Tread well, Mc Guffey, phonics and more'

[Momma4]

Hi, I started a thread the other day about which phonics packages you all recommend and I got some very helpful replies.

 

In case you haven't read that thread, I mentioned that my 6yr old son can read CVC words and words with beginning and end blends. We've used the ordinary parents guide to teaching reading, on and off, at his pace, as we've purposefully delayed formal learning until now.

 

We have a few basic readers which he'll read to me but we've actually stopped using OPGTR for now as I think he really doesn't like it. It's just too dry for him. He LOVES books when I read a loud and we have many Charlotte Mason book recommendations.

 

I have been looking at LOE as I thought the cute colours and movement games would appeal to him (he's fidgety!) but it's expensive and not available where I live without huge import taxes.

 

I do believe in the phonics method and I love the idea of teaching the phonograms but I also feel it could be overkill, complicating things more. I wasn't taught the 75 (?) phonograms and I'm doing okay (I think!).

 

I have misplaced my Ruth beechicks 3 R's book, but I'm inclined to think that learning how to read should be pretty easy if the child is ready. Thoughts?

 

I'm so confused about which method to use - intensive phonics, phonics, sight word and phonics!

 

I already have a Treadwell Primer but I've been reading about the Mc Guffeys and the stories sound great, I love the idea of teaching about morals whilst learning to read.

 

So, can anyone enlighten or guide me as to how to choose which method and what particular program to use.

 

I have other younger children so I really want something open and go but something that won't bore him to tears. It needs to have fluency practice as he struggles with this. He actually seems to retain much more when it comes to sight words rather than words he has to sound out. With the majority of words he reads he's still sounding each letter out and then blending the whole word in his head, I hear him whisper each letter to himself before 'reading' the word a loud.

 

Thoughts, suggestions? Sorry to keep bugging you all.

 

Blessings xxx

[Hunter]

Can you borrow the Ruth Beechick book from the library?

 

If you want to do phonograms lite, you can use Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics and Don Potter's phonogram supplements. Both are free downloads.

 

http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/

 

http://www.donpotter.net/reading_clinic.html

 

The revised Alpha-Phonics used at the links above is different that the original italic version that is the one more frequently sold to homeschoolers. Just before Sam died, he made sure a cheaper version of the revised was made available. This is the one I use.

 

Phonics for Success

https://www.amazon.com/Phonics-Success-Samuel-L-Blumenfeld/dp/1495144216

 

For the phonograms, when I do them, and I don't always, I just copy the notes from this chart onto scraps of paper or index cards, instead of printing the flashcards.

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/alpha-phonics_phonograms.pdf

[Hunter]

Hoenshel's Language lessons pages 11-26 is very similar to the Beechick method.

https://books.google.com/books?id=u1cXAAAAIAAJ&dq=hoenshel&source=gbs_navlinks_s

 

The composition suggestions are further expanded in his Progressive Course in English

https://books.google.com/books?id=Zn8SAAAAIAAJ&dq=hoenshel&source=gbs_book_similarbooks

 

Edited August 15, 2016 by Hunter

[Momma4]

Hunter - thank you so much for the links. I just had a look at the alpha - phonics and the amount of practice given for each word family is great. Just what I think my son needs. I think ill probably use letter tiles on the board so he doesn't get put off having to read too many words.

 

When (if), would you recommend bringing in some readers for practice - like the Mc Guffeys? I really want to try and use those or the Treadwell (I have the primer).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

The alpha phonics reminds me of OPGTR but with a lot more built in practice. That makes me happy as I know so many people who have used and love OPGTR - for us there's just not enough practice.

 

Would you say reading fluency is something that happens with practice or a developmental leap that just happens naturally? I don't want to push him if he's not ready.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

I think both practice and development are equally important. I had a late reader, who went on to do a lot of other things early as a teen. Some boys don't read until 7 or 8, and have no LDs at all. Once he started reading, he progressed faster than normal.

 

Treadwell is sight reading and literature. It can work quite well in COMBINATION with a solid phonics curriculum like Blumenfeld. The later readers are not available in hardcopy.

 

McGuffey is a more solid phonics and vocabulary program. All the books are available in hardcopy. And Audible.com has audio versions.

