Reluctant but Capable Reader! Phonics Help!

[KBadd]

My 5 year old son has been reading using the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading since he was 4 years old.  He had no problem blending sounds and continues for the most part to pick up each lesson easily, but since practically Day 1 he has whined and complained (loudly!) about doing Phonics!! He loves to learn, loves to have books read to him, loves workbooks, but "hates phonics."  He is reading the ank/ink/onk, ang/ing/ong, and ch- and sh- words at this point (ex: clash.) He loves kindergarten and every other part of our curriculum, but I can't figure out a way to make Phonics or Reading interesting for him.  We have a set of BOB Books but he is reluctant to read those, either.  Today he was given a Planes Fire Rescue book (Random House Step Into Reading) and he was interested in reading that, but it is not phonics-based so it was difficult and i did more of the reading than he did.

 

Do I press on and continue to try to have a special reward for when he finishes his phonics without complaining, or do I switch curriculum?  What are some interesting beginning readers your children liked? I think he doesn't like the black and white pictures of the BOB Books.  Any other tips or recommendations?  It is frustrating because he is very capable and I love how TOPGTTR is phonics-based and simple, but I'm not sure if I should be looking for a better fit for us or not.

[desertflower]

Does he move around a lot? If so, then All about reading or logic of english may be a better fit. Those programs r for kinesthetic learners.

 

Or what I've been doing is finding books that he can read (like the bob books). I need to look into I see sam books. I hear they are like bob books. Anyhow, I think my child wants to read something interesting. For example, just by accident I found a book titled "Moving Day" at the library and he wanted to read that one on his own.

 

Step into reading level one may be a good fit.

 

I think for my child he wants to stop the phonics lessons and read books that he picks out. There's also a reason why I've slow down the lessons and wanting him to start reading out loud but I can't pinpoint why. Possibly to apply what he knows so he knows why he's doing phonucs lessons.

 

Hth

[mymomtime]

At your library look for "Stone Arch Readers". My son is around lesson 50 in OPGTR and he can mostly read the level one in these books. Plus there are a bunch about trucks which is right up my son's alley. I think he found the black and white of the Bob and I See Sam books boring. The Stone Arch are not necessarily phonic based, but they are simple and my son finds them interesting.

[Ellie]

He's just 5. :-)

 

I would not continue teaching a child to read with a method that he whines about daily.

 

At this point, I'm thinking your best bet would be to put away any formal reading instruction until you have time to research other methods/products. Read aloud to him, for enjoyment, from good books, without making it a lesson of any kind. Have a plethora of books lying around the house that he can pick up on his own, if he wants to, without pushing.

[KarenNC]

I haven't seen OPGTR as it came out after we were past that stage, but I would assume it's similar to Phonics Pathways and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, as those were the original recommendations from WTM. If so, then I am assuming it's straight phonics. For my daughter, straight phonics only didn't work terribly well. She would cry when she saw either of those books. She wanted to read "real books" that sounded more like the kind of books we'd been reading to her for years, which did not resemble Bob books :). For us, that meant including some sight words, even if they were words that could be sounded out phonetically but came much later in the curriculum.

 

Here's what we used: Explode the Code for phonics (in which she wanted to do extra lessons), played games with a pack of Dolch sight word cards from Walmart, read Bob books and other leveled readers from the library, and Dick and Jane books. ETC gave the phonics basics, the cards gave her common words that are encountered in most children's books which made more of those early readers actually accessible to her, Dick and Jane gave her the confidence to read aloud to anyone but me. She loves to draw, so I would write out simple sentences in a story and let her illustrate the page if she could read the sentence on the page. You can also make your own books with a "magnetic" photo album by putting in photos or drawings and sentences. I did this with things like names of family members and pets.

 

As for the books, take him to the library, let him look at the easy readers, and pick out things that are interesting. Some of our favorites were Biscuit, Frog and Toad, Little Bear, Henry and Mudge, and Nate the Great.

[Addiebelle]

My 5 and half year old daughter really enjoys the All About Reading readers. You might want to look at purchasing the readers if you don't want to invest in a whole new program. Also, my daughter was the same as your son, whining at reading lessons. We took a month off and now she enjoys it a whole lot more. Sometimes they only need a short time to be away from it in order to be ready to delve in again.

