programs that organize/introduce phonograms by sound?

[lacell]

Other than Reading Reflex and Abecedarian, are there other programs that are organized by sound and introduce all ways to write a sound at once?

[Slache]

Reading Lessons Through Literature

Spalding

Spell To Write And Read

Logic of English

[MerryAtHope]

There are quite a few programs--Orton-Gillingham, Spalding, and programs based on these methods will all teach phonograms. Some will teach all of the phonograms and sounds up front, and some will teach them more incrementally. All About Spelling and All About Reading teach the multiple sounds of each phonogram incrementally. After a student has an opportunity to master several ways to spell one sound, the spelling program will have a sorting lesson which mixes several ways to spell one sound, to see if the student can differentiate between them. Some students need that incremental approach, while others do fine learning many ways to spell a sound up front and sorting it out as they go. Logic of English, Writing Road to Reading, Spell to Write and Read are some other programs you could look into. 

 

 

[lacell]

Well now I'm confused because I thought the two I listed are unique in organizing/presenting by sound first, rather than presenting all the phonograms and the sounds they say.

[Ellie]

Reading Lessons Through Literature

Spalding

Spell To Write And Read

Logic of English

 

Spalding and its spin-offs do not introduce or organize phonograms by sound. The phonograms are taught in the order most commonly used, and all sounds of each phonogram are taught simultaneously...but we are warned not to tell our dc how many ways a specific sound can be written (or to point out that other phonograms might be used for a specific word).

[lacell]

Why is that? Is it considered too overwhelming? That's strange b/c Abecedarian is aimed at people with learning disabilities. It's phonographix, like Reading Reflex.

[Ellie]

Why is that? Is it considered too overwhelming? That's strange b/c Abecedarian is aimed at people with learning disabilities. It's phonographix, like Reading Reflex.

 

Mrs. Spalding believed it was better to teach the phonograms and their sounds, not the sounds and the letters that make them. She probably says why somewhere in the manual, but I don't know off the top of my head.

[MerryAtHope]

Well now I'm confused because I thought the two I listed are unique in organizing/presenting by sound first, rather than presenting all the phonograms and the sounds they say.

 

If you are strictly wanting programs that organize by sound first, then there may not be others. I was looking at the broader category of learning by phonogram and learning all of the multiple sounds for a phonogram (perhaps I read your OP too quickl!) Learning all of the ways to spell a sound (there are at least 9 common ways to spell the long E sound, 8 ways to spell long O and so on), is really overwhelming for a student--it's hard to remember which one to use, especially ones that have to be learned visually. That's why AAS masters them one at a time, and then has sorting lessons where they focus on making sure they can remember what they've learned when presented with lists of words following mixed patterns. I always found this part of Reading Reflex to be overly confusing for my kids (and later on found Spelling Power, which would lump several patterns into a list without any prior teaching, equally frustrating). 

[lacell]

Thank you. That's very helpful info!

[FO4UR]

I purposely do NOT give my children all of the possibilities to make a sound for the reasons stated above.

 

What I do is give them 3-6 phonograms that cannot be easily mixed up.  (sh  th  ee  ou)  And then I will give a word for them to spell, and they will know that each word includes at least one of the given phonograms.  So if I dictate "sheep" they can be confident that 'ee' makes the /E/ sound in that word (not ea or ei which can also say /E/).  

 

 

So much of spelling is visual memory.  The logical aspect needs to be whittled down carefully by the teacher to make sure that the students are thinking through the phonograms and rules properly.  Asking a child to remember all of the /E/ sounds is an act of visual memory, not really learning the logic of spelling.  I'm not saying that it's a bad approach, but if you want to teach the logical process...whittled out the gray areas for those lessons.  If you are teaching primarily to visual memory, then all the sounds at once is one way to organize lessons.

 

A good program will have a balance.

 

 

It's not what your OP is asking for, but Happy Phonics games are a great way to hit phonics/spelling from various angles.  

[lacell]

I purposely do NOT give my children all of the possibilities to make a sound for the reasons stated above.

 

 

Several people have said this. I see your point, but why do you think Abecedarian works for so many children with LD's if it is overwhelming in that regard? I looked at the sample extensively, and it seems it's presented in a visually clear way. But then again, I haven't actually tried it with a child.

