Where to go from here with phonics?

[pebblesjns]

I posted this over on the K-8 curriculum board, but thought maybe it fits better here so I'm posting it here too. Hopefully that's ok!

 

I have a very advanced 4.5 year old who will be starting K/1st this summer (I'm pregnant and due in August so I'd like to get a good routine going a few months before my due date to ensure I don't feel too overwhelmed and "behind" if we get off our routine while having a new little one). We've been doing some pre-k sporadically this year. We have been working our way through Horizons Math K and Explode the Code. My son taught himself to read right before he was 3 (I honestly have no idea how this happened but it did). He has progressed naturally with his reading and is able to read around a 2nd-3rd grade level now (from all of the assessments I've made him take, this is my best estimate). Needless to say, ETC has been a struggle with him because he is bored reading words like cat, hat, etc. when he is capable of going around our neighborhood and reading street signs and billboards.

 

I am just confused as to what I should be doing next. Part of me wants to make sure he has a good knowledge of phonics and doesn't have any gaps in his understanding, but the other part of me knows he will be bored with some of it. Do you have any suggestions for either a good phonics program that I should consider or should I scrap the phonics program and just let him read books and keep increasing his skills that way? I do plan to add in AAS 1 this year because he is very interested in spelling. I am thinking that might cover any "gaps" in his phonics that would come up since he would be learning phonics skills to spell. 

[ElizabethB]

Yes, a quick review of all phonics with added spelling rules and syllable division rules, phonics up to 12th grade level. My daughter worked through the entire Webster's Speller in K. For the next few years, I did a short review of phonics and spelling, covering all patterns and rules, over the first few days of each school year.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/WellTaughtPhonicsStudent.html

[sunnyday]

With my DD I'm letting her play with the Phonics with Phonograms app, and I'm going to start AAS when she hits kindergarten, and I'm thinking of working through the McGuffey readers with special attention paid to sounds. I think that'll do it for us, along with lots of reading aloud (her, me, and buddy reading). I've eyed Elizabeth's pages though and am strongly considering them for my older son, who's hitting a rough patch in improving his reading because of his habit of guessing (oh, public school and your "chunky monkey" strategies!)

[craftyerin]

I was in the same boat this year with my twin Kers. They started K reading at a ~2nd grade level and are now reading reading at a 3rd-4th grade level.  They finished Phonics Pathways midyear and went to just reading aloud to me daily for fluency practice, and we started spelling.  I started them in AAS 1 in October and we lasted about 3 weeks before discontinuing it.  They were bored to tears with the ease and pace of AAS 1.  It was FAR too easy for such natural readers and spellers.  I moved them to Spalding and it's been MUCH better.  It's still a program that reinforces their phonics knowledge, but it's  much easier to move to pace to where they're interested and learning instead of bored.  Plus, it's much less expensive. ;) 

[Uff Da!]

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