Is this normal for reading progress?

[GuateMama]

We have been using Bob books and the phonetic readers that WTM recommends, and the OPGTTR. We started late last summer, and my boys were 5. They will turn 6 next month and I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. They hate to do handwriting, and they hate the OPG. We are still in the first section. When we got to long vowels they were not ready, so I started them back with the short vowels and blends again. After reading every day for nearly a year, we can read the 2nd set of Bob Books, but we are nowhere near where I planned to be when we started. Is this normal for boys? Should I give up on OPG and try Phonics Pathways? I feel like we are floundering academically and they just want to ride bikes and climb trees and get muddy. They say the OPG is too hard. I would love to hear from moms of little boys and know what is reasonable to accomplish at this age. I'm not sure they are mature and focused enough to do first grade work, well, I should say they are definitely not there now, and I have serious doubts they will be by September.

 

Thank you!

 

Amanda

[edeemarie]

I haven't used either phonics curriculum, but my kids both reached a point that I never thought they would "get" reading. But then one day it would just click with them and they could read! You may want to add in AAS 1- that really seemed to solidify the phonograms and really helped their reading. But my biggest recommendation is read, read, read to them a lot! They will get there, but until then they will pick up so much just by you reading to them:)

[sleeplessnights]

I haven't used those programs, but there are some very distinct steps in learning to read:

 

1. Know your letter sounds. (can be done concurrently with step 2)

2. Blend CVC words. This step can take 5 minutes or a year or more, depending on your child's readiness. Stay here until they can blend easily. We have a ton of easy phonics readers (like Bob Books, level 1) from Sonlight (Fun Tales and I Can Read It), Christian light, progressivephonics.com, all about reading, etc. This way there is always new material to read. I find that two sessions of five minutes a day is sufficient in this stage. The key here is consistency. Every day until this gets easy. This is the hard part.

 

3. Once they can blend without pause, then you can add in extra letters, silent e, vowel teams, etc. If they have blending down cold, they will fly through this step. Don't add additional difficulty if they are still trying to learn how to blend.

 

And that's it! Patience and consistency...

[MelissaMinNC]

Should I give up on OPG and try Phonics Pathways? I feel like we are floundering academically and they just want to ride bikes and climb trees and get muddy.

 

This describes my 7.5yo boy to a T. He is just nothing like his big sis - and learning to read is going much more slowly for him than it did for her. We're into the last month of 1st grade and he's still not what I would consider a "fluent" reader.

 

I don't know the answer, except to keep on, gently & patiently, moving forward. Short lessons, with some outside time as a reward for hard work, seem to help a little.

 

Sorry, I haven't used OPG so I can't help with specifics! But know you're not alone. :)

[lindsrae]

I don't have boys, but my eldest found OPGTR to be unbelievably boring...and I have to agree! It is so great that it is all-in-one...but I guess we just needed some more "frills." :)

 

I am using the I See Sam books with my four-year-old, and she LOVES them! You can teach them that "ee" says the long sound of "e," and they are able to read through a book! We like them much better than the Bob books. The Sam books are very systematic in approach, and they are based on phonics as well. You can download and print the first 52 books for free from http://www.readinglessons.com/. You can sign up for free. We did not use the phonics lessons, just read the books, but the website is very nice and systematic as well.

 

My six-year-old still isn't reading as much as I would like her to, but her ability has come a long way in the last year. It is hard to be patient when you want them to read SO badly, but I think five-year-old boys are probably best served by a good dose of tree climbing and mud splashing :)

 

Hang in there, momma!

[LaraH]

My son also needed more time - he just wasn't ready. And we really disliked OPGTR. So we kept reading, reading, reading, listening to audio books in the car, and when he was ready, used Reading Made Easy which he liked a lot more.

[MomatHWTK]

Try separating reading from handwriting. Sometimes the handwriting can bog down the progress in other areas. If there turns out to be a true problem with either handwriting or reading, separating the two will make it easier to identify.

 

Also, my kids all seem to do better if I put the reading lesson up on our computer screen (pdf) and highlight each word with the mouse. The color visual over the word helps them find it on the page.

[Aspasia]

We have used both OPG and Phonics Pathways. My dd hated OPG and seems to prefer the appearance of PP. The print is bigger and she prefers reading word lists instead of sentences (except when the sentences are accompanied by pictures, like in Bob books.) She thinks sentences are too hard (but doesn't seem to notice when there are pictures.)

 

I can't speak to the other issues because I've never taught boys to read. But my dd isn't exactly an enthusiastic learner. All I can do is keep moving slowly and offering incentives. I have found that doing a little work every day at least helps her to accept that this is what we're doing--when I let a couple days slide, she puts up more resistance the next time we sit down to read.