 

I used to only use through book 5 when the vocabulary lists end, but I now use book 6. I ramped things up to squeeze in book 6 before scheduling in a lot of political books in the last 2 years. The selections were chosen to prepare students for just those kind of books. I don't miss the vocabulary, as there isn't time to teach it explicitly and get all the reading in. dollarhomeschool does sell a word list that included vocabulary lists for the 6th readers.

 

Most of what is in Treadwell, I include in the full length books.

 

I chose to go with McGuffey for the above reasons, but Treadwell is an awesome series.

[forty-two]

The alpha phonics reminds me of OPGTR but with a lot more built in practice. That makes me happy as I know so many people who have used and love OPGTR - for us there's just not enough practice.

Would you say reading fluency is something that happens with practice or a developmental leap that just happens naturally? I don't want to push him if he's not ready.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Both of my girls have needed a lot of practice, too. I've used Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach, which has a *ton* of practice - very comprehensive word lists plus extensive sentences/paragraphs/stories for practice. The fun factor's not high, though - for my oldest I put the first 12 or so lessons on the kindle with pictures on each page, and for my middle I made magnetic tiles (Dekodiphukan sound picture tiles and AAS-style phonogram tiles) and we built the words before reading them in the text. (If you have an iPad, Dekodiphukan (Decode-if-you-can) is free and awesome, with a high fun factor (if you don't have an iPad, the print version is free for downloading). It teaches reading by teaching the 44 sounds of the English language as sound pictures (/s/ as a hissing snake and /z/ as a buzzing bee, for example), which are learned painlessly through a fun rhyming story. After learning to read and write with the sound pictures, they use a phonogram chart to teach which spelling goes with each sound. My kids have auditory processing issues and those sound pictures have been *wonderful*.)

 

Wrt development leap vs practice for fluency, so far I have one of each. Something clicked for my oldest after about a year and she went from sounding out cvc words and consonant blends to reading everything in a couple of months. Otoh, my middle has been going the slow and steady route, and needs quite a bit more fluency practice. (From the beginning, my oldest preferred sentences and paragraphs to single words (more context to help her weak decoding), while my middle preferred single words to sentences (less for her weak decoding skills to have to deal with).) I just bought several old linguistic reader series to use with middle dd for fluency practice (Merrill Linguistic Readers, SRA Basic Reading Series, and Linguistic Readers (the latter starts out much harder than the first two). She likes reading "real books" more than reading out of our big reading book. (Eta: my oldest has needed quite a bit of fluency practice wrt decoding multi-syllable words and breaking words into sounds for spelling (her spelling was truly horrific) - at least as much as her sister - it just feels different when your fluency practice comes *after* you are fluently reading, kwim?)

 

When (if), would you recommend bringing in some readers for practice - like the Mc Guffeys? I really want to try and use those or the Treadwell (I have the primer).

With my middle, I brought in readers when she was far enough along in her main book that I could teach sight words phonetically using ElizabethB's chart on the Phonics Page (when she was solid on sounding out even complicated one-syllable words (cccvccc blends), and so could sound out any combination of sounds, and was comfortable with the idea of two-letter phonograms). Our main program does barely any sight words ('a' and 'the' are the only ones in the first 1700 words), and delays learning cvce words longer than many programs, and while I really like the pure phonics-only approach, that did make finding readers she could read a trick and a half - I was having fits with trying to find phonetic readers that more-or-less lined up with our main book. Last April I started phonetically teaching her the sight words on the Dolch list so she could read the "standard" beginning readers at the library (as well as more of what she comes across in her daily life), but that's slower going than learning each pattern slowly and logically (with lots of practice) as she does in her main book. And honestly it wasn't doing her all that much good - the popular reader series are just too far off anything we are doing - the ones she could decode had too few words per page to help with her fluency (although they did help with her confidence).

 

But I did come across other linguistic reader series this summer and ordered a whole bunch used, and so far they have been just what we needed. Starts off with plenty of words on the page, but very simple phonetically, and follows the same basic progression as our main book. One thing I like about the linguistic approach is that it provides a *lot* of cvc and CCVC/cvcc practice (more than I've seen from any other method) - really builds that foundation rock solid - and my kids have really needed that. I have noticed that the readers I bought do introduce more sight words than my main book - comparable to what the bob books do. And after realizing my dd had a 1500 word reading vocabulary yet couldn't read the most basic of non-phonetic readers (demoralizing for us both), I understand why the vast majority of phonics programs do teach some sight words. I'm still pretty anti-sight words, but avoiding them does have a price. I do like the logic of the vertical phonics approach, but neither of my girls could have learned that way. They have very much needed the teach-by-patterns approach of traditional phonics, and with plenty of practice with each pattern before introducing a new one.

