Hi, I'm new around here and I already need help! LOL!

[Guest True-Blue]

I have four kids: three boys, five, three, and two; and a girl, six months old. For mostly financial reasons, I've been cobbling together my own curriculum until just recently and now that we are really digging in, I feel like we are already behind. I got The Ordinary Parent's Guide in January and while my son started sounding out words within a week or two of starting it, we are only on lesson 47 and haven't made much progress. Part of that is due to having a new baby (she was only two months old when we started it), having a death in the family, and having to remodel the kitchen, but I'm afraid that has a distinct whiff of excuse. Life happens and school has to happen despite that. He is doing great in math and has been chomping at the bit to go faster, so we are starting formal first-grade curriculum now, but I feel like we are behind in reading. Also, I got Sequential Spelling, but I am afraid it was a mistake and maybe I should have gotten Spelling Workout instead.

 

So...I guess I'm just looking for reassurance from more experienced Well-Trained Minders that I haven't totally destroyed his life and ruined his chances of getting a scholarship to college. LOL!

[Murrayshire]

I love The Ordinary Parents Guide!! When my ds was in grade K we started with 100 Easy Lesson to Read...(or something like that) but he disliked it! Then in the middle of his K year I came across OPGTR book and haven't looked back! I would recommend taking your time.....make sure he is solidifying each lesson before moving on and review two before adding new. If you can hit the library or used book store, where the books are knocked down to a buck or two, that would be the way to go. I Can Read It books and Level 1 science readers worked well for my ds. But you could also try to snag some BOB books to go along with what you have already learned in OPGTR for review or to read along with a certain lesson. Read Aloud to them everyday.....this has been the most eye opening for my young reader and his vocabulary has grown from it immensely!

 

I wouldn't recommend Sequential Spelling or Spelling Workout right now if he isn't reading well yet. When I got through a good portion of OPGTR, through 100, I started with All About Spelling Level 1 (AAS). It can be pretty expensive especially if your dc works through them quickly, but try to find them used if possible. I have found all of my used so far.

 

This is how I added more to our OPGTR lessons each day. We did OPGTR 3-4 days....days off I had him practice the words from those week's lessons on Spelling City (free). Just plugged them in and he played games with them and took a practice test. My ds kept a notebook for each lesson in OPGTR, he would copy (or I would dictate a sentence depending on how long it was) a sentence from the story for the lesson. Then we would hightlight certain vowel pairs in the words that we have studied with a crayon. He would draw a picture of what happened in the story, too. Sometimes I would type up & print out the lesson words and the story, paste it in his notebook, that way he's not having to read them from the book. Then I would just choose activities to do along with the reading selection. I believe on my blog, below in my siggy, I've got an example of this. If you can't find it let me know! We are on Lesson 190 and plan to finish it for the first half of 2nd grade. So, this book takes some patience but it does the job.

 

When we started AAS, I also threw in Explode the Code phonics books just for ds to do when I was working with my older girls. I skipped around in the different leveled books to match it up with what he was learning in AAS.

 

This is all a learning process...every child learns differently and yes it's hard to find that path that really clicks. Just try to keep variety and see which ones he gravitates to more. Then you've got your winner! Good luck and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask! Please check out my blog, though. There are ton of resources that I think you could benefit from. This forum is awesome and just by browsing topics that interest you, you will get a world of help by just reading other Hive members experiences. I don't know where I'd be without this great community!