Should I continue with Explode the Code?

[Surfside Academy]

This is the first time I have used ETC w/ any child. My K'er will be throught book 2 1/2 by the end of this school year. I'm debating whether I need to continue w/ ETC into next year. My plan for Language Arts for his upcoming 1st grade year is as follows:

 

WWE 1

GWG 1 possibly w/ a little oral FLL

SWR for spelling

 

Would continuing w/ ETC be redundant? I basically used them this year for handwriting practice and he has breezed through them so far. I haven't seen the next level of ETC books so I'm wondering if they're worth the time or expense??

[JudoMom]

How is his reading? If he's got a good grip on phonics, I don't think you need to continue. In the back of each ETC book (or on the website) they tell you which skills are covered in each book. My oldest son only did one of the later books (the one with the "eigh" sound), because that's all he needed practice on. I only use them until they are solid in their phonics.

[rafiki]

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[KarenNC]

This is the first time I have used ETC w/ any child. My K'er will be throught book 2 1/2 by the end of this school year. I'm debating whether I need to continue w/ ETC into next year. My plan for Language Arts for his upcoming 1st grade year is as follows:

 

WWE 1

GWG 1 possibly w/ a little oral FLL

SWR for spelling

 

Would continuing w/ ETC be redundant? I basically used them this year for handwriting practice and he has breezed through them so far. I haven't seen the next level of ETC books so I'm wondering if they're worth the time or expense??

 

I'm wondering why you are doing the 1/2 books if he is "breezing through" them. The 1/2 books are only for reinforcement if extra practice is needed. We used part of one of them, I think, IIRC, because there was a specific combo early on that needed some extra work. Otherwise they become boring quickly.

 

It won't be redundant with FLL, nor, I think GWG (we used FLL for a while, switched to GWG 3--1/2 was not available when we would have wanted them). I like GWG quite a lot better than FLL for our purposes.

 

In looking at WWE, I don't think it would be redundant but I wouldn't use ETC with another spelling program. Spelling is applied phonics, so we used ETC as our beginning spelling program even though she was reading very well by ETC 4. At that point I thought we would drop them and go on to Spelling Power for spelling because it would take less time. I thought this would be a popular switch, but I was wrong. She was okay with SP, but saw the ETC books and asked to have them back as her "favorites".

 

I put aside SP for a while and finished the ETC series (which does start adding in more reading comprehension in the later books, not sure if it was 5 or 6), with some modifications. We had already skipped the open/closed syllable lessons in 4 because they were more confusing that useful in our case. Once she was reading well I no longer required her to circle the word or sentence that matches the picture (she continued to do it anyway because it was fun :)). ETC became primarily a spelling introduction. We ended up going back into Spelling Power in mid 2nd grade after finishing ETC and she placed very well. I found that it took us about a year to go through 5-8 of ETC and that in that period her placement testing in Spelling Power went up several levels.

 

If your child is bored with ETC or prefers SWR, I would consider dropping it and switching. If your child enjoys ETC as mine does, I would consider sticking with it and starting SWR or another spelling program at the end. I'd pick something else if your only goal with them is handwriting practice, I would drop it and just use your HWOT (as I see you have it in your sig line) for handwriting.

Edited March 17, 2009 by KarenNC

[The Governess]

I'm on book 4 with my dd. Is your ds doing well sounding out multi-syllable words? Book 4 teaches how to split a word into syllables and then apply phonics rules to each syllable. My dd is a good reader but she is benefiting from it.

 

I agree that you may want to look up what's covered in each book, and then go through the books that cover rules your ds may not be solid on yet. I'm planning on going through book 8 with dd and then switching to a spelling program sometime in 1st or 2nd grade. I'm using the 1/2 books, but only for the lessons she needs extra practice on (so we only use about 1/4 of the book).

[Surfside Academy]

I'm wondering why you are doing the 1/2 books if he is "breezing through" them. The 1/2 books are only for reinforcement if extra practice is needed. We used part of one of them, I think, IIRC, because there was a specific combo early on that needed some extra work. Otherwise they become boring quickly.

 

It won't be redundant with FLL, nor, I think GWG (we used FLL for a while, switched to GWG 3--1/2 was not available when we would have wanted them). I like GWG quite a lot better than FLL for our purposes.

 

In looking at WWE, I don't think it would be redundant but I wouldn't use ETC with another spelling program. Spelling is applied phonics, so we used ETC as our beginning spelling program even though she was reading very well by ETC 4. At that point I thought we would drop them and go on to Spelling Power for spelling because it would take less time. I thought this would be a popular switch, but I was wrong. She was okay with SP, but saw the ETC books and asked to have them back as her "favorites".

 

I put aside SP for a while and finished the ETC series (which does start adding in more reading comprehension in the later books, not sure if it was 5 or 6), with some modifications. We had already skipped the open/closed syllable lessons in 4 because they were more confusing that useful in our case. Once she was reading well I no longer required her to circle the word or sentence that matches the picture (she continued to do it anyway because it was fun :)). ETC became primarily a spelling introduction. We ended up going back into Spelling Power in mid 2nd grade after finishing ETC and she placed very well. I found that it took us about a year to go through 5-8 of ETC and that in that period her placement testing in Spelling Power went up several levels.