Edited August 16, 2016 by forty-two

[forty-two]

IDK if any of the above blather was actually helpful :shifty.  To summarize, my thoughts on when to start readers that aren't correlated to your "teaching reading" program are to start when your kid is far enough along that they have the skills to be able to sound out (with help) an unfamiliar word, instead of having to learn it by sight.  Also, that your kiddo is far enough along that they've learned at least 90-95% of the words they'll see in the early lessons.  And that you are far enough ahead in your main program that you won't quickly get into a bunch of unfamiliar words in the readers (or the readers are well-enough correlated with your main program that they do things in basically the same order).

 

Or when your kiddo really, really wants the boost of being able to read "real books" (like mine did), and then you bootstrap your way into somehow satisfying the above criteria to make the readers work even when they aren't on speaking terms with your main program.  (My dh has heard *so many rants* from me about so-called "phonetic readers" that *aren't*.)

 

ETA: Also, here's the link to Dekodiphukan: http://www.center.edu/dekodiphukanPage.shtml

Edited August 16, 2016 by forty-two

[Kat w]

I use the elson reader in RLTL .

I also use the Treadwell readers love,

I for my one guy also use McGuffey's. I am getting another set to include the first 2 that I am missing.

When I get those. I'll be using McGuffey's with both boys.

 

I like the RLTL. We have lc here so we have more than one program plus it mixes it up a bit.

We also use AAR. they have one very fun cute activities.

 

We fpld in phonics pathways.

All these are O-G.

 

I really love the combo of the Treadwell , elson and McGuffey's readers.

My boys enjoy them have nce, they read them :)

 

I didn't catch the other thread , but if you haven't already maybe go to AAR website and check it out.

Their use if letter tiles is awesome. And great fir hands on learning.

 

We do oral lessons, then touching through letter tiles, then take it to paper to write them. ( actually whiteboard)

I'm going to follow this thread . I'm always lookin for good ideas with phonics too :)

[desertflower]

I have not read all the replies, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat. 

 

When my son reached that stage he was ready to just to read.  I ended up learning phonics myself (from Phonics Pathways) and just having him read aloud to me.  When he came upon a word he didn't know, I would tell him the new rule.  I also used All About Spelling, so that helps reinforce the rules.  Last year he read something at his level for 5 mins and something a little above his level for 5 mins.  Of course, I tried to read to him every night for 30 mins - 1 hour.  Many people have their children listen to audio books every day as well.  This is all I'm doing for him.  Most likely not going to complete the book.  Every now and then I'll pull out the phonics pathways book and look through it to see if there was a rule that he doesn't know.  Put it on a dry erase board for both my ds and dd.  It doesn't hurt to put something on the board that is review for him as well.  I use a blue or purple marker as well to make things lively.  :) 

 

If you want to make it more fun.  What I used to make him do is read a word then run around the couch.  Or read a word and do 10 jumping jacks/hops.  You get the picture.  ;) 

 

My daughter loves Progressive Phonics which you can print out for free.  The readers and illustrations are very colorful. 

 

Hth. 

[Momma4]

Some great ideas and links everyone, thank you very much.

 

In my head I want a scripted programme all layed out for me with some games, but one thing I'm realising after thinking about all that my son does know, is that he's learnt everything so far from the informal reading and other activities that we do which are fun, off the cuff, spontaneous.....this is the way of learning that in my head I prefer and would like as an ideal, but it scares me too! I feel like I want a guided programme as I trust everything will get done rather than my hodgepodge of learning every now and then (but that also seems to be working)! I'm a muddle I know!

 

I like the alpha phonics as its well layed out, plenty of practice (unlike OPGTR - but I still love), but not so scripted that I would need the book in front of us. I'm thinking I could use the white board, coloured pens, letter tiles, some movement games as suggested above and combine it with the Mc Guffey sets or anything else I like and then when he gets to a word he doesn't know I could just explain the rule [emoji1]. Phew - feeling a bit more relaxed now!

 

When using he Mc Guffey readers - is it a good idea to pre-read the story to him? Anyone know?

