big picture for teaching kids to read?

[daniela_r]

My daughter is 5 and we're doing MFW K (plus some Miquon).  I also have OPGTR and we just did Lesson 58 from that (digraphs tch and nch).  She's doing great, although her attention span is short.  I like the orderly phonics progression of OPGTR, BUT I much prefer the well-rounded, plenty-of-practice, creative ways that MFW uses to teach reading.  Problem is, we're just over 1/2 way through MFW K and MFW won't get her to where we are in OPGTR until several weeks into MFW 1st, which for us will be about April:)  We both want to learn to read a bit faster than that:)  So I think I want to keep doing OPGTR, but I want to add in a little more practice or games or reading "real" books/readers as we go - but I don't think I know quite HOW or WHEN to do this.

 

I think it would help if I better understood the normal progression of teaching kids to read, using a phonics-based approach.  Here's the progression I do understand:

1) kid learns the names of the letters (usually)

2) kid learns the sounds of the letters 

3) kid learns to blend and sound out CVC words (like "cat" and "pig")

4) kid learns a very few super-common words, that may be phonetic, but are taught like sight words (like "I" and "the" and maybe "said")

4) kid learns to sound out CCVC and CVCC words (like "swim" and "fast")

- now a child can read Levels 1 and 2 Bob books, but Level 3 Bob books are (I think) still too hard: Level 3, Book 2 includes the following words that a kid would still not be able to sound out: flapped, bobbed, hello, flew, pennies, awk [parrot talking], and words that rhyme with Polly (Polly, jolly, Dolly, lolly)  

5) kid learns common digraphs (like "ch" and "sh" and "th")

6) kid learns silent e and long vowels sounds (like "cake" and "bee")

.

.

.

????) kid is able to read chapter books

 

I can read the index to OPGTR and see how the phonics progresses in difficulty, but what I don't get is WHEN I say, "Look, dd, let's try reading this real book now!" and how I'm supposed to handle words in that book that she won't yet know how to read (treat as sight words? pre-teach? just read for her?).  She enjoys me reading to her, but she has not yet ever tried on her own to read anything out of a "real" book.

 

And I don't get how a kid develops stamina to read more than a few sentences at a time.  I'm guessing that a child would normally be learning a new phonics rule and reading some words and sentences that practice that rule.  This reading time would only be a few sentences long, since it's challenging new material (for the child).  BUT at a different reading time, the child could be reading from an easy reader that's at a much easier level for them, and the child could then read more at a time.  Right??  

 

And, by the way, we live overseas, therefore no library access or (for now) ability to order any extra readers or curriculum.  Here's what we do have:

- Levels 1-5 Bob books

- several easy Dr. Suess-type books ("Cat in the Hat", "Put Me in the Zoo", etc.)

- several Level 1 and 2 "I Can Read" books ("Little Bear", "Danny and the Dinosaur", "Frog and Toad", "The Fire Cat", etc.)

- and plenty of great picture books and chapter books for after that!

 

Thanks!!

 

(And sorry it was such a long question!)

[debi21]

I laughed reading your question because I was toying with making post about reading stamina last night. I haven't seen this talked about. My son reads the level 1/2 readers with about five sentences per page, but gets extremely frustrated and overwhelmed by a chapter book like Magic Treehouse, because of the density of the words more than the level of decoding. I always see people post, "and then suddenly he was reading chapter books." So I am eagerly looking forward to other responses on this.

 

Here are some thoughts about progression I had off the top of my head. (Disclaimer: didn't use OPGTR, used a combo of Phonics Pathways/Blend Phonics/Reading Bear). As far as the first part of your list, I think I would put in recognizing sounds in words somewhere in there, maybe between two and three. More phonemic awareness stuff. Like I say "cat" and ask the child what is the beginning sound/middle sound/ending sound. Also maybe something with rhyming? Those are games I still play even though he's kind of past them reading wise, because he's not when it comes to spelling.

 

With the next steps, the thing is, some of the vowel combinations have multiple choices and I don't know that there are really rules as to when to use them. Like "ou" - cloud, young, for example. So, I think that's a very long path to mastery. There are things my son has been taught that he forgets - like he can read "phone" or "elephant" in a book, but can't tell me the ph says "f" if I ask in a general way. So I think you have to get on to real books sooner rather than later, because he won't really get some of those things entirely until he's being exposed to them regularly in books. I want to say we switched to having him read some picture books and even Dr. Suess type books somewhere in the level 4 of Bob. I know he knew the major digraphs you mentioned, the silent e thing, the simplified "if two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" rule, and also the endings "s" "ed" and "ing," but I think that was about it.

