My son hates Phonics Pathways - need suggestions, please

[jenL]

My almost 6yo (ds2) hates PP. I need something different right now, but I'm not sure where to go. My eldest pretty much taught himself to read with some PP for remediation/clarification, so this is new territory for me.

 

Ds2 is enjoying the BOB books and the "Learn to Read" section of starfall.com, but I'm not feeling comfortable that this is enough. He wants to learn how to read, so that is not the issue. I'm so worried about gaps later. All advice is welcome!

[heritagelearningacademy]

We are using All About Reading with my youngest (almost 6). She loves it. We tried Sing Spell Read and Write and hit a wall. She never liked starfall because I wanted her too. LOL

 

But we are zooming with AAR. I wouldn't hesitate to use it again.

[DandelionPrincess]

i second the vote for AAR. we only did level one due to price and then switched to 100EZ, (i think starting at lesson 30). It's been a great fit. AAR got him started on the "excitement" to read (though we didn't do hardly any of the activities, just not that kind of a kid, lol), and he thinks the stories from 100EZ are hilarious. I might continue on with OPGTR if i feel he still needs formal instruction after this, but i probably will just have him read to me every day from books that are level-appropriate, helping/teaching where needed.

[MeaganS]

I'm using Phonics Pathways and OPGTR as a guide to teach my daughter to read (mostly OPGTR). She almost never sees the actual books. I use a combination of self-made readers from the sentences in the books, magnet letters, Reading Bears, an iPad sketching app, and various other iPad phonics apps. I use the scope and sequence of the books as a guide and just do whatever works from there, although I do make sure dd can read the sentences in the books before we move on (I'm also afraid of gaps).

 

For example this week, my dd is learning about -ng endings. I introduced them in an iPad doodling app where I wrote the letters "ng" in one color and the vowel in front of it (i, a, u, and o) in another color. When she understood that, I did the whole ending with a consonant in a different color. So "d" and "ing" where different colors. Then I did them all one color. This could easily be done on paper or a white board as well but my dd pays more attention on the iPad. Then after understanding the concept and being familiar with the endings, we practiced some more words on the doodle app. I also made some readers in Power Point with a sentence or two from the books and a related picture on each page and turned them into pdfs that we could read together in the Notability app on the iPad. I highlight each word in the sentence as she reads (letting her pick the highlighting color). You could also just print the pages and use a highlighter. She loves reading time and is progressing nicely, and if she gets frustrated with one way of reading, there are lots of other ways to approach it. For a while, she needed practice with consonant blends, so we spent a few weeks practicing those types of words on Reading Bear. And although she is on Lesson 54 in OPGTR, she has never read from the actual book. There's no need to present the subjects you are teaching exactly like they are in the book. So long as the concept gets taught, it doesn't really matter what you do.

[Aspasia]

Are you doing lessons straight from the book? We use OPGTR and my dd HATES looking at all the text on the page. I just write the lessons on the whiteboard and she loves that, because she gets to choose the marker colors and erase words/sentences after she reads them.

 

Or would he like something like Happy Phonics? It's all games. We have it and the games are cute. I think she hits pretty much all of the phonics rules, but you could always reference PP to make sure you're covering everything.

[alisoncooks]

Well, if it helps, my 6.5 yr old DD hasn't liked ANY phonics program that we've used, LOL.

(And we've used the fun & ever-suggested AAR... We also had a stint with Happy Phonics.)

 

We're currently using Phonics Pathways (with some ETC to break up the monotony) and I try and do it "fun" ways as often as possible. Writing on the whiteboard helps, writing the short sentences from the lesson & having her illustrate them, etc. Yesterday we did the "ck" lesson and I had her take some dictation. I picked "funny" phrases ("lick sock" "kick duck") ;) and she wrote them and illustrated one -- she picked "kick duck." :D (Don't worry, this is my animal lover -- but she thought they were hilarious. :p)

[charcat13]

Another vote for AAR. We tried PP and Alpha Phonics but I think my son just needed the hands on and activities.

[JessieC]

Progressive Phonics (progressivephonics.com) is free, silly, and fun. I use this in combination with Explode the Code workbooks.

[rwjx2khsmj]

My dd hated PP, as well. We switched to OPGTTR and she flew through it. I used a blank piece of white paper to cover part of the page as we moved through the lesson.

[kdownie]

With dd1, we left phonics pathways for OPGTR. It worked great for her. For dd2, we are using AAR, and she loves it. Much more "fun"!

[jenL]

Using the whiteboard with PP... why did I not think of that?! I'm going to try that first vs. switching to something else right now. I'm also going to check Progressive Phonics since it's free. :)

 

I appreciate all the great ideas/recommendations! Thanks!

[ElizabethB]

Another vote for white board.

 

You can also add in my phonics concentration game for fun practice.

 

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

[kristi26]

Using the whiteboard with PP... why did I not think of that?! I'm going to try that first vs. switching to something else right now. I'm also going to check Progressive Phonics since it's free. :)

 

I appreciate all the great ideas/recommendations! Thanks!

 

We did Phonics Pathways last year in kindergarten and DD hated it. It got to the point that I wouldn't even let her see me getting the lessons from the book. We did the white board. We did words created with magnets and wooden puzzles. We went outside and used sidewalk chalk. We even did play dough letters. :)

[jenL]

I just had to come back and report a FANTASTIC reading lesson with ds! While I didn't start the whiteboard PP lessons (I will do that tomorrow), we went to the Progressive Phonics website, and ds read all of Book One - 40 pages!!! Well, not all of them are pages for the kids to read, but at least 30 are, and he was engaged, laughing, and even announced, "This is so fun!!!" at one point. He said he cannot wait until we do the next book tomorrow! Many thanks to JessyC for the recommendation!

 

I'm giddy!

[jjcmehl]

I'm working with my third child on reading. Previously, we used Alphaphonics and Explode the Code. My third loves The Reading Lesson by Michael Levin and Charan Langton.

[JessieC]

I just had to come back and report a FANTASTIC reading lesson with ds! While I didn't start the whiteboard PP lessons (I will do that tomorrow), we went to the Progressive Phonics website, and ds read all of Book One - 40 pages!!! Well, not all of them are pages for the kids to read, but at least 30 are, and he was engaged, laughing, and even announced, "This is so fun!!!" at one point. He said he cannot wait until we do the next book tomorrow! Many thanks to JessyC for the recommendation!

 

I'm giddy!

 

This made my day. :)