100EZ alternatives & readiness tips

[hs03842]

We have one more child to teach to read, and I'd like to move away from using 100EZ.  Any suggestions for what to use?

 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by JoyKM

[Xahm]

I've used ProgressivePhonics.com as my main thing. I bought 100 EZ lessons at a used book sale and gave it away because I knew it would be far, far too painful for me to teach from. As for readiness, once he seems interested in learning, I'd play games with letters and simple words. Like, when playing I Spy, include things like "something that starts with /p/" or "the letter that makes the /m/ sound." When he shows that he knows the letters and sounds and has strong understanding, if he has interest, I'd point out words in life and play things like  "the secret word game," which is where I write a simple word and he uses clues (sounding it out) to guess the word. For some kids this is easy off the bat, but other kids may know their letters and sounds for years before they can do this easily. If he's not picking it up quickly, I'd set that game aside for several months unless it is requested. Try it every few months and see when it starts to click. Once they can sound out basic words and know that they just sounded out, everything is much easier, and that's when I'd start offering formal lessons. I don't require lessons until age 6, just offer occasionally and try to make time if requested.

[caffeineandbooks]

We like Explode The Code for basic phonics at my house (and the primers, Get Ready/Get Set/Go for the Code, if the child needs to learn letter names and sounds too).  My two oldest did the first three books, and by the middle of the fourth they were off and reading so we didn't use books 5-8.

I have a preschooler now who is desperate to read and to do "school" at the table "like the big kids", so we are going slowly through the primers, but I can tell she's not actually ready to read yet: she can hear beginning sounds in words (It's an F, /f/, /f/, FISH!) but can't yet segment a word or rhyme.  I'll say, "I'm thinking of a furry animal that purrs, and it rhymes with MAT" and she'll say "KITTEN!"  Since she is motivated and likes the books, I don't think it's wasted time to teach her the name, sound and shape of the letters, but at this stage the phonemic awareness activities we do are the most important part - playing with words by pulling them apart and changing the sounds, which helps her slowly begin to pay attention to smaller and smaller pieces of words until she can hear and manipulate beginning, middle and final sounds.  Those happen in the bath or at bedtime or in the car and she doesn't recognize them as "school", but incredible connections are sparking off in her brain and it's that, not yet another round of the inevitable phonics books, that keeps me excited to teach the early years.  ❤️ That, and finding the older ones who had their time of laboriously sounding out a-c-a-t-i-n-a-b-o-x in a monotone now snuggled up in bed reading novels or excitedly discussing with each other who they think the bad guy is or what might happen in the next book.

 

[Terabith]

For what it's worth, both of my kids knew all their letters/ sounds by 18 months, but my oldest wasn't ready to learn to read till 4.5, and my younger one wasn't ready until like 6.5.  

I wouldn't start until the child a) knew all lowercase letters/ sounds, b) could identify beginning and ending sounds in words (play "I Spy" with sounds..."I spy something that ends with an /n/ sound, c) can orally blend and segment, and d) is starting to be able to sound out CVC words.