 

Also, reading real books, I saw what words we were encountering over and over again and that gave me feedback on what he didn't know and prompted me to teach something right away. I remember we kept getting "night" and "right" all the time, and I thought well, I better go over "igh".

 

With sight words, I never really talked about sight words or memorizing a particular word. I emphasized the part of the word that was phonetically regular (i.e. the consonant sounds in said, the) and just said, in this word ai says "eh" or e says "uh." I might even say something like, it usually says "ay" but in this word it says "eh." And he picked those up pretty quickly, seeing them so often.

 

How I handle tough words in real books: Often I'll say, in this word, ou says "ow" or something like that in the vowel combinations he doesn't know and then encourage him to try and sound it out. Or sometimes with big words I'll sound it out (we had "professional" in our book yesterday and he wouldn't try it) slowly and then say it fast. For names, I just tell him what the name is: a lot of surnames and even first names today are unusual.

 

Sometimes when reading him picture books, I would see a sentence that looked good for his level and ask him to read it. So that he was doing selected parts of real books. Also, a tip that helped me was to start getting in the habit of using your finger to underline and go along with the reading. I don't like doing it while I'm reading but I think it helps him practice. And then when I have my finger pointed at a word but am not reading, he knows I want him to read it.

 

At the stage we are at, which I *think* is right before chapter books, the decoding problems we are having in real books are: are combination vowel sounds where he is wrongly guessing what sound it makes (i.e. he pronounced the first syllable of flowing like flower), very long words where the length of the word discourages him from trying to sound it out, names of places/people, and long vowels in open syllables - he doesn't really get syllabification. 

 

I think where my son is right now, he has quite a bit of fluency but I don't think I have fully acknowledged that it's still work for him and it's not complete fluency. Because I don't see him really challenged on individual words in the Level 1/2 readers, I feel like he needs something harder, but I'm questioning if that is the case. His stamina is probably around 50 to 100 sentences in a session with me, and he is much less frustrated if it is 10-20 pages with 5 sentences per page versus 2-3 pages of something like a The Magic Treehouse book. So I think I need to stay where we're at for a while and see if his stamina improves.

 

OK, so I felt that was kind of a ramble. I hope there was something useful in there, and I'm looking forward to others' responses.

 

Debi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[a27mom]

Disclaimer, I have no completed experience. My girls are 6 and 4 and both reading at an early first grade level.

 

But I haven't found the progression to be following nice neat linear steps like the phonics books teach. We tried OPGTR, but my older daughter didn't like it, cried when I got the book out . So we switched to a combo of progressive phonics and phonics pathways. Still my daughter can often figure out more complicated words like "friend" and "raisins", because she has lots of consonant information. But struggles with a word like "lid" since she still occasionally mixes up b/d, the sound of short e/i, and says "el" instead of a clipped "l"; and it just isn't a word we use as frequently.

 

My girls also often ask about words. They have learned double o, and igh before they have mastered blends or silent e. But they were interested in words with these sounds so they know them. They also easily recognize words with similar patterns to their names, so they know what the "y" or "er" at the end of words say. I do question how critical the order of learning is. I mean obviously some things need to be learned first. But I also found my girls had to unlearn a lot because of the oddities of the English language.

 

I am not a phonics purist, though I think it is very important. I am finding that my girls do better by just reading a lot, and discussing the phonics rules as we go. I have noticed both of their reading stamina increasing. I will have to say my 6 y/o has not learned to read nearly as fast as I thought she would. But now I am seeing lots of progress. My 4 y/o has learned to read by just hanging out with us, much quicker than I anticipated. My point being that I think advancement is hard to predict and quantify.

 

We have been using this site for readers recently

 

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html

 

It has some great readers, both sight word and phonics style. Someone on here recommended it. I think.

 

When we read If we get to a word she doesn't "know" I often have her try it. If there are irregular vowels sound that she hasn't been exposed to much I tell her, these letters say ... I remind her on the "rules" she struggles with, like silent e, if it is a word I am sure she won't know or she is getting fatigued I just tell her the word. In "easy readers" I often will pick some sentences she can pretty much read and have her read those, or we will read several pages together with lots of help. We stop if she starts to get frustrated.

[sunnyday]

I would not save the picture books and chapter books for later, I'd be reading all of it, voraciously!

 

IME, you can and should teach reading skills to any child that is motivated to learn, but the actual leap to finding meaning in words on the page and following a story, seems to be mostly developmental. After dabbling in phonics-based instruction for over two years, my kids both made that leap this spring, at ages 4 and 6. It was seriously a matter of one day they were dutifully sounding out CVC and the next day they were picking up a picture book and reading it to us instead of the other way around. In the meantime, DS has little friends who got similar instruction and who were barely ready for BOB books even months later.

