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Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool Reviews?


Kjirstyn2023
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Had anyone tried the preschool/K curriculums for Easy Peasy? I've always been completely convinced by WTM's argument for teaching phonics and not sight words, so I'm not entirely sure what to make of this lady's ideas, which is basically learning the sounds of all the letters, then a bunch of sight words, then back to phonics. I think the thought is that when they can read a book, then they are more inspired to go back and do the work phonics takes.

To be fair, I can skip ahead on these lesson plans and do all the phonics before coming back to the sight words, but I was just curious what kind of feedback folks had on using this program. The simplicity and [free] price of it is definitely ideal.

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I haven't used their materials. 

I used progressive phonics (also free) to teach my kids. I liked that it taught phonics explicitly, though it does do a few sight words that don't fit phonics at all if I recall. The system had enjoyable books to read that included both words they could read phonetically and then words I/the adult filled in  that they couldn't yet read phonetically. It seemed like the best of all worlds to me at the time. I used I See Sam too, and all those books were phonetically readable for the child.

Prior to this, I used a program that wasn't quite as explicit and included a lot sight words. It created a very adept "reader" who couldn't sound out anything in my case. His mind just soaked up the word picture I guess. It's not what I wanted. My take away is that it is motivating for a child to be able to read a book. I think, for some, heavy use of sight words are a risk. 

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There is enough in the way to argue for phonics that I've discarded any program that didn't explicitly focus and rely on teaching the rules first and foremost.

I wouldn't use a program that goes against the science of teaching reading and relies on the gimmicks of public school reading.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I have remediated hundreds of children who have guessing habits and reading problems because of sight words.

I'm not a bit fan of easy peasy overall but for someone determined to use it, I recommend using a good phonics program instead.  

Here is the science of why and how to teach sight words:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/sightwords.html

And Emily Hanford's latest article about how we should teach reading:

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Blend Phonics is free to print and easy to use:

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/blend_phonics.html

Edited by ElizabethB
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2 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

I have remediated hundreds of children who have guessing habits and reading problems because of sight words.

I'm not a bit fan of easy peasy overall but for someone determined to use it, I recommend using a good phonics program instead.  

Here is the science of why and how to teach sight words:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/sightwords.html

And Emily Hanford's latest article about how we should teach reading:

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Blend Phonics is free to print and easy to use:

http://www.donpotter.net/education_pages/blend_phonics.html

Thanks! I think I've decided to forego this program. I've printed out the longer article and am looking forward to reading it.  🙂

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16 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

I have remediated hundreds of children who have guessing habits and reading problems because of sight words.

I'm not a bit fan of easy peasy overall but for someone determined to use it, I recommend using a good phonics program instead.  

I'm going to read the articles when I get a chance later but what kind of things do you suggest to remediate the guessing?  I tutor an ESL student.  We've gone through the phonics and I continue to discourage guessing but I'm wondering if you have any tips to get him to stop?

Thanks!

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2 hours ago, Where's Toto? said:

I'm going to read the articles when I get a chance later but what kind of things do you suggest to remediate the guessing?  I tutor an ESL student.  We've gone through the phonics and I continue to discourage guessing but I'm wondering if you have any tips to get him to stop?

Thanks!

The most important thing is daily nonsense words with either my game or the nonsense word documents linked on my syllables page.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

I wrote an entire article about how to stop guessing habits and build good reading habits!!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-good-reading-habits-liz-brown?trk=related_artice_Building Good Reading Habits_article-card_title

If their native language is more regular, for example Spanish, they can read outside books in it but stop all outside reading in English for a few weeks while you work to stop the guessing habit.  You need to get them to retrain their brain to automatically decode from left to right.  Also, if they are young and still being taught sight words as wholes, make sure they are learning them with phonics:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/sightwords.html

My syllables program with its nonsense words and word lists is also helpful for stopping the guessing habit, I skip the sentences in Webster until my students stop guessing and just teach with word lists and nonsense words, the context of sentences and the sight words they contain triggers the guessing habit.