 

If your child is bored with ETC or prefers SWR, I would consider dropping it and switching. If your child enjoys ETC as mine does, I would consider sticking with it and starting SWR or another spelling program at the end. I'd pick something else if your only goal with them is handwriting practice, I would drop it and just use your HWOT (as I see you have it in your sig line) for handwriting.

 

I actually did wonder about the redundancy of the 1/2 books. We started book 1 1/2 and I quickly realized it was not needed. He's almost done w/ book 2 so he probably would be ready for book 3. I should also have added that we do Phonic Pathways so he is getting a strong foundation in phonics.

[Mama2Three]

My DC are on ETC books 4 and 5. We also do some PP and have started Webster's Speller. ETC Book 4 has been especially helpful with syllablication -- DC now know how to tackle bigger words. It was a tough start, especially for DS, but he has much more confidence and less guessing. I plan to continue to use ETC through book 8, but do more with Webster's. Since DC enjoy the workbooks so much, I'm thinking that ETC could be the fun "reward" after their Webster's lessons are finished, lol!

[KarenNC]

I actually did wonder about the redundancy of the 1/2 books. We started book 1 1/2 and I quickly realized it was not needed. He's almost done w/ book 2 so he probably would be ready for book 3. I should also have added that we do Phonic Pathways so he is getting a strong foundation in phonics.

 

I didn't notice the Phonics Pathways. I think PP, ETC and SWR would definitely be overkill. ETC was our phonics program (along with things like readers, Dolch sight word cards and Dick and Jane:)) since PP wasn't a good fit for us, and then, as I mentioned, it became our spelling program.

 

So do folks typically use a phonics program at the same time as a formal spelling program? I have always thought of them as sequential---finish the phonics then start spelling, since spelling is simply applying phonics to writing.

[Alice]

We stopped ETC as C5 didn't like it. I have been using the Beyond the Code books with him which he really likes. Book 1 is mostly short vowels and blends, with a few long vowels. I'm using it mostly as a phonics review...so the level he's on is behind what's he's doing in OPGTR. It also has reading comprehension type of questions and exercises like rhyming/opposites/thinking questions. He likes it a lot. I do just a bit each day as sort of an extra thing just for more practice. It's structured as several stories with each story being in parts. Each part has 4-5 exercises with it. i do 1-2 exercises a day so it takes us a week to get through each part of a story. Another way you could do it would be to take a week off from other phonics work and do one whole story. Just for something a bit different.

 

Just a thought. Probably not necessary with the other stuff you are doing but it might be something you would like if he's liked ETC.

[Ida]

I homeschool 3 children and have their days arranged into blocks of time to work with me, work independently, and work all together. Partially because of her age, and partially because of my curriculum choices, dd7 doesn't have that much that she can do on her own. I had gotten ETC 3 when she was having difficulty with long vowel sounds when we were doing her phonics program (SSRW) and it served its purpose well. She finished a while ago and I didn't get the next book right away. She recently finished SSRW and I decided to get ETC 4 for her to do on her own during one of her blocks of independent work. She's perfectly willing to do it; it can't hurt, and it might even help solidify some things. I don't think she'd be missing something essential if she weren't doing it though. Her other LA right now consists of AAS which I have all the kids doing together, WWE which I am doing without the workbooks (She reads me Frog and Toad type books and I use those for building reading fluency and for WWE), and GWG 1 (even though she is in second grade, I wanted to start at the beginning.

 

If you feel like your doing too much and are looking for something to eliminate, then you could certainly drop ETC. You may decide to pick it up again later. You may not. But I definitely agree that, if he's not having trouble with them, you should skip the 1/2's.

[Jen in PA]

We are going to keep going with it because it gives dd a bit of practice in handwriting, vocabulary, and spelling in a format she has grown comfortable with. She is halfway through book 7, and we will be done with book 8 before she turns 6.... then we will move on to do more formal grammar and writing to fill in that block of time. Her reading leapt ahead of learning phonics formally, but I do think it's helpful to go through and point out the rules as we go along. Starting in Book 7 there are reading comprehension pages built into each lesson, which has been a fun new challenge for her. I had planned to go through ETC more slowly, but I am actually pleased with how things have worked out, since it has ended up covering a lot of areas for such a reasonable price.

[Jennefer@SSA]

I have not read the other responses forgive me if this is redundant, but I would not start a formal Spelling program until you have gone through the entire ETC program. I guess I should add, if ETC is a program that is working and your dc is retaining what s/he has learned anyway.

 

We went all the way through book 8 and used many of the half books and my ds7 is an excellent speller, just on the merit of that alone! If you want to do a little spelling, just create a weekly list using the rules that are being presented that week in ETC. Your dc could even do fun little activities like putting the words in ABC order, writing basic sentences, writing words 3x - each in a different color, finding words in a word find (tons available online for free)...

 

I think that we often rush off too quickly from solidifying those phonics rules. ETC has been working, I'd consider sticking with it at least until the end of first grade. Maybe increase the amount of pages s/he is doing so that you can get through most of the whole books by the end of 1st. We used to do 2 lessons a week/4 pages a day.

 

Hth,