 

Xxxx

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

I am pretty loosey-goosey with the McGuffey if I'm using Alpha-Phonics for the core. When it has been all I was using, I stressed over things a bit more. Either way *I* have done a LOT of copywork. From both AP and from McGuffey and also the NIrV bible. The NIrV Bible is a goldmine of short sentences using only rigidly standard punctuation.

 

I did cursive-first for awhile and that was part of the reason for so much copywork. Now, my default is Spalding manuscript first until I see certain development markers especially and a certain level of spelling mastered. Then I use the Spalding instructions for joining manuscript that are entirely different than the methods of joining slanted strokes. I never teach cursive uppercase and retain the manuscript uppercase letters. It took me YEARS before settling on this, and went back and forth for awhile, because there really are pros and cons for different methods, but I had to pick ONE and I did. If a student wants to learn something different they need to find another tutor. Harsh, I know, but necessary for me not to lose my mind.

 

Once Blumenfeld became free, I was able to fully embrace it and use it for everyone, all the time. At that point McGuffey took a back seat and became a supplement and more about the vocabulary than the phonics/spelling and handwriting practice source. I hit the Phonics and handwriting hard with Blumenfeld and mop up with McGuffey if I'm lucky enough to have it.

 

When life really smacked me around not too long ago and forced me down to half a laundry basket of books, this is what I took for phonics and reading.

 

Phonics for Success (the smaller alpha-Phonics)

First Readers Anthology (keyed to Alpha-Phonics)

McGuffey's SPELLER, but not the readers

photocopy of Spalding's WRTR handwriting instructions

Ruth Beechick's The Three R's

Marvin Terban's Checking Your Grammar

Merriam Webster Concise Large Print Dictionary

NIrV Bible (excellent copywork for short sentences)

Autobiography of Ben Franklin (writing, virtues, scheduling)

 

I wish I had kept

Harvey's Elementary Grammar

Dover Publishing Strunk's Original 1918 Elements of Style

Don Potter Phonograms keyed to Alpha-Phonics

 

I'm okay with not having the McGuffey Readers for NOW as I'm not tutoring anyone right now and do have them as eBooks from dollarhomeschool. I expect I will probably repurchase them again at some point. Amazon runs some percent off sales around Christmas time that are good time to grab a set.

 

These might not be the best, but my chance at failing with any student using the above resources is almost nil.

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Hunter

[Hunter]

This is a copy of a student paper. It is an early lesson from Alpha-Phonics when I was teaching cursive-first. I still teach that type of cursive, but only after I see general developmental markers and the student is reading/spelling by syllables, not individual sounds.

 

[Zoo Keeper]

Kmama,

 

have you seen these reading and spelling resources made by a board member here?  She utilizes the Treadwell readers and CM philosophy.  Very well done.

[Kat w]

Some great ideas and links everyone, thank you very much.

 

In my head I want a scripted programme all layed out for me with some games, but one thing I'm realising after thinking about all that my son does know, is that he's learnt everything so far from the informal reading and other activities that we do which are fun, off the cuff, spontaneous.....this is the way of learning that in my head I prefer and would like as an ideal, but it scares me too! I feel like I want a guided programme as I trust everything will get done rather than my hodgepodge of learning every now and then (but that also seems to be working)! I'm a muddle I know!

 

I like the alpha phonics as its well layed out, plenty of practice (unlike OPGTR - but I still love), but not so scripted that I would need the book in front of us. I'm thinking I could use the white board, coloured pens, letter tiles, some movement games as suggested above and combine it with the Mc Guffey sets or anything else I like and then when he gets to a word he doesn't know I could just explain the rule [emoji1]. Phew - feeling a bit more relaxed now!

 

When using he Mc Guffey readers - is it a good idea to pre-read the story to him? Anyone know?

 

Xxxx

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good idea, McGuffey's , letter tiles, whiteboard and colored pencils. Oh man they love those colored pencils when they are ready to take it to paper from the whiteboard.

 

I love the McGuffey, if you feel like he needs you reading first, hsndo it. I do shared reading . I read a page, he reads a page and so in. Takes the pressure off and helps him build stamina and fluency. He can immitate my voice inflection , reading rhythm.

When you change/move up books maybe it would be helpful to him for you to read the first story or 3 (lol) first then let him do it. I notice we have a little anxiety about changing books. Again, takes the pressure off.

 

That's helped us alot.