 

My DD4 has better natural reading skills than my DS6, but he has the greater stamina, so he's reading simple chapter books to her while she is buddy-reading interesting poetry with me. :) I don't have any idea how she knows words like "meadow" and "twilight" but she does, and it's not a matter of decoding!

 

One interesting "transition" step has been where I read a book aloud to them, so they hear the unfamiliar words said aloud. Then they read it to themselves or to me.

 

[mathmarm]

I'm still new to the whole teaching reading thing--in fact I'm only reading about teaching reading right now, but I have been wondering:

Why do kids need to know the names of the letters for reading in the early stage?

Can't they (shouldn't they) learn the sounds first?

We don't use the names when we read and each vowel (and the consonants 'c' and 'g') make 2 or 2+ sounds. With the exception of Q, which is really like a half letter seeing as how it can't do anything without trusty letter 'u' to back him up!!!

[RootAnn]

I'm still new to the whole teaching reading thing--in fact I'm only reading about teaching reading right now, but I have been wondering:

Why do kids need to know the names of the letters for reading in the early stage?

Can't they (shouldn't they) learn the sounds first?

We don't use the names when we read and each vowel (and the consonants 'c' and 'g') make 2 or 2+ sounds. With the exception of Q, which is really like a half letter seeing as how it can't do anything without trusty letter 'u' to back him up!!!

 

:laugh:  Some of us don't teach letter names until they need them to spell a word out to you like in a spelling bee. 

 

I agree with whomever said that their kids don't progress the way reading programs lay things out.

 

My kids, when they are learning to read, struggle with FLUENCY - reading smoothly and with feeling as well as stamina. Both pick up over time -- and in our case, LOTS and LOTS of practice.

 

"Popcorn" reading is one way to help with stamina - you read a page, they read a page. Then, you ramp it up. Right now, DD#3 reads several dense paragraphs to me & then I read several to her of the thicker chapter books. Eventually, she'll read a chapter to me. I'll read a chapter to her. They get a break in the middle - so it is like when you are exercising and you do two "sets" of fifteen repetitions. They are doing "sets" of reading practice with a break from you in the middle.

 

When she was learning to read, my dd#3 liked to read samples from the All About Reading volumes. You can find the samples as pdf files like this one for Level 1, Vol 1. She read some of them many times & kept going through the levels steadily as she was doing our other phonics work.

 

I think there are other examples of online early readers that you could use since you are overseas.

[NASDAQ]

It doesn't necessarily progress in order.

 

There is a point at which the child achieves fluency -- she is reading, rather than just sounding out. This often comes mid-first grade. This is difficult to rush. All you can do is put down the phonics framework so that when the child hits it, she is ready.

 

I would not be handing a child chapter books to read until the child has achieved some degree of fluency. Stamina increases as fewer and fewer words need to be actively decoded but instead are recognised immediately.

 

Picture books are meant to be read by you to the child, not read by the child. They can be deceptively difficult.

 

One way you can read together and practice is if you read a simple book with large print, following along with your finger. When you come to a word the child knows or can decode, pause and have the child read it. If he doesn't know, move along fairly quickly. Don't make it into a test. Don't pause long enough for the child to become uncomfortable. Just a little prompt. You can do a lot of this if she has some high-frequency words -- e.g. "the."

 

 

[Farrar]

Another vote that it doesn't progress in a nice orderly fashion at the same rate - there are slows and leaps for most kids. My theory of teaching early reading is throw everything at the wall until it sticks, because I think most kids do need to just keep circling those skills and reigniting their interest and excitement. This is not to say most kids don't need a solid phonics program, but so much of teaching reading has to be light, through games, through books kids are drawn to, through trying new things. Sure, some kids run through a dry resource like OPGTR and are suddenly, voila, reading, but most need more. And the moment in learning that kids are off can be really different - for some, once they've gotten through those CVC and silent e and a few of the vowel teams, zoom, they're such great blenders that they do practically dive into chapter books and can puzzle out or memorize all the words and patterns they don't yet know, but others need to practice those seemingly forever and go through every rule.

 

Have you heard the joke... The homeschool mom asked which program will teach my kid to read? Answer: the third one.

 

Anyway, OP, I think the best thing is to keep doing what you're doing with OPGTR and just bring more real books into it. Have you seen Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading? Some kids respond to online games like Starfall's. and have you seen Progressive Phonics? One of my ds found their method (we applied it to other books) really useful.

[daniela_r]

I would not save the picture books and chapter books for later, I'd be reading all of it, voraciously!

