linkydoo Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I am new here. Well I have been lurking for about a month. I have two active boys. My oldest is going to be 6 in April and my youngest is going to be 4 in April. My oldest went to PS for about 2 1/2 months and then we pulled him out over Christmas break. Homeschooling my children has always been a dream of mine but I sent him anyway until a friend of mine gave me a well needed wake up call and told me I was making excuses. So we pulled him out. He was also having a hard time in PS. He was sleeping most of the day and I had to drag him kicking and screaming out the door every morning to the bus. My questions are: We started the Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons we made it about half way through it so far and now he so sick of it. He would rather read real books. I got him some bob books and he does well with them and to teach him a new sound and to review our other sounds I refer back to the book. I was wondering if anyone could help me with some other books (other than bob books) that I could get for him so he doesn't get bored. I am also wondering how much "work" you have your Kindergartner do? In my state he is not required to have school until he is 7. But to cover my butt I am doing it by the book or close to it just in case cause he did go to school for a couple months and I don't want them to complain. I just don't want to be a hard a$$ and ruin it for him. I would appreciate any and all suggestions. Thank you Linn:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebeccaS Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 My kids hated the Bob books so, I went to the library and found some easier books that we would read together. For example, right now my K dd is reading A Fly Went By to me. (She read Go Dog, Go before that.) She reads most of it, but I help out with some with words here and there and explain rules to help her further. We did not do the same phonics program, though, so I'm not sure where he is at in regards to phonics knowledge-this may not work for you. We are using Saxon Phonics K (we're almost done since it is pretty easy) and Grace is reading short vowel words and the rest are help from me. As for how much do we do? She reads 3-4 pages of her story to me, does something math related game or worksheet and works on her phonics. It takes us about an hour to get done and that includes some wiggle room for her to be distracted (she is easily distracted!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soph the vet Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I used 100EZ lessons for all three of my dc but it took about a year for each of them as we kept putting it down when they would "get sick of it". There are a lot of different phonics materials out there and I would still recommend that approach to learning to read vs. a totally whole language approach. Phonics Pathways is another book I have used with my youngest as reading did not come as easy to her as the other two. I've found that once they know all the sounds and most of the blends they start to latch onto certain books and read them over and over. Let him do that too if he likes certain books. For us it was "A Fish Out of Water" and "Green Eggs and Ham". Even when he begins to read fairly well, continue to put some easier books in his pile so he can feel extremely confident at times which will encourage a love for books and learning. Just another thought, since he is a boy. Make sure you are not dealing with any dyslexia issues as they can be very subtle but troubling enough for him to not like certain reading programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Hi! Glad to see you posting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mktyler Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 I would suggest the I See Sam books. They are a complete phonics program in disguise! Each set of 20 books costs about 40 dollars. You can find them at these websites: http://www.roadstoeverywhere.com, http://www.iseesam.com, and http://www.piperbooks.co.uk. The last site has the best discussion of the books. ABeCeDarian is a solid program, and will ensure that multisyllabic words are mastered as well. Melissa Minnesota Reading Program Junkie dd(10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatieJ Posted February 12, 2009 Share Posted February 12, 2009 Hi, I used 100 EZ lessons for my 2 sons. I got tired of it before they did! The back of the book has a list of books to read ..check it out. I do think some kind of phonic program could be helpful at this point. We moved on to the Pathway readers system when we were done with the 100 EZ lesson books, but I believe there was a book we skipped because they were already reading. Just to encourage you, my sons were not reading well in the spring of their respective K and lst grade years. ( they were both learning to read the same year) We put the books away as we were moving. Come fall when we got the books back out..they were reading fluently! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linkydoo Posted February 12, 2009 Author Share Posted February 12, 2009 Thank you all so much for your helpful suggestions. Could anyone tell me what phonics you prefer. Right now we have reader rabbit cd rom phonics and hooked on phonics prereading. If I had to say he can read at an early 1st grade level. Thank you Linn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Thank you all so much for your helpful suggestions. Could anyone tell me what phonics you prefer. Right now we have reader rabbit cd rom phonics and hooked on phonics prereading. If I had to say he can read at an early 1st grade level. Thank you Linn A Reader Rabbit I saw in 1995 had a lot of sight words, also the old version of hooked on phonics, but I haven't seen the newer versions of either. I've tutored remedial reading since 1994 as a volunteer and have seen a lot of problems caused by sight words, here's why not to teach them and how to teach them phonetically http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html (although it's better to use a program like Phonics Pathways or the Ordinary Parents Guide that doesn't teach more than a few sight words and teaches all the phonics you need to know to sound out most words.) Here are my overall suggestions for teaching phonics to a beginning student: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/newstudents.html Of the 20+ programs I've looked at and tried, I like Webster's Speller the best! I explain a bit how I used it with my daughter below, and there is a thread about it here: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70153 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I STRONGLY 2nd these books. They work great for teaching younger kids to read---many 4 year old learn with these and they also work very well for kids with LDs, dyslexia and other reading struggles. Check out the links above. You can join a free yahoo group and get a wealth of information from other homeschooling moms but also reading specialists from around the world at no charge. If you buy at the Roads to Everywhere site the books are only $20/set and you can easily use them for both kids and then resell them for $10/set. Also, you can buy a few sets at a time to save on S&H or just buy them as you need them to spread the cost out. With these books there is NO need for any other phonics program. You just read the books and the kids learn all of the phonics they need. There is lots of practice and the stories are quite cute so kids enjoy the "cartoons". If you really wanted, you could use Explode the Code phonics workbooks after sets 1 and 2 of these books but it isn't needed. Once he would read through sets 1, 2 and 3 you could start Apples and Pears spelling which teaches the phonics rules while spelling or just use SPELL which is a simple spelling program designed to go with the I See Sam books. Make sure to read about the notched card/cursor on the websites. It is a brilliant idea that cost almost nothing but can greatly help kids with eye teaming, tracking and other vision issues. I have some samples of the books if you are interested. Just click on my name and email me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela H in Texas Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 (edited) Your library probably has the early readers classified by level. Like at our library, there is a colored dot on the binding of each book so you know which level is which (as the books are still in alphabetical order). They don't do it for all children's books, but just the ones considered early readers. They do it from the ones that have a single word per page to the young chapter books like (my head just went blank....let me look at amazon real quick) Junie B Jones. Of course, you could also try readers for various reading programs. These may give you additional support like grammar, vocabulary, questions at the end of some stories, a focus on certain blends, etc. We have the McGuffey Readers. The Abeka and Rod and Staff readers are another options. Maybe the Pathway Readers. I can't be much more help as it's been awhile since we had anyone that young. But I hope that helps a little :) ETA: my K dd is reading A Fly Went By I loved that book :) ETA after reading thread: I have different preferences depending on the kid for reading programs. It just is so hard to say. You know your kid better than anyone so as you look through a program, you can pretty much tell if it's something ds will "get." We did a LOT of things ds just couldn't get. Also, I regret (to a great deal) not doing repeated readings and sight words (though most can be based in phonics). Different kids need different things. As soon as we started doing all the no-no's, including flashcards and memorizing passages, ds learned to read. Edited February 15, 2009 by 2J5M9K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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