 

[forty-two]

Another option is Dekodiphukan (Decode-if-you-can) - it teaches reading by introducing intuitive sound pictures for each sound through a rhyming story (for example, there's a buzzing bee for /z/, and a girl eating yummy honey for /m/).  It teaches blending two and then three sound pictures together to make a word, and transitions to print through using a chart that has all the spellings for each sound picture, color-coded (white for most-used spelling, and then down the rainbow for second, third, fourth, etc. spellings).  It's offered for free on the web - you can download and print some or all of the activities, plus they have also put together a user-friendly set of iPad apps.  We've only dabbled in the apps, but we've read the story several times and I use the sound pictures heavily with our main reading/spelling program (and have made my own sound-picture-to-spelling chart, that we use in conjunction with the Spelling You See markings) - they've been *extremely* helpful with my phonemic awareness-challenged kids.  Sound pictures forced my whole-word-reading oldest to learn to blend, and it was much easier for my middle to learn to blend together sound pictures then to blend together letters - we work through each new word in sound pictures before working through it in print (I made sound picture tiles, like AAS's phonogram tiles - they go together very nicely).  I've made 400 and counting flashcards for reading/spelling with the word in sound pictures (and coded to match our spelling chart) - the girls do 20 a day for spelling/reading practice (cursive reading and writing practice for my oldest).

 

I tried teaching phonograms with all the different sounds to my maybe-dyslexic oldest, and it confused the heck out of her.  She needed to work on one sound-one spelling for quite a while before she was able to make the leap.

Edited January 6, 2016 by forty-two

[lacell]

Wow that's really interesting. I will have a look at that! Thanks.

[forty-two]

Wow that's really interesting. I will have a look at that! Thanks.

 

I love those sound pictures so much I want to marry them :lol:.  I've probably gotten the most use out of the sound picture font they have - I made magnetic tiles plus the spelling chart plus all the flashcards (plus a bunch of stickers so the kids could write in sound pictures, but those haven't gotten much use yet).  The font format is old, but I was able to find a free web app to convert it to a true-type font.  I'll have to see if I can upload the true-type font file somewhere - it was somewhat annoying to convert, but totally worth the effort :thumbup:.  And the story is really cute and effective - I had most of the sounds memorized after the second or third go-around, and I've probably read it a dozen times and I'm not tired of it.  (Also, the iPad app can read the story aloud to the kids, which is also very helpful.)

[FO4UR]

Several people have said this. I see your point, but why do you think Abecedarian works for so many children with LD's if it is overwhelming in that regard? I looked at the sample extensively, and it seems it's presented in a visually clear way. But then again, I haven't actually tried it with a child.

 

 

Reading and writing are highly complex skills. The human brain is a highly complex organ. We know a small bit about reading/writing and dyslexia and what some casually term "brain wiring."  We have seen too many fad methods come and go, ignoring what we do know from experience. But, we don't have definitive answers to why one thing works for some kids and so on.  

 

Honestly, I don't know anyone who uses Abecedarian.  I remember looking into it several years ago, but I never tried it.

 

There are some kids who can use ANY curric and will be reading and spelling well within a year. There are some kids who will NOT learn to read and spell without major struggle no matter what curric is used.  Most kids are in the middle somewhere, Some need more help with auditory skills, others need more help with visual skills, and then others need to put all the pieces in place and let it simmer until one day everything clicks as if by magic.

 

 

I prefer the way Dancing Bears introduces the phonograms.  It's one sound of one phonogram at a time, and they practice those words regularly - both in isolation and within the context of sentences. For my youngest, I have saved back Happy Phonics for her and I'm writing a curric (highly inspired by Dancing Bears) that uses the Treadwell Readers as a base text.  A bright child could learn to read and spell through K-2nd with just the Happy Phonics and library books.

 

Unless you have known LDs, keep it simple. Don't overthink it or cling too closely to a methodology or you might find yourself overly determined to make a *curriculum* work instead of getting a *child* reading.  (btdt)

Edited January 6, 2016 by 4blessingmom

[lacell]

Good advice again :)