Comparing Abeka Phonics and The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

[Elizabeth86]

My 3rd child is 4.5.  She is NOT ready for phonics yet, BUT I'm just thinking about what to do when the time comes.  I have used Abeka phonics with my older 2 children with a great amount of success.  It has been easy for me to implement and easy for them to learn.  I have zero complaints.  The thing is, my dd is different from my 2 boys.  She is much less school-y than they are.  They are quite content sitting still and doing book work and they were like this at her age too.  Abeka and school at home type things work great for them.  She is a whole different kid, my wild child.  I have enjoyed using FLL with my boys and it makes me understand why people go for less school at home curriculum.  It makes me curious about The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.    With OPGTR, do you supplement with any workbooks or anything?  Is there a list of readers?  I'm just not sure if I should stick with Abeka or try something new.  Any thoughts about either or both of these programs?  

[El...]

With OPGTTR, there's no booklist,  no writing for the kid, no worksheets.  You can teach reading completely free of teaching writing.  (I say can, not should  or must.) I made up some writing coloring sheets for my kid 1, because she liked that. My kid 2 did not. Both learned to read just fine. 

We spent about 15 minutes per daily reading lesson. We'd sit on the couch and read directly from the text together. It was very snuggly. 

After the 30th lesson or so, we'd have two bookmarks, one on review lesson and one on the new. The review tracked along behind. If I thought we needed it, I'd add a third bookmark.  For example,  we might read through lessons 1, 31, and 61; the next day, lessons 2, 32, and 62.  It helped my kids to start with something easy each day. 

At some point I brought out Bob Books. Later, we used simple early readers, mostly from the library. Both kids were reading pretty well before the lessons were finished, and reading aloud to me became part of each lesson. 

Does that help you picture it? There are lots of fun ways people enhance OPG, with a whiteboard, or magnetic letters, or by printing out the portion the child reads to make it even more visually streamlined if a child seemed overwhelmed.  But you don't HAVE to enhance it,  if it works in simplest form. 

I really like OPG. I hope my rambling relates to your question. 🙂

[mom2bee]

On 2/28/2020 at 1:23 PM, Elizabeth86 said:

My 3rd child is 4.5.  She is NOT ready for phonics yet, BUT I'm just thinking about what to do when the time comes.  I have used Abeka phonics with my older 2 children with a great amount of success.  It has been easy for me to implement and easy for them to learn.  I have zero complaints.  The thing is, my dd is different from my 2 boys.  She is much less school-y than they are.  They are quite content sitting still and doing book work and they were like this at her age too.  Abeka and school at home type things work great for them.  She is a whole different kid, my wild child.  I have enjoyed using FLL with my boys and it makes me understand why people go for less school at home curriculum.  It makes me curious about The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.    With OPGTR, do you supplement with any workbooks or anything?  Is there a list of readers?  I'm just not sure if I should stick with Abeka or try something new.  Any thoughts about either or both of these programs?  

Stick with Abeka is  my vote. Abeka has a fantastic scope and sequence for beginning reading and their phonics can be beefed up or pared down as needed without straying from that publisher. The Handbook for Reading is very comprehensive. You don't have to have workbooks and writing assignments. You can just do the HfR and use a wide-tip sharpie on construction paper to make cards for her to hop on, slide together/pull apart, etc. Let her write in sand, diluted soap, or whatever.

I wouldn't buy anything. I won't even put in a plug for my favorite and go-to beginning reading program.

[Terabith]

Logic of English Foundations has a lot of active games for wiggly learners and is super solid.  

[Elizabeth86]

On 2/29/2020 at 11:30 AM, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

OPG is at least not an expensive investment to try, but honestly you could just change up what you have with Abeka in a way that works for her.  Use their Handbook to and ditch the worksheets (that’s what I did). (Keep the readers and use them.) Use the flash cards if you want/need, but OPG isn’t going to give you anything different than you can get stripping down Abeka you already own. Let her practice the digraphs and blends in kinetic sand, or shaving cream or things like that......write on a white board. But the basics are the basics and I think Handbook to Reading can get you there just as well with what you already own. 

I have nothing against OPG (other than I found it intensely dull), but since you already have all of Abeka phonics iirc, unless you want to branch out to a new program to change things for you, I’d just adapt what you have and ditch the worksheets for more hands-on with it. You can definitely make it not school at home without the worksheets.  

Thanks.  It is my preference to always stick to tried and true, BUT I always have maybe the grass is greener thoughts.  I think I will stick to a stripped down Abeka phonics.  For my oldest and it seems my 2nd, we didn't need Abeka grade 2 phonics.  So, I'm just going to look at Abeka K & 1 Phonics as our phonics curriculum and not feel we need to be done my 1st grade.  I will feel fine if we take it into 2nd.