 

I think that sounds like a really good plan :)

Think you got your plan mama :)

[Kat w]

....something fun that my guys love is...I have winner Wednesday lol.

 

I have the words were working on or trouble words ir site words that *they* writ on colored index cards. I buy fly swatyers. I call out the word...they smack it with the fly swatter lol. O you have one child..you could play it with him.

Ot ggives them more exposure to the words and builds speed in their minds...which helps with fluency.

 

My boys LOVE winner Wednesday .

Then the winner gets a treat :)

I give the other one opportunity to winna treat too :)

[lulalu]

LOE has digital pdf to buy. In case you really have your mind set on that.....

[Momma4]

Wow - you guys really know what your doing! I really wish I could be a 'one curriculum woman' and be satisfied - but i'm just not. I find things I love about programmes but the bits I don't like annoy me so much I either want to reconsider or complicate my life with DIY curriculum making!

 

I do like the idea of RLTL - I always seem to come back to it but I'm just not convinced I need to teach all the phonograms from the get go. I think it's just that, that is holding me back.

 

I'll have a look at the links you've all provided. Thank you.

 

Hunter - what developmental markers are you referring to before starting cursive?

 

Would you not recommend any writing before they're reading/spelling by syllables or are you just referring to starting cursive?

 

My son has pretty much taught himself the upper and lower case letters in print form and he can copy things I write. I'm not going to bother teaching him proper manuscript, I'm going to straight to cursive, I love the Spencerian style but I'll probably go for something like the Palmer Method. I actually have 'Teaching Cursive: This Method Works' book. It looks pretty good.

 

Great game Kat W! I have actually have 3 kids so they can all join in [emoji1]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

Oh Lolo! Why did you tell me that [emoji85][emoji85][emoji85]!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

Nope, I'm going to stick with my plan above. I've decided it's the 74 phonogram thing which is holding me back from RLTL and LOE.

 

I just feel my son may get confused, I love the idea of it and I can see why it works but *I* think it would complicate things for me as well as my son.

 

I'm going to keep it simple! Or at least try to!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[forty-two]

Nope, I'm going to stick with my plan above. I've decided it's the 74 phonogram thing which is holding me back from RLTL and LOE.

 

I just feel my son may get confused, I love the idea of it and I can see why it works but *I* think it would complicate things for me as well as my son.

 

I'm going to keep it simple! Or at least try to!

 

Just to complicate things (lol), I do teach phonograms, just not all at once.  I teach the phonograms as they come up in our (traditional, arranged-by-pattern) phonics program (so just one sound at a time - really cement the first sound before adding in the other sounds).  I have a phonogram chart for reference - a filled-in one on one side and a blank one on the reverse - each of the girls has a copy, too - and as we learn new sounds, we fill in the blanks.  It's especially helpful when you are doing lots of informal, hodge-podge learning, because it both lets you know what you have and haven't covered, plus it helps organize all the bits of info into a cohesive whole.  (It's been especially helpful with our whirlwind phonetic tour through the Dolch sight words - it helps dd7.5 see how all those new patterns fit into the overall picture - especially how many of them are really very outlier spellings.)  I keep the charts handy when we are doing reading or spelling, and the girls are free to use them as references whenever they need to. 

 

(I'm actually teaching the words in our main, traditional pattern-arranged phonics program in a WRTR-style way - I wrote them up in sound pictures and coded them to indicate which spelling to use, and the girls use their charts to look up the spelling.  After they've spelled 50 or so words with that particular phonogram, it's well on its way to being memorized.  And having to sound out the words in sound pictures forces my sight-reading oldest to work on her blending.  It's spelling-your-way-to-reading for my middle and reading-your-way-to-spelling for my oldest ;).)

[Momma4]

That sounds like a great compromise - to teach the phonograms as they come up. It feels much more natural and less of a chore.

 

Which phonics programme are you using forty-2?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[forty-two]

That sounds like a great compromise - to teach the phonograms as they come up. It feels much more natural and less of a chore.

 

Which phonics programme are you using forty-2?

 

I'm using Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach: https://smile.amazon.com/Lets-Read-Linguistic-Clarence-Barnhart/dp/0814334555/ (I have the 1961 edition, not the 2010 edition - idk if it makes any difference).  It has an introductory chapter with the history of writing systems (very interesting), and then a discussion of how to use the book.  The book's approach is an interesting combination of whole word and phonics (teach words as wholes, but in a progression that develops intuitive phonetic knowledge), but I go with the sound-out-and-blend traditional phonics approach instead.  ETA:  But I've found that the hallmarks of their approach - one pattern at a time with lots of practice, including practicing distinguishing between "minimal pairs" (man/min, man/mat) - works really well with kids who find blending a struggle (like mine) or who tend to guess or ignore small differences (also like mine).