If their parents or a sibling reads English well enough, for a few intense weeks of retraining I even like to have the parent read their homework for them, so all they are doing is the correct habit.

If no one in the family is capable of monitoring nonsense words for correctness, they can take home the nonsense word homework from my syllables program or my extra word nonsense word document, number some of the paragraphs on their copy and your copy, have them read one of the numbered passages to you over the phone daily, the daily nonsense word work cuts down on the guessing so much faster, it should just take a minute or two, if it takes longer, just have them read the number of lines they can do in 2 minutes.

This is a common problem, unfortunately.

A tutor I know has made "slay the guessing dragon" stickers and rewards her students at first for just a few guesses, then for no guesses.

Another has a guessing snowman game, like hangman, you get points or something if she didn't draw a whole snowman, she draws a part each time they guess.

Don Potter has a no guessing zone sign.  Another tutor says "no guessing in reading" in a joking manner, like "no crying in baseball," she says her students think it's funny.  

Both the sight word teaching as wholes and the cueing teaching cause guessing, Emily Hanford explains how the 3 cueing system causes guessing in her latest article. 

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Edited by ElizabethB
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2 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

The most important thing is daily nonsense words with either my game or the nonsense word documents linked on my syllables page.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

I wrote an entire article about how to stop guessing habits and build good reading habits!!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-good-reading-habits-liz-brown?trk=related_artice_Building Good Reading Habits_article-card_title

If their native language is more regular, for example Spanish, they can read outside books in it but stop all outside reading in English for a few weeks while you work to stop the guessing habit.  You need to get them to retrain their brain to automatically decode from left to right.  Also, if they are young and still being taught sight words as wholes, make sure they are learning them with phonics:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/sightwords.html

My syllables program with its nonsense words and word lists is also helpful for stopping the guessing habit, I skip the sentences in Webster until my students stop guessing and just teach with word lists and nonsense words, the context of sentences and the sight words they contain triggers the guessing habit.

If their parents or a sibling reads English well enough, for a few intense weeks of retraining I even like to have the parent read their homework for them, so all they are doing is the correct habit.

If no one in the family is capable of monitoring nonsense words for correctness, they can take home the nonsense word homework from my syllables program or my extra word nonsense word document, number some of the paragraphs on their copy and your copy, have them read one of the numbered passages to you over the phone daily, the daily nonsense word work cuts down on the guessing so much faster, it should just take a minute or two, if it takes longer, just have them read the number of lines they can do in 2 minutes.

This is a common problem, unfortunately.

A tutor I know has made "slay the guessing dragon" stickers and rewards her students at first for just a few guesses, then for no guesses.

Another has a guessing snowman game, like hangman, you get points or something if she didn't draw a whole snowman, she draws a part each time they guess.

Don Potter has a no guessing zone sign.  Another tutor says "no guessing in reading" in a joking manner, like "no crying in baseball," she says her students think it's funny.  

Both the sight word teaching as wholes and the cueing teaching cause guessing, Emily Hanford explains how the 3 cueing system causes guessing in her latest article. 

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

Thank you!   

He just moved here from India a year ago.  He speaks English very well but is still working on reading.  He's going into 4th grade in public school and they definitely are teaching guessing.  I'm doing all phonics with him but we once we moved on to longer passages he definitely guesses and anticipates what a word is going to be instead of what it actually is.  

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21 minutes ago, Where's Toto? said:

Thank you!   

He just moved here from India a year ago.  He speaks English very well but is still working on reading.  He's going into 4th grade in public school and they definitely are teaching guessing.  I'm doing all phonics with him but we once we moved on to longer passages he definitely guesses and anticipates what a word is going to be instead of what it actually is.  

For someone that age, if they understand why they are guessing and why it is important to sound out words instead, that can also help stop the habit, but a lot of it is unconscious, and has to be retrained habit wise to stop the unconscious portion of the guessing.  The sentences do lend themselves to guessing from context for someone who has been trained to guess and if the phonics is not fully automatic, so guessing may seem easier than sounding out the word.

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