Free phonics curriculums?

[TinyMama]

We've been using TYCTR but my daughter is starting to hate it. She knows about 30-ish CVC words but I just realized I have no idea what to teach after that. 

I'm interested in Logic of English but my husband thinks it's too much money and we should just push through with TYCTR. If she didn't fight us in it, I would be fine with that. 

 

Is there a free or cheap phonics program to try in the meantime? Is the good and the beautiful really free? Is it good? 

Any other suggestions? Thank you! 

[HomeAgain]

I would ask why your daughter hates it.  Age, ability, and lesson set up make a difference.  Regardless, I would put it away for right now and go more organic: Make cards of all the single letter sounds and some digraphs: ch, sh, th..and let her play.  Give her objects or pictures and play find the sounds, help her build and read...but I wouldn't jump into something new right off the bat until you see how to meet her.

There are other free curricula.  You should check the free resource thread in General Discussion.  It's one of the pinned ones at the top.  There's also this one, which moved a bit before finding a permanent home at this link.  The videos are nice for each stage/age, and I love the sound charts for 1st and up to help students remember.  But this is a LOT, with a ton of resources for each grade level that all work together.  Foundational Skills by Tenn DoE

On the plus side, it is gentle in the early years.  On the minus side, it could use some tweaks.  It was developed to go along with the Core Knowledge material, and much of that is available free, too.

[Rosie_0801]

Sometimes their little brains fill up and they need to sit in maintenance mode for a while, before they'll be ready to learn anything new.

[Clarita]

Like @HomeAgainsaid figure out why she doesn't like it and you'll be in a better place to figure out what curriculum or method she would be happier with.

I would suggest instead of going with a different reading curriculum just yet to work on building fluency with what she does have. Progressive Phonics - Intermediate has buddy reading books, you can see how that works. Then you can actually do this with real books. Basically you want to pick books that have big font. You want to casually show them how to sound out words and how you figure out words. You want to let them realize how much they really can read, with a loose goal of realizing they can even read things in real live (menus, signs, etc.). 

If you want to see a potential sequence so you satisfy your own need to see progress, you can just print off the scope and sequence sample of the reading program you do like so you know what to casually point out next. For both my children there was a period after learning how to sound out words where they needed to just be practicing reading simple words and realize they could read some beyond the reading curriculum.

I also hit a bump with both my children, even though we were doing All About Reading with all its frills. Both of them just needed to practice reading what they could read before moving forward with more lessons.

[Zoo Keeper]

Some freebies I like and have used...

Alpha Phonics http://donpotter.net/pdf/alpha_phonics.pdf

Word Mastery http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/word_mastery_typed.pdf

Don Potter's site (which both links above came from) has many other good free resources for phonics instruction. 

The Phonics Page is also very good... https://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/newstudents.html

Edited August 26 by Zoo Keeper

[sweet2ndchance]

The Good and the Beautiful really is free except for the cost of printing (and there is a lot of printing) but I honestly would not recommend it for teaching reading. The reading instruction is very fragmented and relies too much on sight reading for my tastes.

TYCTR... do you mean "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"? I honestly don't care for 100EZ either. The pages are so busy and it moves so slowly. You certainly don't need an expensive program like LOE for teaching reading though. If you want a thorough program that is inexpensive, I would recommend The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I like that the pages aren't full and busy, the progression is logical and well laid out and it is easy to speed up or slow down as your child needs. BUT I wouldn't subject a child to only reading the lessons from the book. I make up little games out of the drill like reading the word from a slip of paper and then, if they get it right, they can wad up the slip of paper and toss it to the trash can a few feet away from them. Or hide the slips of paper throughout the room and they have to find the words and read them. Or write words outside on the sidewalk with chalk and jump to each word as she reads it. Games For Reading by Peggy Kaye is a good source for game ideas.

As the others have suggested, it could be that she just needs a break from formal instruction. I'm going to guess based on your other posts that she is a young 5. If you want to stay with your current reading program, I would just put it away for a month or two or even three or more and then try again. 

[HomeAgain]

7 hours ago, sweet2ndchance said:

Th

TYCTR... do you mean "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons"? I honestly don't care for 100EZ either. The pages are so busy and it moves so slowly. Y

The pages are busy because they are literally cramming 4 classroom resources per level into one.  Reading Mastery (the classroom version of 100EZ) has large sound/word charts for students to read from.  They have a separate teacher's script.  They have a reader for the student and a workbook/set of writing pages for each level.

