already 7 and isn't having any trouble, I think I'll have him do just a little bit more each day. As for my 5yo, I'm going to be more consistent working with him; right now he does 1 page of ETC a few days a week, and we haven't really used PP in a while. He can definitely handle more than I'm requiring, and I don't want to go quite so slowly!