After ETC Primers???

[DhanyaCali]

I'm wondering if my son will be ready for Explode the Code 1 right after finishing the primer series. He's almost 4  and we're midway through book B. I was truly surprised at how quickly we flew through the 1st book A (at a rate of 4 pages per day).

 

Has anyone gone from the primer on that could tell me of your experience? I've heard that they're copy/trace work intensive, but I don't mind doing that for him, I'm trying to teach him to read right now, not write.

 

Oh and as a note he knows ALL the consonant and short vowel sounds very well, so right now he's getting all the ETC exercises correct no problem, but I appreciate the deep reinforcement.

 

1st post,long time lurker! <3

 

[nature girl]

I think he'd probably be ready for it, but (and I'm sure others' opinions will differ) my DD3 was bored out of her mind by ETC 1. We did a handful of pages and never went further. We never used books A and B, but from the samples I've seen they look much more engaging. The pages in 1 are black and white and very crowded with text, nothing at all to engage my DD's interest even though she's the type to ask for workbooks. I'm sure it's a good program, but it just wasn't for us.

[DhanyaCali]

Oh and about our schoolig in general, during baby's nap we do the 26 abc flash cards(goes by quick!), 4 ETC pages and 4 Kumon maze or tracing pages, then sometimes a random math or pinterest activity :) Takes about 20 minutes.

 

We're also just now jumping into FIAR/BFIAR but I don'e tell him that's "school" we just do it whenever.

[fdrinca]

If he's not ready to write, I don't think ETC would work well for him. It really is writing intensive, but I believe the writing reinforces the reading. You'd probably be best off with a different program.

[ssavings]

If he has the letter sounds down after the primers, could you move right in to OPGTR? That'd be less writing intensive. And, maybe, use HWOT pre-k for the writing component?

In general, I'm not a big fan of making a child learn to read at the pace they were able to write. My kids, at least, were ready to read long before they could handle much writing. We found that isolating reading to a specific skill and using a seperate pre-k handwriting program to focus on writing well allowed them to progress with both at different paces, which we really needed!

[ssavings]

My older two didn't like ETC at all. DD4 enjoys them.  I guess it depends on the kid. **shrug*

[nature girl]

Your 3 yr old didn't enjoy pictures and Xing out and such?  My.  how unusual.

 

I only mentioned her age because OPs son is also 3. It's probably a good method for learning, but it really isn't an engaging book for younger kids. We started because my DD was so excited and proud of herself when she started being able to sound out words, she's the type who would do workbooks all day if I let her, but we moved on to more natural methods of reading after ETC bombed, reading multitudes of books together, and doing Progressive Phonics which feels like a much cozier, more natural way of learning.

[DhanyaCali]

Thanks for all of your input ladies! It seems like he probably will be ready for it, I'll just have to take the $7 jump to get the 1st workbook and see if he likes it. He really enjoys all the X-ing out, and drawing lines to matching letters, etc, hopefully they'll be enough of that element in the regular series as well.

 

B&W's no problem for him, I've been letting him to the primers in colored marker but I think I make make him switch to pencil after the primers, if we do end up buying all EIGHT of the regular books I'd like to be able to erase and re-use the series instead of re buying. And if It doesn't work out then we'll look into something else.

 

Thanks again, you're all awesome  :laugh:

[Saraswati]

My son also finished the prep books at lightening speed. He started book 1 this past fall, just after turning 4. He forms his letters pretty well and does fine with pen grip. We work slowly, and he's doing great with it.

 

You might try using a plastic cover and letting him write in colored dry eraser if that's what he enjoys. Then just remove and wipe. You could take some snapshots of some of the pages to mark his progress.

[macmacmoo]

When I bought the ETC primers, they were too easy for DS1. However he was not ready for ETC 1. It took awhile to find what would work best for us, but in the end we went with the Review Chapter in Plaid Phonics Book A. His handwriting was really bad when we started, so I bought a very small stamp set that had all the letter as individual stamps and let him stamp out his answers. Once we made enough head way in Handwritign without tears, I started making him write more and stamp less.

[DhanyaCali]

More good ideas, thank you! We also own Happy Phonics but haven't used much of it beyond the abc flashcards and lowercase- caps match games. I'm just psyched for the day DS reads out his 1st cvc word, however it comes about!