@TinyMamaThis is what the reading part of the lesson looked like in my home.  There is no book in front of my kid, just the story.

 

Here are cards we used: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18AQ81Kfsup0GlZLzTgae7Ob0xDsJFGK6/view?usp=sharing

If you can't open it, I'll send it to you directly.  The numbers correlate with the lessons, so I could move them easily back and forth, but also leave them out for play.

Somewhere I have worksheets, but you don't need them.  It is perfectly fine to separate writing and reading.  I taught writing letters in a different order than the book.  It starts with 'a', and my kid wasn't ready for that.  We started with the vertical stroke letters: l, i, t, and moved in a 'add one stroke' sort of pattern.  So we started the book first, adding writing later on.

Edited August 26 by HomeAgain

[TinyMama]

Thank you everyone for all the advice and tips! I definitely think it'll be beneficial to step away from formal curriculum and just focus on phonics games and tactile activities for a little bit. 

@HomeAgain My daughter says she hates it because it's boring to sit down and sound out the sounds. She also says the pictures are really boring. I don't blame her honestly. They're poorly drawn black and white sketches. I've explained to her that sometimes we have to do things we don't really want to do in order to thrive later in life. 100EZ lessons is a very cut and dry curriculum though and it's losing her interest. 

@Clarita and @sweet2ndchance Thank you for the advice also! I'll definitely look into those resources. What a great idea to print out the scope and sequence! Sometimes the best solutions are the easiest. I had never thought about doing that. We've gone over letter sounds and some digraphs and I've been at a standstill on how to progress to the next phonics rule. However, like you guys said, there is no sense in rushing it if she needs a little more help.

Honestly, I have quite a few people in my life who are against my choice to homeschool. So, I feel like if my daughter finishes K and isn't on the same reading level as public school K's I'm going to hear a lot of "I told you so's" and I really don't want to deal with that. I believe that's why I'm stressing so much about it and trying to push it faster than I probably should. 

[TinyMama]

12 hours ago, Zoo Keeper said:

Some freebies I like and have used...

Alpha Phonics http://donpotter.net/pdf/alpha_phonics.pdf

Word Mastery http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/word_mastery_typed.pdf

Don Potter's site (which both links above came from) has many other good free resources for phonics instruction. 

The Phonics Page is also very good... https://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/newstudents.html

Thank you so much! Great resources!

[HomeAgain]

1 hour ago, TinyMama said:

Thank you everyone for all the advice and tips! I definitely think it'll be beneficial to step away from formal curriculum and just focus on phonics games and tactile activities for a little bit. 

@HomeAgain My daughter says she hates it because it's boring to sit down and sound out the sounds. She also says the pictures are really boring. I don't blame her honestly. They're poorly drawn black and white sketches. I've explained to her that sometimes we have to do things we don't really want to do in order to thrive later in life. 100EZ lessons is a very cut and dry curriculum though and it's losing her interest.

If you want color pictures, look at these: Reading Mastery storybooks.  But the reasons your daughter dislikes it are what makes reading....reading.  There is no Nancy Larson craptastic lesson plan where students guess based on a picture.  There are no word shapes to memorize.  There's no fill in the word based on a single sound. Sounding out and reading the text IS reading.  You have the ability to make it more fun and introduce concepts differently, but she should be very aware that reading is sometimes work and learning the sounds/reading the text is what makes her a reader.  The pictures don't matter.  She's welcome to draw her own pictures.

You don't want her to get to about third or fourth grade and seem to struggle with unknown words or not understand how spelling works because of trying to be on par with the public school - who do use those strategies above to increase their perceived gains in early elementary and let their students struggle later.

[KSera]

I second the recommendation to look at Progressive Phonics. It’s free and colorful and easy to use. I used it with my last couple and they enjoyed it. We never used 100EZ lessons because it looked incredibly boring to me. 

[Clarita]

3 hours ago, TinyMama said:

Honestly, I have quite a few people in my life who are against my choice to homeschool. So, I feel like if my daughter finishes K and isn't on the same reading level as public school K's I'm going to hear a lot of "I told you so's" and I really don't want to deal with that. I believe that's why I'm stressing so much about it and trying to push it faster than I probably should. 

Know that most children don't leave Kindergarten really knowing how to read in public school. I also stressed out for a moment when my friends showed me all their children's school syllabi for Kindergarten. Then at the end of the year when they showed me their child's actual work and what it actually meant the syllabi definitely makes it sound more impressive. There's a lot of hand holding, formula, practice for the work they produced.

