beth83 Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 My daughter is in the process of learning how to read. We hit around lesson 50 of 100 EZ Lessons, and now we are switching to Phonics Pathways. She has blends down and can decipher a lot of words, but hasn't really gotten to any rules, including silent e (and EVERYTHING after that). So now she demands that her nose stay in a book. I absolutely love this and want this for the future, but now? She picks up anything we have around the house and tries to read it. When I am next to her, I get overwhelmed helping her because so many words follow rules we haven't even covered. I just don't want her developing any bad habits by trying to read material too advanced for her. Is this even possible? The intros I have read in both 100 EZ Lessons and Phonics Pathways have made me paranoid about the whole language approach and how it takes a long time to undo the damage. What do I do at this stage? I want her to know why certain words are read certain ways, and not because mom told her the other night that "g o a t" is pronounced "goat." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blondeviolin Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 At this point, if she's wanting to zoom ahead, it's fine for her to, but you'll need to familiarize yourself with a lot of the rules about English. In your "goat" example, I would tell my son (who nearing lesson 40 in 100EZ) that a lot of times, when we see oa together, they make the long o sound. So, goat is phonetically correct. At this point, she's been introduced to consonant teams (th and sh, etc) so it shouldn't be foreign to her that oa could make just one sound. The Logic of English is a great book to pick up if you're not familiar with phonics rules yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth83 Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 The Logic of English is a great book to pick up if you're not familiar with phonics rules yourself. Hmmm, you just found the problem and how to remedy it. I think I am so paranoid about the whole language approach because that is how I was taught. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
three4me Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 We're only on lesson 25 of 100 Easy Lessons, but DD has begun reading BOB books and LOVES that she can read them! You might see if you library has them, or some similar :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MouseBandit Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 Hmmm, you just found the problem and how to remedy it. I think I am so paranoid about the whole language approach because that is how I was taught. Thanks! :iagree:That is totally where I am at! I will have to commit myself to learning those rules before we start, I guess, rather than "as we come to them" in the lesson plans, LOL! Tracey in Oregon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 My DD started reading at 3 with sight words and I decided at 3.5 that she had better learn some phonics so that she would know what to do when she hit an unfamiliar word - we used OPGTR but still she read well ahead of where she was with the phonics rules and to prevent a loss of reading by stopping her to catch up I made a whole lot of flashcards with all the phonics sounds on them and when she read a word she didn't know the rule for I handed her the flashcard and told her what the sound was even if it was well ahead in the sequence of OPGTR. We do review the cards she has covered fairly regularly and I did have to cover silent E separately with her. My DD does sight read a lot however - although they say that more than 70% of what adults read is also sight reading once you have seen the word so many times you will automatically remember the whole word (if you are reading this there is no ways you are sounding out half these words even subconsciously) I have read argumants about the pros and cons of both sight reading and phonics and both make sense and both have concerns related to them. I would probably make sure your child knows how to sound out and even cover words and slowly uncover them for her whether she knows the rule or not. eg GOAT - you uncover g (she says "g") then you uncover oa and TELL her it says "O" and finely uncover t and she says "t" - what is that word - "goat" - at least even if you haven't taught her the rule you are showing her how it is applied and she will grasp it herself eventually plus you are reinfocing the phonics she does know with the "g" and "t." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MouseBandit Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 eg GOAT - you uncover g (she says "g") then you uncover oa and TELL her it says "O" and finely uncover t and she says "t" - what is that word - "goat" - at least even if you haven't taught her the rule you are showing her how it is applied and she will grasp it herself eventually plus you are reinfocing the phonics she does know with the "g" and "t." Okay, I get it. Like this method a lot! Thank you! Tracey in Oregon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beth83 Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 We're only on lesson 25 of 100 Easy Lessons, but DD has begun reading BOB books and LOVES that she can read them! You might see if you library has them, or some similar :) We actually have all BOB books and a lot of leveled readers. The problem is that she wants to pick up other books that are above her level. I was not sure if I should allow her to read only the BOB books and readers at her level, or let her try other material. :iagree:That is totally where I am at! I will have to commit myself to learning those rules before we start, I guess, rather than "as we come to them" in the lesson plans, LOL! This is totally what I was doing. Why did I think I couldn't teach the rules before we came to them in the book? Probably because I didn't know them. Since this is my first time to teach reading, I am following the reading books to a T. I guess I can think outside the box a little and it would help us all! My DD started reading at 3 with sight words and I decided at 3.5 that she had better learn some phonics so that she would know what to do when she hit an unfamiliar word - we used OPGTR but still she read well ahead of where she was with the phonics rules and to prevent a loss of reading by stopping her to catch up I made a whole lot of flashcards with all the phonics sounds on them and when she read a word she didn't know the rule for I handed her the flashcard and told her what the sound was even if it was well ahead in the sequence of OPGTR. We do review the cards she has covered fairly regularly and I did have to cover silent E separately with her. My daughter is a couple of months away from her 4th birthday. We started 100 EZ Lessons at about 3.25, and I really wasn't expecting much, at all. She loves being read to, so I just thought if she took off with it, it would help her during quiet time. There has always been this side of me that thought she was too young to understand and apply phonics rules. Is this crazy? Maybe she could handle flashcards like this and actually learn a lot of rules? I mean, if she knows how to work an iPhone better than I do, I don't know why I assume she can't learn other things. I have a serious problem underestimating what she can handle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanikit Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 I believe in exposing children to things - so if they are resisting then it possibly is too early and then you put it away and try again at another time or try a different method. You can only know if your DD can handle phonics if you try - and if she is handling cvc then she is old enough for the rest of it too especially if she can sight read even one word (because the vowel combinations are just "sight sounds" really which they must see in the middle of words. Your daughter can learn whatever you expose to her in a child friendly manner. The question is whether they SHOULD be learning those things - obviously emotional content needs to be taken into effect and also the whole point of it - so my 4 year old can learn a lot of grammar, but WHY? If she likes it I will teach it to her, if not then so what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eloquacious Posted April 18, 2012 Share Posted April 18, 2012 I agree with the method outlined above - the phonics preview sort of thing, where I introduce a rule to be taught later. Incidentally, I did the same with sight words, by which I mean those that truly are rule breakers. In those cases, I would introduce the rule "such and such usually says ___ but in this word it says ___." That helped with "said" for instance, because of course in general the "ai" doesn't make a short e sound. My son was much like your daughter, but then he would tend to be self-limiting if it turned out there were more unknown words than he would like. Last night, he began to read The Emperor's New Clothes, and after four pages he stopped and indicated that there were too many unknown words. We put it aside in favor of another book, and we were both fine with that. (He would have been frustrated if I had stopped him - and I don't ever want him to think that he's not "allowed" to read a book.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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