Dancing Bears A for kindergarten

[KSera]

It seems like most reviews I read of Dancing Bears are people using it with older children or children who are struggling readers. Is there any reason not to use it as the main phonics program for a kindergarten child? There is a family history of dyslexia and I have used a lot of Apples and Pears spelling with the older kids. K child in question is already blending and knows basic letter sounds and a few two letter phonograms (sh, ch). He's a quick and eager learner, and I like the way Dancing Bears introduces more two letter phonograms earlier, allowing for reading a greater variety of words sooner and it seems it would be less confusing for him that teaching him all the sounds of each phonogram at the same time, the way I did for my last child.

Looking through the sample, it sees like there is a small number of sight words taught? Is that accurate? I wouldn't have preferred to avoid that as much as possible. I do teach "the" and "one" early on, but I don't see the reason for teaching the one syllable open vowel words as sight words, which is what I think I see Dancing Bears doing? (we, me, she, so, go, etc).

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by KSera

[KSera]

Adding to my question, now that I've looked through the entire sample to the end, does it really not teach silent e/long vowel patterns until after book A? I think overall it would work really well for my little one--I did a sample page with him and it went great and was nice for him to be able to add a couple more common phonograms to his repertoire so quickly. However, not adding those silent e words would mean that it would be a long time before most readers would be accessible, since those come in early with most programs. I suppose I could look ahead to future books and see how they teach that in order to introduce it sooner. Has this been a problem for anyone else?

[Terabith]

It definitely takes a long time to get to the silent e/ long vowel patterns.  The other issue is that while I love the cursor for very early reading instruction, it doesn't work once you get to that point, because you have to know the syllable is open or that there is an e at the end to make the vowel long.  That is a transition for everyone.  

We didn't use it from the beginning, but I used a lot of Fast Track for awhile.  It was okay, but it had issues, and in general I didn't like it nearly as much as Apples and Pears.