3 hours ago, TinyMama said:

@HomeAgain My daughter says she hates it because it's boring to sit down and sound out the sounds. She also says the pictures are really boring. I don't blame her honestly. They're poorly drawn black and white sketches. I've explained to her that sometimes we have to do things we don't really want to do in order to thrive later in life. 100EZ lessons is a very cut and dry curriculum though and it's losing her interest. 

I'd have to agree with your daughter. Buddy read some real books so she can see why she wants to even put in the work to read. At a restaurant or grocery store ask her to read the signs or menus to see what she wants (give her as much help as she asks for but take your time sometimes before helping so she can mull it over for a moment). I actually tell my children I'm not reading them all the menu options (I'm only reading the stuff I want them to have) give them some incentive to mull those words over. My daughter is actually more motivated to write than to read so instead of reading sometimes I let her choose to spell the words instead of read them. For my son, I'd write out some words big on paper and then have him throw beanbags at them, or step on them.    

I don't gamify or make every school subject fun everyday but when my children start to hate a subject I interject some easy fun into it. 

[forty-two]

2 hours ago, TinyMama said:

Honestly, I have quite a few people in my life who are against my choice to homeschool. So, I feel like if my daughter finishes K and isn't on the same reading level as public school K's I'm going to hear a lot of "I told you so's" and I really don't want to deal with that. I believe that's why I'm stressing so much about it and trying to push it faster than I probably should. 

Getting her to ps K level by the end of HS K only matters if you plan to send her to ps 1st grade.  Otherwise, you both have time, time to do things differently than ps - which is at least half the point of hs'ing!  But it's easier (not necessarily *better*, but definitely *easier*) to justify your alternate approach (to yourself and others) when it gets your kid to ps benchmarks faster than the ps; plus there's something about getting your kid reading that feels like it "validates" your hs'ing :hug.

So, I had late readers, and even later writers.  I don't mean just "not hitting ps K reading benchmarks in K" (ha!), but hoping to hit the "reading by 3rd/reading to learn by 4th" benchmarks. (Which we did, but the interim was not particularly comfortable.)  I, like so many, was all ready to do my own hs thing AND beat the ps at their own game.  But that's not how it worked out for us - we had all the pluses of doing our own thing, but the inherent minuses of not hitting ps early elem benchmarks at the usual ps times (or at all, depending) and thus looking "behind" to interested observers.

There's two kinds of behind: behind by ps standards ("behind") and behind by your own standards.  The more your hs ends up following the beat of a different drummer, the less ps standards apply and the more important it is to have your own standards to evaluate your hs.  My kids had real deficits and it took a lot of effort to get them reading and writing.  But I had a plan, and I was working the plan, and doing consistent work - I had confidence that I was doing good work with the kids, even though their outward achievement to date didn't look impressive to outsiders.  So when I felt worried, or dh (understandably) wanted to know how the kids were doing, I could walk through the plan, the progress, evaluate how things were going by the goals I had set.  That gave me the confidence to acknowledge we were "behind" but that we were nevertheless doing well - that "behind" wasn't a problem, for the following well-grounded reasons. 

I didn't necessarily go through the whole spiel with most interested observers - just a one or two sentence statement of "we are working on x step of the plan, and we are making progress", or nothing but an upbeat "we are working hard and making progress".  But knowing why I was doing what I was doing - even if I didn't share the reasons with anyone but dh - was so helpful with being able to be casually confident in talking with interested observers.  "I noticed dd can't do <x>." "Yes, we are working on a different timetable to ps.  Right now we are working hard on <y>."  Most any early elem "behind" criticism can be responded to with a simple, "We are working on a different timetable to ps."

[sweet2ndchance]

Let's not forget, it's still just the beginning of the school year. Around here anyways, they are still doing beginning of the year assessments and learning the rules of school in kindergarten at this time of year. Some schools don't even start until next week. Your dd is reading cvc words! She is likely on par or ahead of ps already.

Just like learning to talk and learning to walk happened on her own time timetable, she will also learn to read on her own timetable and it is unlikely that going to ps would change that. Children are all over the place in terms of learning to read until about 3rd grade. 

Is it possible that she is bored because the lessons are moving too slowly for her? If she can read cvc words, the next logical step is to add blends. Show her how 'fog' becomes 'frog' and  'lit' becomes 'list'. I can't remember if 100EZ does any sight words or not but I would teach her 'the', 'I', and 'a' as sight words.

