OPG or Phonic Pathways?

[Jill in Maine]

I can't decide between these two. Maybe some of you can help me choose. My dd 7 learned to read last year using 100 Easy Lessons. She is very visual, so this method worked very well for her. What I am seeing now is too much reliance on "sight" reading and not much understanding of the phonics. I have always used WRR approach with my other children and was dissappointed in their spelling abilities, so I am doing SWO with this child which is going well. She also does Explode the Code (Book 6 now) and FLL, which she loves. I want short and sweet phonics instruction that I can pick up and go with. My main goal here is to increase understanding of multi-letter phonograms and rules which will increase reading fluency now and strengthen spelling abilities later on. What are the subtle differences between these programs which will make one a better choice over the other? I really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

 

Jill

[Chels~]

OPG is more like 100 lessons in that it is scripted. In PP you have them read the words to you. Each section has a rule and review. If your focus is spelling, I would use PP. That way you can work on just the sections that need improvement instead of going through a whole phonics program again.

[susie in tx]

I looked at both of them before deciding. While I liked OPG, the print was quite small and my dd had less trouble with the print size in PP.

[JudoMom]

I vote Phonics Pathways. Have you checked your library to see if they have them to help you decide?

[coffeegal]

I have both and let my 5 yo choose after trying each. He chose PP because of the small print in OPG. Another thought, OPG tends to have more sentences so I've used it successfully with older, weak readers. PP has more single words, it's wonderful for young readers to be able to practice reading words without struggling to understand a complete sentence. PP drills on 1 rule at a time. It also has an index of spelling rules, and spelling & pronunciation guides in the back.

 

Best of luck! :001_smile:

[Rosy]

We use PP. My son hates it, but it's great for teaching them how to break down the words and put sounds together.

[Tabrett]

Just curious...If she is doing well with ECT 6 and SWO, in what way is she not understanding phonics? How could a dc do ETC 6 and SWO and not understand phonics? PP's is a great book, but I don't know how much she will get out of the book if she is already at ETC level 6 and doing SWO.

Is she reading well?

If you would give a little more info on what particular problem she is having with phonics, it might help.

[Jill in Maine]

What I see happening in her reading is that she seems to just look at the first couple of letters and make an assumption of what the word is. I say "assumption" rather than "guess" because much of the time she is right...once she has seen a word a few times she seems to recognize it by sight. The problem is that as the material gets more advanced she is not able to really look at the individual phonetic "pieces" that make up the word. For instance, if I showed her the phonogram card with the "eigh" she could not tell me what it says, however, she can read words like; eight,weigh, or sleigh with no problem as long as they are in context. As far as ETC, she gets it well enough to do the workbook pages, but then forgets it fairly quickly.(I'm planning on ordering the 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 workbooks before moving any further ahead.) She seems to do very well when she reviews things consistently. ETC doesn't do that...it just keeps moving on. This is why FLL is such a good fit. I don't know if this makes it any more clear..or just adds more confusion.:)

Jill

[Rosy]

Both of my kids did that some...I like PP for that reason. Doing pages and pages of drill, you can't do a whole lot of guessing. They have some pages of nonsense words in there--I would have her go over those and see how well she does with them. Since they have no meaning, their value is strictly in measuring ability in sounding out words. Or maybe photocopy some words and have her draw one out of the hat and read it to you. Or flash cards or something. It sounds like her issue is that the context (pictures, etc.) has become a crutch for her.

[Tabrett]

After reading your second post, how about this-

 

Go Blend card game from SL. It is a card game that has all the letter blends, like eigh. You play a "Go Fish" style game where you have to pronounce the blend on your card to ask for your opponents card. Example: Do you have eigh? And then they have to read their card to see if they have the sound, like go fish. Fun and easy. There's another game that come with the instructions and you could use them as flash cards.

 

Letter and Word Bingo from SL. Obviously you wouldn't need the sight word cards, but the other cards are phonic blends. Or you could make your own bingo card with the phonetic blend you child needs to work on.

 

Then you could do a daily "crazy word" activity where you pick two words a day out of the dictionary that are REALLY big and your child doesn't know.

 

1. Write out the word for your child.

2. Have your dc try to find the phonic clusters and circle them using the Go Blend cards as clues.

3. Try to sound out the word.

4. Clap the syllables while saying the word out loud.

[iquilt]

I am currently using both of these programs. DD7 is doing 2 lessons a day in OPG to make sure we cover all of the phonics rules. DD4 prefers PP and is blending 3 letter words very nicely now. They are both great, thorough phonics programs, very methodical and will cover everything. PP lists specific ways to use the book as a spelling program in the back and I plan to do this with DD7 next year. HTH

[siloam]

Jill,

 

To be honest I think your time would be better spent on a phonics based spelling method instead of more phonics. Something like All About Spelling, Spell to Write and Read or Writing Road to Reading. I think the British products Apples and Pears also takes the same approach.

 

That is not to say you can't cover the phonics, if you are more comfortable with that. Just more that it might kill two birds with one stone by wrapping it into spelling.

 

Heather