[twoxcell]

I would say it is fairly normal for boys and girls. My ds started reading cvc words at 4.5 and wasn't reading books really until 6.5. At 6.5 he read the little bear books and then took off from there with Frog and Toad etc. My dd has been fairly similar but a few months ahead. For my ds I used Horizons Phonics in K and didn't feel we made much progress at all. In first I switched to PP. I started him at the cvc words and we went through the rest of the entire book for 1st grade. Just to make you feel a bit better my ds is now 8(will be 9 in July), and he reads very well. Probably the hardest book he has read this year is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

[ElizabethB]

:grouphug:

 

Yes.

 

For a change of pace to get in those 1,000 repetitions, try my phonics concentration game:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/concentrationgam.html

 

With two, you can also play games with relay races with magnetic letters. Get at least 4 sets of magnetic letters and place 2 sets each in tupperware or bowls. Have them run to get a handful of letters at a time and when they get the whole pile, they get to see how may words they can make in 5 minutes (or 10 min or 1 min...) You can get a bit more work out of them if they are playing games and running to get letters.

[sewingmama]

Try www.progressivephonics.com. My kids love the stories because they are funny.

[ALB]

Sounds normal! Just keep at it :).

[jennynd]

We have been using Bob books and the phonetic readers that WTM recommends, and the OPGTTR. We started late last summer, and my boys were 5. They will turn 6 next month and I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall. They hate to do handwriting, and they hate the OPG. We are still in the first section. When we got to long vowels they were not ready, so I started them back with the short vowels and blends again. After reading every day for nearly a year, we can read the 2nd set of Bob Books, but we are nowhere near where I planned to be when we started. Is this normal for boys? Should I give up on OPG and try Phonics Pathways? I feel like we are floundering academically and they just want to ride bikes and climb trees and get muddy. They say the OPG is too hard. I would love to hear from moms of little boys and know what is reasonable to accomplish at this age. I'm not sure they are mature and focused enough to do first grade work, well, I should say they are definitely not there now, and I have serious doubts they will be by September.

 

Thank you!

 

Amanda

 

I like OPG but DD hates it. it is so boring she said...

We use hooked on phonic. The lesson itself might be just as boring but we love the stories after each lesson. DD won't stop until she get a sticker. the story book is really good. They are engaging and funny. DD just loves it. We at the end even use both older and newer versions HOP because DD likes so much

 

Best of all, Christian book has it on really good deal

 

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/easy_find/1288925332?Ntt=learn+to+read&N=0&Ntk=keywords&action=Search&Ne=0&event=ESRCG&nav_search=1&cms=1

[mommy5]

My DS struggled to read and in ust the past few months has been able to go from BOB books to the early readers level 2. He had a lot of trouble blending ... where as DD who is 2 yrs younger can blend very easily. I'm not sure why. We had tried 100EZ Lessons, ETC, Phonics Pathways, Reading Eggs and finally PAL-R. Reading Eggs was a big hit and PAL-R even better.

[OrganicMom]

I haven't used those programs, but there are some very distinct steps in learning to read:

 

1. Know your letter sounds. (can be done concurrently with step 2)

2. Blend CVC words. This step can take 5 minutes or a year or more, depending on your child's readiness. Stay here until they can blend easily. We have a ton of easy phonics readers (like Bob Books, level 1) from Sonlight (Fun Tales and I Can Read It), Christian light, progressivephonics.com, all about reading, etc. This way there is always new material to read. I find that two sessions of five minutes a day is sufficient in this stage. The key here is consistency. Every day until this gets easy. This is the hard part.

 

3. Once they can blend without pause, then you can add in extra letters, silent e, vowel teams, etc. If they have blending down cold, they will fly through this step. Don't add additional difficulty if they are still trying to learn how to blend.

 

And that's it! Patience and consistency...

 

i needed to read this today, thanks!

[SarahPotter]

We started OPG last year (Kindy) with a newly 5 year old. It was horrible! So I went back to the basics. I did a letter a day (The first 26 lesson in the book) and we did something fun with that letter. A we made stamps with apples, D went took a trip to Krispy Kreme donuts, Z we went to the zoo. I put everything we did in a binder, Krispy Kreme hats, zoo maps, pictures of them and all. Then continuing on we struggled in lessons 27-40 and he still didn't 'get it'. We pretty much stopped OPG and just played with the alphabet and went to our local libraries storytimes. He would cry if he even saw the book.

 

(Skip summer vacation. We did nothing. I had horrible morning sickness.)

 

Now we are in 1st grade, a newly 6 year old, and started back at lesson 27. I now do each lesson on a white board with him. He doesn't even know we are doing OPG, I do not show him the book. Along with our spelling program (the one givien in HOD's Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory curriculum) reading and spelling are his favorite part of the day! We are currently on lesson 40!

However at first, though he loved sounding out short vowel words and spelling, I could not get him to read a sentence of any kind, until I bought book 1 of I Can Read It!

Some days are better than others at getting him to read a sentence or two from the OPG lessons or one of the little stories in the I Can Read It! book, but we are getting there.