 

[HomeAgain]

50 minutes ago, sweet2ndchance said:

Let's not forget, it's still just the beginning of the school year. Around here anyways, they are still doing beginning of the year assessments and learning the rules of school in kindergarten at this time of year. Some schools don't even start until next week. Your dd is reading cvc words! She is likely on par or ahead of ps already.

Just like learning to talk and learning to walk happened on her own time timetable, she will also learn to read on her own timetable and it is unlikely that going to ps would change that. Children are all over the place in terms of learning to read until about 3rd grade. 

Is it possible that she is bored because the lessons are moving too slowly for her? If she can read cvc words, the next logical step is to add blends. Show her how 'fog' becomes 'frog' and  'lit' becomes 'list'. I can't remember if 100EZ does any sight words or not but I would teach her 'the', 'I', and 'a' as sight words.

 

100EZ Lessons does sight words sort of.  This, that, and the are covered by lesson 20, as well as blends like 'ck'.  If a kid hasn't made it to lesson 20, it's often because the material is not developmentally appropriate and they hit the first wall.  The kid in question doesn't have the ability to progress and it's going to be miserable.  It's time to step back from reading for a bit and work on sound development other ways.  Lesson 40 is about the end of K, with first covering up through lesson 80-85, and 2nd covering the tail end and bringing in new blends like /igh/ and /kn/.

[TinyMama]

These are all really great prices of advice. I'm going over them with my husband and we will find the best route. She hates it because she says it's boring to sit down and read the words but we've explained that some things in life just aren't fun. Reading is something she needs to learn to do and wether we stick with this curriculum or switch, it'll be the same. 

 

We've decided to stick with Teach your child to read. I do have a follow up question though. 

I've heard good and bad from the curriculum. Anyone who has used it, what do you feel is missing from the curriculum? I haven't noticed digraphs being covered or sight words. I want my daughter to have a solid foundation in phonics. If you could add anything to the book to make it a "well rounded complete curriculum", what would you add? 

[HomeAgain]

6 minutes ago, TinyMama said:

I've heard good and bad from the curriculum. Anyone who has used it, what do you feel is missing from the curriculum? I haven't noticed digraphs being covered or sight words. I want my daughter to have a solid foundation in phonics. If you could add anything to the book to make it a "well rounded complete curriculum", what would you add? 

It does have digraphs. Look at the beginning, you'll see the most common ones in the list: th, sh, wh, ch...and blends like 'ing'.  It is missing a few:

kn
igh
ough
au
gn (both sounds, beginning and end)

It has no spelling rules included.  Writing is not a huge focus of the program at this level.
Sounds are covered, but it neglects to categorize them, like /a/ has four sounds: a(pple), a(pe), a(lmost), m(a)ny. or th says th(ink) or th(is).

If I was doing it again for the umpteenth time, I'd use the cards I made.  Around Lesson 30 I would bring in Storybook 1, level 1 from Reading Mastery and slow it down to half pace: 1 day doing current sound cards and reading the Storybook, 1 day doing sound/word cards and the intended lesson.  I would continue going through lesson 70 and consider that chunk enough for the year.  I would use my homemade sound tiles to practice making words.  They're like AAR's sound tiles but I was cheap, had a laminator, had square sheet magnets and could pick the font I wanted. But I keep them on a cookie pan with a few copies of each one to practice pulling down the right sound at first.  I would treat each individual lesson as a 3 day lesson: one day following the first part of the lesson, one day with just cards and sound play and maybe supplemental reading, and one day with reading the passage twice then looking at the picture/drawing a better one.

If I wanted to add in a worksheet or smaller readers, I would browse around TPT, where people have made all that stuff.  If you look up Teach Your Child To Read or DISTAR Reading, several come up of various quality. 

At about Lesson 70, I'd add in beginning spelling rules and practice writing or building words from those rules: open/closed vowel to start, and then adding in "Magic E" and "FLOSS".  That would be it.  We'd finish the book, and hit spelling for real.

[Alice Lamb]

The newish curriculum from Tennessee has cute stories with good pictures and can be printed out.  You would only need "Big Book" and "decodable readers" as supplements.  It goes pretty slowly on phonics and does include a few, carefully labeled sight words, but you can teach most of those by introducing a few more phonograms earlier.

  Tennessee curriculum