[Tanikit]

I used only the word lists in OPGTR to teach both my girls at a young age. They did sets of only 4 words twice a day unless they specifically asked for more. I found two things worked really well:

 

1) Have a routine and keep it so short that they were finished before they had time to complain

2) My youngest loves to look up each word we see on google images and see a picture of it - by typing it onto the computer we get to blend it a second time, she learns what the word means and we get to look and talk about fun images (be aware some of the words should NOT be looked up this way)

 

I did not use the OPGTR book with them - I wrote the words out big elsewhere and in color so that they were not overwhelmed and so that it looked less intimidating. 

 

Keep trying til you find what works with your child. Every child is different. My oldest needed a lot of movement added too and would learn racing up and down the passage. My youngest is far more quiet and would probably do better with worksheets (but she is too young for that now).

                                             

[kiwik]

OPGTR is pretty hard going. I could only get lessons done if I wrote the words etc on a whiteboard and let then rub the out if they got them right. But to be fair I afterschool. At school they use some combo of whole language and phonics.

[Jackie]

By the time DD could sound out words with blends and two syllable words, we started using the Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems. Most libraries have the books, they're great stories, and they're in color. We started with them more as buddy reads since she needed help with words that weren't spelled phoenetically, but she flew through them after that and we added in more library books.

[Okeychowie]

I really like Teach you child to read in 100ez lessons. My son just turned 6 and had been doing 100 ez since he was 4.5. We took a break after a while because he was complaining too. Then we went back to it after he turned 5. There was still complaining, but he complains about most school work because he's the oldest of 4 and doesn't want to stop playing. The lessons are short and we cover ther picture that goes with the story so it makes it more exciting to get a lesson done.

 

He was very capable too of reading around 5.5 but didn't want to. Then this summer we signed up for the summer reading program and got some readers he was so excited that he would stay up late reading them.

 

It slowed down after a couple of weeks and he is back to preferring just looking at the books rather than reading them so I have to pick out a book for him to read to me.

 

I guess my advice in all this is to give it time. It'll all just click one day for him. It will be exciting for him to just pick up a book and be able to read it without asking you to do it. But then don't worry if the novelty wears off either.

 

Good luck!

[Walking-Iris]

How is he with his handwriting? I started using WRTR with my ds mid last year (in 1st) and the writing/spelling really helped my ds progress. As far as OPGTR is concerned, my ds hated that book on sight. I do not suggest sitting with a child and having them read from the primer. Write out the lessons on a white board (you can use a lap board) in different colors. 

 

The little stories and sentences to practice were more interesting for my ds if I made little booklets for him. I'd cut printer paper in half, fold and staple and write the sentences at the bottom. When he read them he could then illustrate  that story in his own little book. He would go back and read these "books" again and again. 

 

I also use this movable alphabet http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/Make_a_Moveable_Alphabet.html It's good to use this to build the words in the OPGTR lessons.

 

Basically get creative. Any way you can add some writing and hands on elements to learning to read will be best. You don't have to marry yourself to just one method or one curricula. I haven't found one yet that works well just on it's own. 

[rochenan]

Maybe you could just practice with books he likes or is interested in. I found that after doing Hooked on Phonics with my five year old he disliked reading random sentences that were meaningless to him. Who cares if the cat sat? He wanted to use readers that had storylines and he wanted to practice reading his favorite books so he could eventually read them whenever he wanted without waiting for me. Doing this did take some time. Some of the words were difficult but he learned a lot and actually wanted to learn. I would suggest trying readers or real books. If he still complains wait awhile before trying phonics again. If you are worried about missing blends by reading real books make a check list and as you read together check them off as you go.

 

[kiwik]

OPGTR is pretty hard going. I could only get lessons done if I wrote the words etc on a whiteboard and let then rub the out if they got them right. But to be fair I afterschool. At school they use some combo of whole language and phonics.

After I wrote this I got out OPGTR again. Now he is 5.4 and has been at school for 4 months he is finding it fairly easy. Not easy as in simple but as in with a reasonable effort he can do it.

[Sarah0000]

Take him to the bookstore and let him pick out his own readers. My son liked Biscuit and Winnie the Pooh readers at first but now pucks out superhero ones. They are not phonics based, but we just buddy read anyway.