If y'all can stand another question from me - phonics/reading

[StaceyinLA]

Sorry y'all - it's been a good while since I've taught this, and there are so many options out there. I'm hoping there's something for this.

I've mentioned I'll be teaching my middle dd's two oldest kids at least half the time (likely a little more than half though - probably 3 days/week, her teach 1, and then they'll have 1 for enrichment activities, history/science crafts and projects, etc.)

Dgd just turned 7 (would be in 1st grade here due to late December birthday), and I was thinking she needed a lot more in basic phonics than it appears she does. I had her read some leveled readers to me the other day (my sister is a reading recovery teacher and gave us a lot of books for her a while back), and she is reading a lot better than I realized. She is also super eager with her reading and writing.

Is there a program with some placement where I can gauge exactly where she is and what she needs to cover the phonics she doesn't know - one that doesn't cost a fortune? How would you go about this? Would you just expect with reading practice it will come in time? Would one of the spelling programs that includes a lot of phonics blends make more sense than trying to do a reading or phonics program at this stage?

I want to be sure I don't skip things she needs to know, but don't want to spend time covering material she already knows well.

Edited February 3, 2020 by StaceyinLA

[Zoo Keeper]

I like Elizabeth B's lessons at the ThePhonicsPage.org.   I used them with one of mine who was having trouble reading, to help me see what he didn't know.  You could probably use them to see what she does know, and then focus on the other bits.  🙂 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Zoo Keeper

[Ellie]

Spalding. Always Spalding. 🙂

[Terabith]

I'd be tempted to just keep her reading at a level appropriate to her skills and teach phonics through spelling: All About Spelling or Spalding or another rules based spelling program.  But, running her through Elizabeth's Phonics lessons probably wouldn't be overkill either.  

[ElizabethB]

4 hours ago, Terabith said:

I'd be tempted to just keep her reading at a level appropriate to her skills and teach phonics through spelling: All About Spelling or Spalding or another rules based spelling program.  But, running her through Elizabeth's Phonics lessons probably wouldn't be overkill either.  

It's even faster and more interactive to run her through my syllables lessons, but my phonics lessons will work, too.  If she has been doing a lot of reading with leveled readers, you may need to do some continued nonsense words.  If her MWIA score has a slowdown or she misses more than one word on the phonetic portion of the MWIA 3, I would do extra nonsense words after finishing the syllables program.  MWIA linked at end of my syllables page.

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

 

[Quercus]

On 2/3/2020 at 9:13 AM, StaceyinLA said:

Sorry y'all - it's been a good while since I've taught this, and there are so many options out there. I'm hoping there's something for this.

I've mentioned I'll be teaching my middle dd's two oldest kids at least half the time (likely a little more than half though - probably 3 days/week, her teach 1, and then they'll have 1 for enrichment activities, history/science crafts and projects, etc.)

Dgd just turned 7 (would be in 1st grade here due to late December birthday), and I was thinking she needed a lot more in basic phonics than it appears she does. I had her read some leveled readers to me the other day (my sister is a reading recovery teacher and gave us a lot of books for her a while back), and she is reading a lot better than I realized. She is also super eager with her reading and writing.

Is there a program with some placement where I can gauge exactly where she is and what she needs to cover the phonics she doesn't know - one that doesn't cost a fortune? How would you go about this? Would you just expect with reading practice it will come in time? Would one of the spelling programs that includes a lot of phonics blends make more sense than trying to do a reading or phonics program at this stage?

I want to be sure I don't skip things she needs to know, but don't want to spend time covering material she already knows well.

 

Can you just go through Ordinary Parent's Guide To Teaching Reading? 

[annegables]

Have you read Why Johnny Cant Read? The last part of the book are word lists to work through. I have been working through these with my kids and it has been very helpful in finding their gaps fast.

[StaceyinLA]

On 2/3/2020 at 6:37 PM, square_25 said:

So just to be clear, you thought she was further behind than she is? What would you say she needs to work on, gauging using the leveled readers? 

Well, sort of. I didn't really consider her behind. I just didn't realize how much she was able to read. She had still been doing a lot of simple, familiar stuff, so when she picked up the more difficult stuff and read it with no difficulty, I was surprised.

[StaceyinLA]

On 2/4/2020 at 10:38 PM, annegables said:

Have you read Why Johnny Cant Read? The last part of the book are word lists to work through. I have been working through these with my kids and it has been very helpful in finding their gaps fast.

 

Would that then give you an idea of where to pick up with some phonics or other instruction? I just want to be sure if she needs to cover certain things, we cover them.

That MWIA test looks pretty interesting. I think I'll do that for sure, just to see how she does.

Edited February 7, 2020 by StaceyinLA

[annegables]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:36 AM, StaceyinLA said:

 

Would that then give you an idea of where to pick up with some phonics or other instruction? I just want to be sure if she needs to cover certain things, we cover them.

That MWIA test looks pretty interesting. I think I'll do that for sure, just to see how she does.

I think so. The first 130pgs of the book are all about the history of reading education in the US and the problems with whole language. He goes into areas that get problematic when learning to read via only sight words. Pgs 142-222 are lists of words, intended to use to teach reading via phonics progression. So the first pages teach letters and their sounds, then he gradually moves on. I have used it with my youngest and it works well. Because the lists are fairly short, it is great for quickly identifying holes. For longer lists for more practice, the stuff on @ElizabethB webpage s really helpful, as is Don (?) Potter's site. They have the Webster's speller with his lists that I used for phoncs instruction.

[Classically Minded]

I would use the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, it is laid out very well and you can speed through lessons to find what she doesn't know.  Teach the phonics for each lesson and skip the sentences if you she doesn't need review in that particular lesson.  You will eventually find where she's at.  At the end of the book, she will be on a 4th grade reading level.  Here is a chart showing about where each grade begins:

• Around Lesson 60, you have taught all of the requirements of Kindergarten
• Start 1st grade lesson material around Lesson 61
• Start 2nd grade lesson material around Lesson 120
• End of the book ends with 4th grade level words

I know late middle school students who had trouble with reading and they went through OPGTR and it filled in areas they had missed that prevented them from advancing.  It is my go-to whenever friends ask me for help with their kids in reading.  I used it for my dd16 when she was 6/7 and now almost done with it for my ds7, I love it!

[ktgrok]

The book Classical Phonics is just lists by various phonograms, so that might be helpful. https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/phonics-and-early-reading/classical-phonics/

I'm going to be using it with my natural reader to make sure we don't skip anything. But I'm also having him do some worksheets from Teachers Pay Teachers on the digraphs, etc to make sure he has those down)

[MerryAtHope]

It sounds like you could just keep her reading and use something like All About Spelling for phonics and spelling combined (it's a complete phonics program). That would have you start at the beginning to fill in any gaps--here's a link to their placement.

[heres_a_llama]

On 2/17/2020 at 8:06 PM, MerryAtHope said:

It sounds like you could just keep her reading and use something like All About Spelling for phonics and spelling combined (it's a complete phonics program). That would have you start at the beginning to fill in any gaps--here's a link to their placement.

This is the approach I was thinking of reading through the thread. All About Spelling does a great way of reviewing the skills needed to decode while using the rules to teach encoding. Two birds, one stone and all that jazz. And it would be easy to find used copies to keep costs low.