 

 

Oh, when I meant that we had plenty of picture and chapter books "for later" I meant that we have lots of books that dd can read when she's ready for that level (I know lots of picture books are really hard to read!) but I am certainly reading aloud plenty now!  Sorry for the confusion!

[daniela_r]

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice and experience!  I hadn't checked into Progressive Phonics before, but I just did and I'm impressed!  Several others of you mentioned other resources that I think will be helpful too - just what I needed!  Thanks again!

[kubiac]

If you have some time to read, these publications from the National Institute for Literacy were interesting to me when I was starting out, as they explain terms that teachers like to throw around like "alphabetic knowledge" vs "phonemic awareness". Their publications page has more similar materials.

 

A Child Becomes a Reader | PDF
Birth Through Preschool

A Child Becomes a Reader | PDF
Kindergarten Through Grade Three

[kiwik]

I agree that few children learn exactly according to the books in linear fashion.

[petepie2]

I'm on my third round through OPGTR, now with my 5 yr old DS. I've done the same thing for my first three children. Once we get to "silent e" we start adding in Sonlight's Grade 1 Readers. They start with CVC words and progress from there. For the most part, the readers are behind where we are in OPGTR. If we can find library books (a difficult task in the beginning since they are usually all sight words), then we throw those in the mix as well. Now that we're to the "other vowel sounds" section in OPGTR, it's easier to find library books. When we come to words we haven't covered (r-controlled words are introduced rather late in OPGTR), then I just say the rule (if appropriate) and tell them the word. They tend to pick up on these rules fairly quickly, and then later when we get to it in OPGTR, they already know it. For example, words like "Polly" are found early in Bob Books, but late in OPGTR. That's okay...just tell them the word and they'll eventually pick up on it. Progression is usually slow at first, but then I usually see a sudden jump forward in fluency.

 

I don't know that it particularly matters which phonics progression you use...just whatever works for your child. But "just keep swimming" and practice a little each day.

[daniela_r]

I'm on my third round through OPGTR, now with my 5 yr old DS. I've done the same thing for my first three children. Once we get to "silent e" we start adding in Sonlight's Grade 1 Readers. They start with CVC words and progress from there. For the most part, the readers are behind where we are in OPGTR. If we can find library books (a difficult task in the beginning since they are usually all sight words), then we throw those in the mix as well. Now that we're to the "other vowel sounds" section in OPGTR, it's easier to find library books. When we come to words we haven't covered (r-controlled words are introduced rather late in OPGTR), then I just say the rule (if appropriate) and tell them the word. They tend to pick up on these rules fairly quickly, and then later when we get to it in OPGTR, they already know it. For example, words like "Polly" are found early in Bob Books, but late in OPGTR. That's okay...just tell them the word and they'll eventually pick up on it. Progression is usually slow at first, but then I usually see a sudden jump forward in fluency.

 

I don't know that it particularly matters which phonics progression you use...just whatever works for your child. But "just keep swimming" and practice a little each day.

Thank you!  This kind of detail is very helpful!!

[Korrale]

How they jump to chapter books is kind of mysterious to me also. It has just happened to my son. I can't say it was 1 thing. It was an accumulation of many things.

 

Once my son was reading sentences we started buddy reading a lot. We just read read read. I explain unfamiliar words. And when he takes his turn we would sound out words together. Or he would sound them out. I would read a page, he would read a sentence, then we worked up to a whole paragraph, then we were alternating whole pages each.

 

We read a LOT of readers. We devoured a bunch of level 1, then the level 2 then level 3. At this point we moved to pretty much any picture book we could get our hands on. Many of them have more advanced structure and vocabulary that many early chapter books.

 

Next big thing that helped a lot; was that I was able to get my hands on large print books. The print sized mattered a lot to my son.

 

Oh and something else I did was to give him a little nudge. He would be at a 1st grade level for reading so we would work through a 3rd or 4th grade level book, or often just a chapter, together. It was slow going. However, when we went back to a1st grade level book, he found it less overwhelming and breezed through it.

[Korrale]

There are a lot of readers on kindle now. There are also books online via websites like we give books.

[petepie2]

I think my oldest two started Magic Tree House books when they were in the middle of Sonlight 2 Readers. For my DD, I remember pulling out one of the books and she read some and I read some. Then it wasn't long at all before she was picking it up and reading it herself. The process has been about the same for my DS (age 7), but he doesn't have near the stamina his sister did at his age. He's read all the Magic Tree House books and many others, but he likes short chapters that he can sit down and read in one sitting. He's pushed through some longer books, like the first Hardy Boys book, but right now he's turning his nose up at longer books.