How did you teach your child to read?

[jboo]

The first was entirely eclectic, but for the second and third got Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. I did supplement with random stuff I had around the hours (the old British Key Words series, McGuffey's Primer & First Reader), but TYCTR100EL did the bulk of the work (though I never used its writing component).

Both children I used it with wrote "fan fiction" -- their own TYCTR100EL formatted lessons -- which I found hilarious. 

[LauraClark]

1) I taught them letter names and sounds. They usually had a good grasp of most of them by age 5.

2) start using OPG. This usually starts kindergarten year and we do about a half lesson or less at a time. We mix in various activities like making the words using magnet letters.

3) 1st grade: continue OPG about 15 min a day and increasing towards the end of the year. We were at about a lesson a day at the end of the year. Mix in early readers like bob books.

4) 2nd grade: finish OPG by mid year. Continue mixing in easy books and then move onto something more fun like Boxcar Children.

5) 3rd/4th: continue reading with them, start letting them do some of their assigned reading in 4th independently.

It looks so simple when it's written down-haha! Teaching reading is probably my last favorite thing-I almost always need a nap after our reading time of slowly sounding out every word.

[historically accurate]

Oldest: I read aloud. She gave up naps super early, so I read her an easy reader or two before nap time, and she took those books in to nap time and "read" it to herself. She figured out how to read by doing this pretty much. In fact, I think she learned to read well before I knew since I thought she had just memorized the books, but one day she got a book from the library sale that she'd never seen, sat down, and read it to me. She needed help with the word platypus, but other than that - perfect. 

Middle: I was worried about teaching since I hadn't taught my oldest really. I read aloud. We did a big poster in the kitchen with "Words DD Can Read" - things like Mama, Daddy, siblings' names, and words she cared about, while I researched how to teach her (she also had a very extreme speech delay, so teaching her letter sounds was going to be difficult since she was physically unable to make the sounds). She learned to read while I was researching.

Youngest: We used the poster idea, she "read" to the therapy dogs at the library, I read aloud, she did activities from Wow! I'm Reading. She did McRuffy Kindergarten, and All About Reading 1. She was pretty resistant to the idea of reading, so we didn't do anything fully - just as she was willing. She had Bob books, and I See Sam, and various super easy readers that she knew, but anything other than that, she wasn't ready. Nothing seemed to work. It didn't click until she was about 7 1/2, and suddenly she was ready. 

[Janeway]

We always watched Leap Frog videos and used Starfall. AND...we used Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Sometimes, when we drive around, we will look for things that start with a certain letter. Or I will point something out and they try to figure out what letter it ends with. You can do this when what letter is in the middle. For example, point out a car and have them slowly say the sounds c   ah rrrr. And then pick...what letter do you think this ends with? And once they master what letter does it begin with, and then end, go on to the middle-for simple words. 

But I did find the LeapFrog videos and OPGTR to be the end all be all of what one needs to learn to read. Games you make up or buy or do on the side are bonus and will reinforce what you are teaching.

[Janeway]

On 8/9/2021 at 5:42 PM, LinRTX said:

I used alphabet island by eagle's wings for all 4 of mine. It was gentle and playful.

I really like Eagle's Wing products.

[MeaganS]

Apps and deliberate TV and other educational toys for main letter sound teaching. Once they demonstrated the ability to blend, which was around young 4yo for all of mine, we did OPGTR for all of them. They did other educational apps and programs informally, like ABC Mouse, but OPGTR was their primary and had all my kids fluent before they turned 6yo. It was fairly painless and I highly recommend it. Not flashy, but did the trick. 

They've also listened to audiobooks every night of their lives as they went to sleep, pretty much that definitely helped with language too. 

[ByGrace3]

With my first we used Abeka phonics, next two used All About Reading. AAR is hands down our fave. I wouldn't want to teach reading any other way. The pre-level is perfect for younger kiddos that want to learn but still need some pre-reading skills. 

[Magnum Necis Academy]

Logic of English Foundations. I can't praise this program enough.

[goldenecho]

I don't know if this will be helpful to you at all but I'll just tell how it happened with my three.

So, with my first two I didn't even consider myself homeschooling when they learned to read.  

