SWR and learning to read for the young ones..

[thundersweet]

Those of you that have used it to teach reading, how did you do it? Did you do it exactly how SWR tells you to do it? Start with the spelling lists etc? Did you have your child just read from the lists in the WG or did you have them write them? Ds is 4 and we are working on learning the phonograms and writing them. We are going very slow. I am thinking by 5 (July) he will be ready to start learning to read. He is very interested. I used SWR with dd but I did it my own way. Not at all by the book. We mainly learned the phonograms and some rules and then sat down with readers and progressed through them with me by her side helping her. We would notice multi-letter phonograms and even underline them sometimes as we went along. We then started the spelling lists in 1st grade. By this time she was already reading above grade level. The thing is, I have no idea if it was because of the instruction she received or if she was just a natural. KWIM? If you used SWR the way the book describes, how did it work for you? I can't imagine ds will be ready to sit down to the log at 5. I know my dd wasn't although she was definitely ready to learn to read.

 

If you used SWR materials in your own way, I'd love to hear about that too.

 

Thanks,

Sandy

[Alana in Canada]

I taught my daughter to read with SWR--as the book prescribed. She was 6, though, and well able to make a log list. Reading the log was wonderful--and we supplemented with Level 1 readers from the library. We used SWR to remediate and improve my son's reading--and since we were already using it--that's what we did.

 

I did everything as close to the way "the book says" as possible.

[SonshineLearner]

My son's bd is July, too. Last year while 4, we started going through the one letter phonograms. We've added a few that are two letter. At this point, you couldn't tell if I'm trying to SWR or WRTR. I am planning on going through rules (which I've barely started) and spelling lists....maybe next year.

At this point, with the sounds he knows, he can have a word told to him and spell it. He can also read if we want him to sound out simple words. I have read enough about early reading and eyesight problems that I've gone back and forth about really "teaching him to read" since he's not dying to learn. I can see that there aren't "problems" so I've just decided to let him learn slowly.

Carrie:-)

[KerriF]

Hi Sandy,

 

I am using SWR with my 5ds (also my 8ds) and we are doing what you described doing with you daughter. I tried to do the spelling lists with him at the beginning of the year and he just wasn't ready to do that. We review the phonograms and read from readers and that is all we do right now. Next year my plan is to start on the spelling lists.

 

hth

[PeterPan]

I taught my dd to read using SWR, and we did it the way SWR describes (spell the words, put them on flashcards and practice reading, keep moving forward, introduce books when hit list I2). Worked great for us. I guess it's just your call how you want to do it. Obviously it worked quite well using the phonograms as the basis for teaching your dd to read and just sitting down to read. Didn't occur to me to try that at the time, lol. I will say when she began reading, my dd literally took off, just like SWR says.

[FO4UR]

I am using SWR with my ds who will be 6 next week. I am not doing it by-the-book right now. I plan on going through section I like I am now, and review for several weeks before starting back at Section A again, as written.

 

I found Webster's Syllabary, and that has inspired me to incorporate some different ideas into my reading teaching. I spent a whole week after section C doing syllables, which I think helped teach a few rules (like vowels say their name at the end of a syllable). I noticed Isaac seemed to jump a level in understanding after that. We are now on section E. I'm thinking I'll switch to Websters whenever I feel we are hitting a brick wall with SWR, and then pick SWR back up where we left off. (Same philosophy of switching between mastery vs spiral to keep math moving along....why not in reading too.....although this is my 1st guinea pig - I mean child:tongue_smilie:, so take with grain of salt)

 

I don't use the log right now. We just do spelling on 1st grade paper (less pressure LOL). I dictate 5 new words at a time. I also made up a bunch of copy pages for review. 10 words per page, from random sections to review. I say a word (in random order so ds has to read it;)), just like spelling dictation and ds points to the word and copies it. This is working well to get him reading and writing.

[SunshineMom]

We daily review phonemes orally, get familiar with 10 spelling words a week (write them out, play memory game, oral spelling) and then the kids read for about 15min from a book of their choice. We spend about 30mins daily on reading/spelling exercises. I give them a weekly spelling test and every 3wks go back and study for another week words missed. My 5dd has really thrived with this method however my LD 7dd has been plugging along with some improvement. I would suggest seeing how much they will do and then go from there. Most important for reading is the phoneme introduction/reviews.