All he wants to do is write on that white board!

 

Hang in there.

[OrganicMom]

yes, i too am using the white board.

 

i just started THIS WEEK with my son not yet 4.5 but almost. and he doesn't even know what book we are using...

 

i wanted to add, nothing new, but we will probably use the AAS board/tiles too with it... i.e. spell "at" and bring all the letters out to make words out of it, cat, fat, hat, sat, etc...

[MommaOfalotta]

I'm not sure if this will be much help or not.. but we started OPG last year when dd was 4. Once we got past the vowels and consonants she HATED IT. She did it just fine and she could read the sentences.. but she groaned and complained every single time we brought the book out.

 

Well for many other reasons we stopped schooling until this year. She is now 5 and she has remembered everything and is having so much fun with it. We skipped through a ton of lessons because she was breezing right through them.

 

So I'm not sure.. but this seems to go with the advice Ive always heard, "when they are ready, they will read."

 

Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

[boscopup]

Reading is hard work for my son who will be 6 in a month and a half. We just keep plugging along. I do about 10 minutes a day, every day. We work on handwriting in a separate session. We're still learning the lowercase letters right now, as this is our K year. I'm sure he'll be ready for first grade work NEXT year. I expect to keep writing minimal, though probably not as minimal as I had to do with my oldest son.

 

Personally, I think it's good for little boys to be out climbing and getting muddy. DS2's school work takes an hour or less. Half of that is me reading aloud. We also have math in there, which DS finds easy, so he likes that.

[vaquitita]

Nm

Edited December 13, 2015 by vaquitita

[OrganicMom]

I have taught 1 child to read, so you can take my advice for what it's worth... My son learned the alphabet at 2, just cause it was just me and him and I needed something to talk about, so we talked about letters. I read to him a lot. Over the next 2.5 years we played games like name everything you can think of that starts with the letter D. When he was ready we began playing rhyming games, going back and forth until we ran out of rhymes for say cat. With both of these I would start out by talking him through it, to help him discover the answer. I was not consistent with these at all, we played them when he wanted to. Sometimes every day, sometimes not for months. Around 4.5 he began noticing words around the house, and I would help him sound them out. Then my mom gave him a Dick and Jane book and we began reading it together at bedtime. He would slowly sound out the words, well that grew boring after awhile and we stopped. We did nothing for months. Then I began doing some Ruth Beechick style reading lessons with him. He loved it for a little while, then he lost interest so we stopped. At 5.5 I started doing Charlotte Mason style reading lessons with him (using first twinkle little star, then humpty dumpty), this was 1-2 times a week for a couple months. Then he lost interest and we stopped. Though he would read stuff around the house, like NFL and FOX NEWS. LOL. Then at 6 we started the C.Mason style lessons again, this time using the Treadwell Primer. Since we were now officially doing school we did keep it up, plus he was ready for it. We did it 3x a week, plugging away at it. I don't remember for sure now, but by 6 months later, it was really clicking. I began getting him Easy Readers from the library, first I'd read them to him and then he'd read them. and we started letting him stay up an extra 10 minutes to read to himself. He got better and better, he began reading level 2 readers (frog & toad, anything by arnold lobel or syd hoff). Near the end of the school year I added in AAS level 1, we did maybe 1 lesson a week. Then over the summer we'd go to the library and he'd get stacks and blow through them, never wanting to reread any, sometimes complaining how boring they were. One night I had a lightbulb moment and handed him Boxcar Children, he loved it! He is newly turned 7, is technically in 1st grade, and reads at an early 4th grade level.

 

In those early years we did not do all that prereading type stuff consistently, but instead whenever he wanted to. And because he wanted to, he mastered it quickly. When he lost interest, we dropped it for awhile, picking it back up when he was interested again. I did try to add some motivation to read himself after he hit 6, getting him Reading Eggs (which was a treat, because screen time is rare in our house) and offering that *extra 10 min* of staying up to read.

 

I have followed this same philosophy (though with definite misgivings at times) with my DD. She had absolutely NO interest in the alphabet until the age of 4.5. Then one day she wanted to write her name, I taught her the letters to her name. She loved it, we read a few ABC books and within days she had the whole alphabet memorized. And a few weeks later I realized she had picked up most of the letter sounds too. She mastered it quick, because she was now interested in it. She is now 5 and wants to read like her big brother and I am doing All About Reading with her for now. She loves it cause it's very oral, loves the puppet. It's getting her through all that early letter and phonetic stuff. At some point I intend to switch over to doing C. Mason style lessons with her.

 

Thanks for this!

[MerryAtHope]

Hating writing, preferring to be out & running around, and only reading Set 2 of the Bob Books at not quite 6...this does sound pretty normal to me. They may just not have been ready last year. (And in many areas, they would only be going into Kindergarten this year). Game approaches and playing with the letters & sounds are a good idea and might hold their attention more. Hang in there! Merry :-)