 

The bulk of the book is a carefully-thought-out progression of reading material (learning the most common sound of each phonogram first, with plenty of practice before introducing alternate sounds) - it's very much learn to read by reading - starting with the -an family and working through all the short-a CVC words, family by family, and then doing the same with the other short vowels.  Each lesson has a list of new words to learn, all which follow a particular phonetic pattern, and then fully decodable reading practice (sentences, then paragraphs, and later stories) which use the new words plus previously learned words.  The first 36 lessons are on CVC words (teaching about 270 or so words); the next section does blends (~18 lessons and 450 words) and common consonant digraphs (~17 lessons and 450 words); the next section does common vowel digraphs (~30 lessons and 550 words).  That's the first 40% or so of the book; after that begins alternate and irregular spellings.  For the "regular" spellings, they include a *lot* of words, common and uncommon, so kids get a lot of practice with the common spelling (I've looked up several that *I* didn't know).  But for alternate and irregular spellings, they only include common-ish words worth learning.

 

It doesn't explicitly teach any rules, but implicitly teaches them (purposefully) through its carefully arranged patterns, which makes it very easy to include them if you want.  (I only just started to appreciate the rules as such - learning via pattern instead of explicitly applying rules was very much up my alley - and I've noticed that my kids are helped very much by first learning individual patterns with lots of practice before moving to mixed practice.)

Edited August 16, 2016 by forty-two

[forty-two]

Let's Read was written by a linguist, and it shows - he paid attention to all the little details, far more than any other program I've seen (with the possible exception of Webster's Speller).  So many phonics programs introduce plural 's' without bothering to distinguish between when the 's' sounds like /s/ and when it sounds like /z/ - it doesn't tend to trip up neurotypical native speakers, but it can mess up kids who struggle (or non-native speakers) - but our program clearly teaches them separately, which I appreciate so much.  There's many other examples, too, where too many phonics programs just gloss over or flat out ignore phonetic differences, but our program notices and keeps them distinct.  And also, I've noticed that they gradually introduce grammar patterns in the practice reading - they are carefully building up sentence complexity and teaching grammar cues just as much as they are teaching phonics.  The authors just have put so much expertise and knowledge and attention to detail into this program - it's spoiled me for most anything else ;).  (My poor dh suffers from my frequent rants about crappy, lazy, substandard so-called "phonics" readers :lol:.)

Edited August 16, 2016 by forty-two

[Momma4]

Thanks for that Forty Two.

 

How do you all feel about 'Teach a child to read with children's books'? Any experience with it?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vaquitita]

Just to complicate things (lol), I do teach phonograms, just not all at once. I teach the phonograms as they come up in our (traditional, arranged-by-pattern) phonics program (so just one sound at a time - really cement the first sound before adding in the other sounds). I have a phonogram chart for reference - a filled-in one on one side and a blank one on the reverse - each of the girls has a copy, too - and as we learn new sounds, we fill in the blanks. It's especially helpful when you are doing lots of informal, hodge-podge learning, because it both lets you know what you have and haven't covered, plus it helps organize all the bits of info into a cohesive whole. (It's been especially helpful with our whirlwind phonetic tour through the Dolch sight words - it helps dd7.5 see how all those new patterns fit into the overall picture - especially how many of them are really very outlier spellings.) I keep the charts handy when we are doing reading or spelling, and the girls are free to use them as references whenever they need to.

 

(I'm actually teaching the words in our main, traditional pattern-arranged phonics program in a WRTR-style way - I wrote them up in sound pictures and coded them to indicate which spelling to use, and the girls use their charts to look up the spelling. After they've spelled 50 or so words with that particular phonogram, it's well on its way to being memorized. And having to sound out the words in sound pictures forces my sight-reading oldest to work on her blending. It's spelling-your-way-to-reading for my middle and reading-your-way-to-spelling for my oldest ;).)

What a great idea. I like RLTL but find my self hesitating over the teach all the sound right up front. Teaching the sounds as they come up instead would be a great compromise. I love the fill in phonogram sounds chart too

[forty-two]

Thanks for that Forty Two.