With all three of them I pointed out letters wherever we went, we read alphabet books, and played alphabet games like "what animal starts with the letter B."  My older two (born 18 months apart) also had lots of electronic toys that said the letter sound when you pushed on a letter (these were broken by the time my third was around).   They also played on Starfall.com.     And I would draw letters and make pictures out of them (like an  A had a head and wings added to it to become an Angel , and B became a bee).   There were workbooks with tracing letters we used too.  And I played a game where I would let them put magnet letters in any order and I would sound them out for them.   Pretty soon my oldest was attempting words.

And I read lots of books, from the time they were very little, and  when they got older tried to point to the words as I read.  

My oldest was reading at four.   We knew he could sound out short words but he didn't want to try to read, so we got him an easy reader book with his favorite character and told him we wouldn't read it to him but we would help him read it.   That was all the motivation he needed.   He read the words he could and we sat with him and helped him with the words he couldn't read.   His teachers said he was reading at a 1st grade level by the time he was in Kindergarten...but they took it from there.

My 2nd didn't read until right before Kindergarten started.   We didn't use the Hooked on Phonics program but we had a set of their books and something clicked for him one day and he read all the books in order in one sitting.   He's now and teen and reads all the time.   He went to school after that too.

It didn't go that way for my youngest.  The oldest were hard to get to sleep and so asked for more books as a way to stall bedtime.  My youngest loved to sleep, and didn't want to mess with a bedtime routine...when he was ready he just wanted to get in bed.  Later he just wanted a song, not a story.

I tried reading him books at other times but he didn't like to be read to much.   Finally, maybe around 3 years old, I could get him to sit for a short story, but he wanted to talk to all the characters and so the story didn't really match the text that much and I didn't point to the letters as much.  He just wasn't as interested in letter play as my other two had been, and my mom's health was ailing so I maybe wasn't as attentive.   By age five he didn't even know his alphabet, and when we tried to get him to play on starfall he resisted.  

He cried his way through Kindergarten and made little progress, and when they suggested holding him back we decided to homeschool him instead.

I researched curriculum and wanted to buy All About Reading, but my husband lost his job and said we couldn't afford it, and "Why don't you just keep working with Bob books like you did during the summer."  (UG...that was a mistakes.  Bob books are great little readers but they don't teach HOW to read and I could see that using them.  

  I had already bought All About Spelling and decided maybe we could use it in reverse to cover phonics, which I knew he needed (like I read the first few lessons in the store and it just hit me that that was what he needed).  About half a year in I discovered a free reading program and started using it along with the spelling...ProgressivePhonics.   I gradually stopped using the Bob Books.  We took a long detour when I discovered he liked reading Piggie and Elephant books (I was so excited that he WANTED to read something, but I wish I had stayed consistant with the phonics lessons).

A couple years in he was still really struggling to read and I knew more was up...what had come so naturally to my older kids was so painfully hard for him.  But we couldn't afford testing (later, we learned he had dyslexia, but I suspected long before).

I considered switching to AAR, cause it was OG (Orthan Gillingham...suggested for Dyslexia), but he was already used to the Progressive Phonics books because he seemed to be making progress with them and so I decided to stick with it, and continue with AAS too. But we did add something someone suggested here, to combat guessing, which he was still doing a lot even on words he should be able to read:   we added practice reading nonsense words.   This helped me see what phonics concepts he really knew, and also helped him to rely more on phonics skills and he stopped guessing.   His reading shot up, though he was still behind grade level.

We decided to try school again, and I had him assessed, and the tests pointed out something I hadn't suspected but made sense:  he had ADHD (they also found signs of dyslexia, but that wasn't confirmed later.)   He had some great teachers and worked with a program called Lexia which I think really helped.   We continued to work on AAS during the summer. 

He's 13 now. On tests with no time limit he tests at grade level now (well, when we put him back we put him back a year behind...so a year under grade level I guess), but on timed assessments like he had for his triennial it's shows he's still very behind.   But he read his first chapter length book  (a graphic novel) on his own, and because he wanted to, earlier this year, and he can read a lot of texts without problems, though he still tires out quickly so we still usually team read (every other paragraph, or on graphic novels, we each take certain character's lines).  I am trying to keep up with AAS after school.   It's a struggle but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. 

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by goldenecho