Jayne J Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 Last year, when ds was 4 we learned letters and their sounds. He loved it and looked forward to it. I made it up as we went along using crafts and and games. This year we began OPGTR, starting with the 2 and 3 letter words. He hates it. It's like pulling teeth to get him to spend 5 or 10 minutes a day. He complains, doesn't concentrate, refuses to do the lesson. He loves writing words, copying them from books, and knows many words by sight He spends hours a day looking at books, and I know he is more than capable of doing the work. So, do I stick with it? Is this an issue of discipline, learning to stick with a lesson even if it is not fun? Or do I search for a different way to teach reading? Please give me your advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gwenny Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 I don't know if I can help you or not, but that is exactly like my daughter! I did Jolly Phonics with her at age 3 to learn the letters and the sounds, and had planned on teaching her 3 letters a week. She insisted on every day and then we went back and did all the letters over again for fun! Now at age 5, she moans when I pull out PP. She can easily read most lessons, but it is sometimes torture to get her to read more than a few words. What I have done is drawn pictures of things that interest her and then put 1 word or phrase in each section and then let her color that section after she reads the word. For example, I might draw a turtle, and put a word in each section of the shell, or just a page with lots of crude fish on it, stuff like that. Right now, I cut a bunch of colored paper strips and write the sentences and words on the strips. As she reads them, we make a chain and hang it in the living room for Halloween decoration. This has worked great and has also made her proud when she sees all the words she has read reaching around the room. Like your son, she writes little books all day long, but when it comes to anything "formal" or suggested by me, she balks. Gwen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabrett Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 Check out Happy Phonics. It teaches phonics through games and cards. The only draw back is it is not cut out and it is a lot to cut out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyAberlin Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 My ds was the same way and then I got Alphabet Island and he is doing so well. Not that he doesn't ever complain, but he likes it much better that anything we have done and his reading has taken off. He is 4.5 and even though he knew his letter sounds, I still started him off at the very beginning. It was a confidence booster and got him enjoying it again. We will be finishing up Level 1 next week and we will move on to level 2. I think we've only been using it for about 3 months. I highly recommend it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emeraldjoy Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 He is very young. He also is interested in words. If you can't find something that he really enjoys soon, may I suggest that you take a small (or long) break and just read, read, read to him books that he loves? And trust that he will follow suit. Emerald Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medieval Mom Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 We had a bout of this earlier in the year with Alpha-phonics. Then, one day, the lesson included NONSENSE words. Now, I thought that this was silly-- why teach non-words? But ds LOVED this! We'd read a word, and if it was a real word, we'd say, "True." If it was a nonsensical word, we'd shout "NONSENSE!!!" For many days afterwards, he was on the lookout for "nonsense" words, eagerly looking forward to his lesson. Even now, when the lessons are all real words and sentences, he's kept up his postive attitude about reading. Also, during storytime, I read one book, then he reads one to me. This seems intrinsically "fair" to him, and he deeply enjoys it. Perhaps you can try a Dr. Suess book and play the nonsense game? Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renthead Mommy Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 OPGTR just about killed me at first. It was a horrible experience! I saw a post and checked out http://www.progressivephonics.com . Back then you could get most of it for free. We tried it and he loved it. They are cute/funny little one page stories. But you read them with the kids, so the sentences aren't limited to 'the fat cat sat on a mat' type thing. "fat," "sat," "cat," and "mat" may be in the story, but it will include a lot of other things that they can't read yet. The kid words are in large bold red letters. The parent words are in regular type. My son used to just laugh at the crazy little stories. But they were things he never could have read completely on his own at that time. And they have great explanations of reading 'rules'. Check out the site. You can see samples of the books. You can either do them on the computer, or print them out and make them into books. Plus there are handwriting pages and memory game and flashcards. All 15 books are only $20. It's worked wonders for my son. We are half way through book 10 at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 Can he blend at all? Can he turn C-A-T into 'cat'? The reason I ask is that there's sometimes a delay between being able to say the sounds of individual letters and blending them into words. With Calvin, that switch over took a couple of years; with Hobbes there was no gap. If he really can't blend, then you might like to drop the subject for six months, then start again with a different course. Best wishes Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagira Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 (edited) My ds, also 5, loves words too. He enjoys our gentle introduction to phonics. He seems to be a visual learner, and it sounds like your son may be too. Perhaps that's why OPGTR is not working. I'm a visual-word learner myself, and when I saw the samples for OPGTR I was overwhelmed with the many words to say to a child of five. I know ds would start tuning out and find it boring. We're using a free program, Tanglewood's Really Reading (TRR), available by clicking here and clicking on the apple in the red rectangle where you'll see the name of the program. It doesn't hurt to try this first and see if it works. Ds, who knew all his letters and sounds before starting the program five weeks ago, is reading short words now and is actively decoding longer ones. He likes the fact that we do it together, and it's just long enough to hold his interest (one page). We do TRR one day, and Spectrum Phonics Gr 1 (a simple, inexpensive, one-page-per-lesson workbook I use for organization and review) the other. It's easy, so you can skip a grade. We ascribe to CM's short lessons, and we don't take more than fifteen minutes for phonics lessons. HTH! Edited October 14, 2008 by sagira Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonia Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 Can he blend at all? Can he turn C-A-T into 'cat'? The reason I ask is that there's sometimes a delay between being able to say the sounds of individual letters and blending them into words. With Calvin, that switch over took a couple of years; with Hobbes there was no gap. If he really can't blend, then you might like to drop the subject for six months, then start again with a different course. Best wishes Laura :iagree: Ditto what Laura said. If he can't blend the sounds you might just need to take a break from the book for a bit. Play a few games with sounds - sound out a word like cat very slowly one letter at a time and see if he can guess what the word is - things like that will help him understand what blending does. I have more ideas linked from my blog (see my signature for the link) If he is blending, here are a few ideas. We use OPG but when dd is not interested I try to mix things up a bit. I write the words on a white board and she can cross them out or erase them. I type them into a word document (in a large font) and let her read from the computer screen. More ideas for reading games are on my blog too. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayne J Posted October 14, 2008 Author Share Posted October 14, 2008 Thank you all for the great advice. I had a "lightbulb moment" and I think each of you added to my understanding of our problem. Ds is a very visual learner and the format of OPGTR is...well, dull and overwhelming I suppose. My gut feeling was to liven up the lessons, and nonsense words are a GREAT idea. Ds loves to point out my "mistakes." I also checked out the sites recommended and I am planning to try them to see if a different approach will liven up the lessons. But Laura in China's advice is where I'm going to start. He does seem to have trouble blending, but I can't tell if it is because he can't or he doesn't want to. Either way, I feel that pushing the issue is just going to cause problems we don't need. So it's back to fun lessons, reading lots of books together, and lots more footwork for mom, who had hoped that extensive cut and paste, hastily planned, daily printed reading lessons were behind her... sigh. Wil I ever be able to just use any resource straight ?:lol: Thank you all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennW in SoCal Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 If it is any consolation, my ds couldn't blend sounds at 5. He loved words, too, loved me reading aloud to him, loved making up stories and having me be his scribe. He knew his letters early, was at a Montessori school where they used letter shapes to create words and work on blending, but he just wasn't ready until he was older. There was never a sudden "click", but a slow ignition, and by the time he was 8 he was reading way above grade level. Don't worry about it for a while, as Laura suggests, and just enjoy this wonderful age. By the way, my younger son honed his reading skills at 5 or 6 with an endless supply of joke books -- knock knock jokes and puns. He LOVED them, loved memorizing and telling them. It got old really fast, but it was the magic trick that worked for reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 He is very young. He also is interested in words. If you can't find something that he really enjoys soon, may I suggest that you take a small (or long) break and just read, read, read to him books that he loves? :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver0f10 Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 I agree with taking a break too and just read to him. We tried OPGTR and it wasn't a good fit for my DD. She is enjoying Reading Made Easy now though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted October 14, 2008 Share Posted October 14, 2008 If he shows no signs of dyslexia, I wouldn't push learning to read at 5, but rather read alout a lot to him. My ds was not ready to read at 5 (although was at 5.5). He could easily read numbers & math things but wouldn't remember letters as well. In fact, he didn't even start liking to read until just now (he's 8) and for a couple of years insisted that he didn't know how to read, even though he was learning and many dc with that level of reading would have said they could read. I did do some checks to rule out dyslexia when he was five, thanks to some great wisdom and insight from a couple of posters on the old boards, so that I knew for sure he just wasn't ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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