 

How do you all feel about 'Teach a child to read with children's books'? Any experience with it?

 

I read it several years ago (there's a free pdf on eric.gov), and I found it interesting - thought about modifying it for a pure phonics-only approach.  I was hesitant about the grammar and picture clues when I read it (and reducing decoding to using phonics "clues" alongside other non-phonetic clues), and subsequent experience teaching my girls has only confirmed it.  My oldest was the whole language poster child - naturally used grammar and picture clues to bolster her weak decoding skills - and ended up being a sight reader *despite* my teaching her a very pure phonics-only approach (I am covertly remediating that in her spelling).  She heavily resisted sounding out and hated words in isolation (no context clues to aid decoding), and I cannot imagine how much worse it would have been if she'd been officially *encouraged* to use grammar/picture clues *instead* of decoding. 

 

(I say this now, but I admit, when I was teaching her and watching her struggle so much with phonics - we were a full year on CVC words - *knowing* the whole time that she'd *fly* if I did whole language - I regularly doubted myself and wondered if I should really stay so strict with phonics-only.  But looking back, I'm *so* thankful I stuck to phonics-only.  She subverted enough of my phonics teaching as it was, picked up enough bad sight habits as it was - I only wish I knew then what I know now.  But I'm running her through the exact same exercises as middle dd - billed as spelling/cursive practice instead of as reading practice - and it's helping her out a ton.  (Her spelling has been upgraded to garden-variety bad instead of the off-the-charts horrifyingness it used to be, and I live in hope it may one day be genuinely *good*.))

 

~*~

 

I think there's a lot to be said for grammar and picture clues when it comes to *comprehension* - just not in place of *decoding*, kwim?  And intuiting grammar clues on the fly is very helpful for fluency - so long as your decoding is strong and can quickly raise a red flag when your grammar expectation turns out to be *wrong*.  My oldest had zero comprehension issues - used comprehension to bolster her weak decoding skills (and to subvert my attempts to have her exercise her weak decoding skills), so I never worried about teaching them to her.  With my middle, who has been far less ready to turn to picture clues and slower at using grammar clues (though I've noticed her using grammar expectations recently, anticipating what the text will say based on context clues, including sentence structure), I've wondered when/if I should explicitly bring them up.  So far all I've done is explicitly discuss what a pronoun is referring to - teach her that a pronoun can reference something in a previous sentence - and practice identifying them.  (One of the reasons I love Let's Read - they work in that sort of grammatical structure pretty early and provide a lot of practice.)  But I do that in the context of comprehension, not decoding.  Reading is absolutely more than decoding - but that doesn't mean it's ok to sideline decoding so long as you can comprehend something without it, kwim?

 

~*~

 

So I've used bits and bobs of the book in my teaching, but I didn't use the actual method.  Part of that is my aforementioned disagreements wrt using non-phonetic clues to supplement *decoding* - instead of to help with *comprehension*.  But part of it was that, idk, the method sounded neat and all but required a lot more work to set up and record-keeping and all than I wanted to do.  (But I'm pretty sure the method I fell into uses at *least* as much record-keeping - it just somehow is more intuitive and all for me.)  And in retrospect it would have never worked for my kids anyway (not as a phonics-only approach, anyway), as they needed one pattern at a time with a lot of practice, and going straight to uncontrolled text would have been too much.

 

There's an interesting (free) approach to using Bob books to teach reading that seems a lot like a phonics-only version of Teach Your Child to Read with Children's Books: http://www.teachingwithbob.com/

[Momma4]

Forty Two - it was very helpful to read your experiences with 'Teach a child to read...'. I can see my son is a natural sight or memory reader as I call it, he's is able to memorise words immediately with no problems after being simply told 'it's a memory word', but if I were to say decide it, he can, no problem, but he needs to see it ALOT before he's able to commit it to memory and read it fluently. That's why I really want a programme that has lots of fluency practice.

 

So, although the 'Teach a child to read with real books' sounds great I won't be using it. We do naturally do some of the things it mentions so we'll carry on with those, but I think you're right that I need to concentrate on decoding first.

 

Hunters recommendation for Alpha Phonics is winning so far [emoji1].

 

Does anyone know if there's much difference between the free ebook version and the bought version?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

Typo - I meant 'decode it' not 'decide it'. Predictive text - meh!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

When I have taught phonograms, I've had more success teaching them gradually in context, than all at once, just like Vaq and 42.

