What did you use to teach your child to read?

[jessj]

For kid 1 I used Hooked on Phonics for a while, then got into Explode the Code.

 

For kid 2 I used nothing. Apparently she was listening really well while playing in the distance while her sister was getting the HOP lessons. Because one day she just picked up the hop readers and started sounding words out and blending sounds all on her own. She took off like a rocket. It was particularly amazing because she is a leukemia survivor. More than 80% of female survivors of her treatment have learning disabilities. And she did this when she had just turned 4. It was a miracle in our living room!

 

If I do it again... I will probably choose something else. I think HOP is great for getting them "reading" really fast. But it doesn't hit on details and my eldest was a kid who needed details and rules. That's why we dropped HOP and started in on Explode the Code. We liked that fine although it was a lot of book work for a young age. I hadn't originally planned to homeschool, but my eldest turned 5 while my younger was in cancer treatment. HOP was easily accessible and I knew NOTHING about homeschooling when we started. Things have gone pretty well considering! We're getting ready to start our 5th year already! I can hardly believe it!

[ScoutTN]

Phonics Pathways.

Simple, effective. Can be done on the couch in 10 minutes a day. Inexpensive. Big print.

[poiema]

Hooked on Phonics, but that's because that's all I knew of at the time. They were both ready to read fairly early so HOP worked out very well.

[Kathie in VA]

Alpha Phonics - a sit on the couch and snuggle way to learn how to read... although we did sometimes supplement with

-white board

-Bob Books

-ETC

-Alpha Phonics readers and workbook

It teaches all the Orton Gillingham phonograms but does it one sound at a time.

Oh and you practice more with words ordered like (hat, cat, sat) then (hat, hit, hot).

[Melenie]

For my first child we used Leap Frog DVDs and letters around the house to teach letter sounds. Once she had that down we used Bob books to put the sounds together. We skipped the first part in in OPGTR and completed the rest of the book.

 

With my second child we took a similar path, but skipped the Leap Frog DVDs.

[Another Lynn]

For the first three kids, the answer is either "everything" or "I don't remember." <shakes head> For 4th dc, we started out in Phonics Pathways (got us blending and sounding out words), dabbled OPGTR (the only thing I never tried previously), and ended up in CLE LTR which helped fluency tremendously. Next year my K-er will definitely use CLE LTR, though we might start out with PP first.