If I Could Change One Thing About OPGTR

[Occasionally]

it would be the font. Having both the lowercase L's and capital I's the same is making life a little more difficult (again--it's my third time through this book.)

 

That's all. Otherwise, the book works well for us. It's just that my DS4 sometimes takes a long time to decide which letter is an i and which is an l.

 

Sigh.

[Maplecat]

I have the same complaint. OPGTR works very well for us, but the font complicates things.

[Alice]

Yep. I’d also make a lot less words on the page or somehow separate out the lessons from the scripted part. My oldest would break down in tears just looking at the page. If I wrote it out on a whiteboard he was fine. I think he just looked at it and got overwhelmed at the amount of font on the page. Once we were about halfway through he could do it from the book. My second one much prefers me to type it out for him so I do that and use bigger font and different colors.

[mohsmom23]

I agree. I opted not to use OPGTR with my ds because of the font and cramped pages.

[mlgbug]

I sstarted writing it on our whiteboard and everything is going so much better

[Occasionally]

I sstarted writing it on our whiteboard and everything is going so much better

 

Maybe I ought to break down and get a whiteboard. This DS is such a perfectionist that he'll stare at the page for a couple of minutes before deciding which letter it actually is. My patience is being tested.

[Lots of boys]

We also used a whiteboard instead of the book - it was much better.

 

I wish there was a student book and a teacher book. So the student book was non-crowded and easy to read.

[Gentlemommy]

Yes, I separate the lesson part from the teachers part. I use a whiteboard or scrap paper.

[mlgbug]

i just got a fairly decent one for 7.97 at walmart and its magnetic! you can see it on my blog

[Occasionally]

Well, I dug out an old white board I remembered we had in the basement. I wrote just the words DS was supposed to read, and put little stars next to them as he finished each one. When he finished a little section, I erased it.

 

I think he likes it better this way! Maybe it's having a little extra space between the words, or more clarity in which letter is what, or maybe it's just that it's a new way, but I think we'll keep going with the white board for a little while!

 

Thanks for the suggestion! (Now to decide if I'll let the heavy board stay resting on the floor, or find some anchors to put it up. Decisions, decisions...)

[Alice]

Another idea...my son really thought it was fun when I got some markers that write on windows. We didn’t do it every day but when he needed a little extra fun we’d do reading on the windows.

[Dahliarw]

I wish the parts the kids read were in their own book, like a storybook. My ds would like that a whole lot better.

[Melenie]

I agree, we had to do the white board for a while. The student book is a great suggestion.

[The Way of My People]

Having both the lowercase L's and capital I's the same is making life a little more difficult (again--it's my third time through this book.)

 

 

Amen! My son had a phobia about the letter "l" for a while because of the font issues. Every time he encountered an "l," even in different books where the font was better, he would refuse to read further because he didn't want to guess incorrectly. Arg! Luckily, he got over that about half-way through OPGTR.

[MeaganS]

I've basically created my own readers with the child's part. We read them on our iPad in Notability and we highlight every word as we read them. It works wonderfully for my 4yo. My dd has never even seen the book.

[anabelneri]

I just tell my 4yo if it's i or l (I tried to capitalize the i but it made it look like the l :tongue_smilie: ). She hasn't become phobic at all and accepts it readily. She also doesn't have any trouble reading other things. But I totally agree that the font could use an update, and that a student book would be a joy.

 

We've also used the window in the past. The kids love it!

:)

[Mommie_Jen]

We're going to try to move back to OPG (today, actually) after a long, long break. We've worked through ETC 1 and slowly started ETC 2, but we're going to try to use OPG w/ ETC as reinforcement. I took a few lessons and put the student part into the ipad so DS can cross off the words as he reads them. Any work on the ipad isn't really "work" for him. :)

[Guest coypond]

I did something very similar to Mommie_Jen! My son was sooooo bored with OPGTR (He's 4, almost 5, but we started back in August and are on Lesson 89), it was like pulling teeth. I think the format was just mentally overwhelming to him. He'd see the page and know how much "work" was coming and dreaded it from the very first word. Honestly, the book format is not very exciting for a kid who still likes pictures in his books.

 

He absolutely LOVES my Kindle Fire and gets a set amount of time per day to play his games. First, I was using the time as a carrot -- finish your phonics and you get your games. Then I thought, "What if the phonics is LIKE a game?" So I made an app. It's very basic, nothing too flashy, but every time he reads a word he pushes the "next" button and gets the next word. When the paragraphs come up, the font is big and he gets to scroll with his finger to see the rest of the text. It's certainly not something fancy and all it does is present the words and text, but can I tell you he actually BEGGED to do his phonics on Saturday AND Sunday last weekend?? I'd say the idea was a success, and already I can tell a difference in his reading. So great!! Love OPGTR!

[Occasionally]

Day two of white board work and so far so good!