 

I'll try and get back to you about cursive-first.

[Hunter]

I prefer Alpha-Phonics REVISED not the original Italic that is the version most commonly sold to homeschoolers.

 

Phonics for Success is the same as the revised version, but is smaller and a regular paperback instead of spiral bound.

[Momma4]

I notice that there's a 2016 edition of Alpha Phonics, it appears as though it's been book bound rather than spiral, is that the only difference? If the content is the same I'll just print it free online and spiral bind it myself. But if the content has in any way changed in the 2016 edition then I'll buy it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[forty-two]

Since I mentioned the phonetically-arranged sight word list a few times, here's the link: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html :)

 

Even though working through it didn't make library readers work for fluency practice, it has been helpful in other ways.  She can "use" her reading skills in daily life a lot more.   A biggie is that she can now read instructions in her math workbook without help, which makes her far more independent in math.  (Before she was independent on the math, but needed me right there to read her the problems.)  She enjoys being able to read beginning readers, and just in general I find she's better able to tackle the random stuff that comes her way.  I wouldn't *start* here, but after a solid beginning, it opens up a lot to be able to read the standard "sight words".

[Momma4]

Thanks for that forty two. [emoji1] I'll have a look at the link.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

I notice that there's a 2016 edition of Alpha Phonics, it appears as though it's been book bound rather than spiral, is that the only difference? If the content is the same I'll just print it free online and spiral bind it myself. But if the content has in any way changed in the 2016 edition then I'll buy it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Can you link me to the book? I'm unaware of a 2016 copyright Alpha-Phonics.

[Hunter]

OOH, those sneaky devils!

https://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Phonics-Beginning-Samuel-L-Blumenfeld/dp/0941995003

 

That is NOT the revised! That is the original. That publisher is a very aggressive publisher and has been flooding the homeschool market with an inferior version through sheer persistence.

 

The original is italic. You do not want an italic version.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Hunter

[Hunter]

This is the book I use. The one Sam worked so hard to get on the market as he was dying.

https://www.amazon.com/Phonics-Success-Samuel-L-Blumenfeld/dp/1495144216

I ordered my copy from the seller RemnantMan. He ships immediately.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Hunter

[Momma4]

Hunter - this is the link for the 2016 edition: http://www.howtotutor.com/phonics.htm

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

What about this version Hunter - Amazon highlighted this as the newer version to the one you posted - it says publication date 2015 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0941995321/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile. But it says 41st edition and the one you linked is 44st edition?! Is the publication date not really relevant, is that just referring to reprints rather than revised editions?

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

I basically want the newest edition, preferably spiral bound. If the free version online is upto date I'd prefer to just print for free and bind it myself, if it's an old version then I'll buy the spiral bound version from Amazon. X

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

This is the one you want from Chalcedon Press.

http://chalcedon.edu/store/item/alpha-phonics-a-primer-for-beginning-readers/

 

Notice how the sample is NOT in Italic!

 

Chalcedon Press just didn't bother to try and compete with Paradigm Company that holds the rights to the original edition.

 

Exodus books also sells the revised edition

http://www.exodusbooks.com/alpha-phonics-a-primer-for-beginning-readers/blumenfeld/54721/

 

Paradigm Company is purposely being misleading. I know losing customers must be a incredible financial blow to them, but they are trying to mislead people.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Hunter

[Momma4]

Thank you so much Hunter [emoji1]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Momma4]

Hunter, I'm so sorry to bug you again; I downloaded the free 1997 revised edition from online and the font is in Times New Roman. I also had a look at Don Potters comparison between the 1983 and 1997/2005 editions and it seems there are minor differences but nothing too substantial.

 

Is there much difference between the free 1997 version I have downloaded and the one available from Chalcedon Press? I only ask as I'm not in the US so having the free version would save me a lot of money in customs charges. My Amazon only has the versions I linked earlier. I'm

so grateful for your time.

Blessings X

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

The free one is exactly the same as the Chalcedon Press. The free one is absolutely perfect. If you are oversees, just have the free one printed.

[Momma4]

Yey! Fantastic! Thank you so much for all your help. I look forward to letting you know how we get on. [emoji1]. Peace and blessings xxxx

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hunter]

Good luck! Sam is smiling down at us.