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dolorsofmary
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| Posted: June 18 2011 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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OK my son will be 6 in a few months and yes I held him back 1 yr. He will be doing K at home in September. I would like to go easy on everything but I get pressure from my husband to do something and my son is bored otherwise. I do phonics with him 15 minutes a day except weekends/holiday/birthday. Yes I even do it partly in the summer too. I actually just started though really just the past week because he begged me for a toy and I said you can have it if you complete this... So its not too bad but it has led to more - not more work for him but more work for me.
And in the end I am determined to save $$$$$ I hope and that is where you all come in I hope - help me to not spend.
So looking ahead to september I want the phonics program to be something that fits my son and I well. So I felt this summer 15 mins. a day thing would be helpful in achieving that and finding what fits.
What I have found out:
1) a good friend of mine used to teach reading and now homeschools and her oldest is only 2 months older than my son (and is doing 1st grade at home in september) and is a very very good reader and she did alphaphonics with him and one day it just clicked for him. I was doing the bob books (set 1 of course) with my son and I had her read with my son 1 page of bob books and she said that he is very frustrated becasue he has to sound out each letter and attempt to blend, and that basically I am expecting too much. (my son understands the basic sounds of the letters and can read 'cat' and 'hat' etc. and he expressed interest in bob books so...)(the original 15 minutes a day was read a few pages of bob books since he likes them but I totally changed that as you will see.) She emphasized that I should try alphaphonics because it emphasizes word families - like cat, mat, sat,pat, etc. and cot, pot, not, etc. etc. And that would help him a great deal as opposed to a different approach. So to save money I made it myself for ..at and ..ot and my son found it to be easy and sort of fun (he was a little impatient but oh well). So what's the problem you say? well I found that its getting to be a LOT of paper, ink and cutting and time so I'm like well I should buy alphaphonics and be done with it.
problem: alphaphonics spells their 'a's and 't's funny. They write them as they are written here but my son is used to seeing them as in century gothic style. So I just tell him that it is an a and t but it is a change. I guess no big deal.
2nd problem: at our annual local catholic homeschool conference I had already spent $30.00 on the Seton Phonics K for young catholics part 1 and 2 back in April. I had my son sit down with me today to try it out with a pencil. I also had him try out some free worksheets from the alphaphonics website and I asked him which one he liked best. He said that he hated them both (well that's my son) (we just did 7 minutes on 1 and 7 minutes on the other) I asked him again and he said he liked the one with pictures (Seton) better (of course the alphaphonics worksheet did not have pictures). But the Seton one does not emphasize word families, instead its emphasis seems to be on see it, hear it, write it, and say it and of course keeping it catholic which is a big plus.
I also own 100 easy lessons which I tried with my son about 1 yr ago and he didn't like that either (becasue I was stocking up for year K with my son and that is what they emphasize in MODG K. (I always want him to not hate reading so I don't like to press.) My friend does not recommend it. What I was thinking of doing is doing the seton over the summer and using alphaphonics once september comes. I would hate to buy yet another thing.
I would like to use 1 program and stick to it and not jump around. I feel like a fool buying yet another book! Ofcourse I can sell teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons but it has helped ME teach decoding to my son better for now - maybe in 1 yr I'll sell it. But of course I want my son to read well and my friend and her son and my son are tight. I can always say - well .... did this and see how well he reads?! well you can do the same if you do it - as an incentive.
Your thoughts? Thank you!
Rosemarie
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jawgee
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| Posted: June 18 2011 at 3:02pm | IP Logged
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My second DS is 5 1/2 and we've been doing 100 Easy Lessons (he's on lesson 60). Unlike his older brother, he is not an enthusiastic learner and needs some incentive to learn new things.
I'm like you, also, in that I didn't want him to hate reading or learning. I could tell, though, that he was more than ready to learn to read. He just needed some incentive to get him started.
It doesn't sound like you are lacking in curricula. In my experience, any of those will work if you stick with them. My son was hesitant to start the 100 Easy Lessons book, he tried to avoid it the first couple of weeks, and since then HE is the one who grabs it every morning. This morning, actually, he grabbed it on his way to his brother's baseball game so that he could "practice" while he was there. I think the progress he made in such a short amount of time gave him tons of confidence.
The trick that worked for him was to make it fun - at least in the beginning until he started to enjoy it on its own. We did the most silly things to make it fun. For example, I would say "Let's play Candy Land. Whenever someone picks a red card we are going to stop and do three minutes in this book." Or, "You want to play War? OK, whenever we have a War we have to stop and do a little from this book". He loves - craves - my individual attention with board games, so we mixed the learning in with it.
Now he just grabs the book and says, "we can play a game later. Let's practice reading now".
Good luck!! Hope that helps some.
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kristinannie
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| Posted: June 18 2011 at 3:04pm | IP Logged
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If your son doesn't like writing, I highly recommend the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. We do about 10 minutes a day with that (although I don't use the script provided because it annoyed my son and myself) and then spend time with readers. I would get a good handle on the beginning of OPGTTR before starting the readers because that will prevent tears. 
We were using Little Stories for Little Folks and I love it, but it started to move way too quickly toward the end of the first level books. It is great for teaching word families in the beginning readers though. We will jump back into these when we catch up a little in OPGTTR. It was just too much, too quickly. We are now using MCP readers. My son LOVES those. They are NOT cheap, but I have heard that a lot of libraries carry them (ours does not). They are perfect for us though. They really are "real" books so DS5 can read them to his siblings. They aren't as contrived as most first readers (but do contain some sight words if you are a phonics purist).
We are doing MCP Phonics A right now and my son hates it. He calls it the poopy book.  I think he is frustrated because all of the beginning is review of letter sounds, etc. I am skipping forward to see if he will like it more when it is a little more challenging, but I am not holding out a lot of hope! It has a lot of great stuff in it though so I am not going to chuck it.
The biggest thing for me has been using a whiteboard with magnetic letters. My son loves to build words that way (which is why we are going to use AAS). It is a great way to teach word families too. Just put "at" and then he can make at words with other starting letters. I am not sure if I have already talked to you about that!
The main thing that works for me is bribery. If he does his lesson in OPGTTR (which is hard to get him to do), he gets a couple of chocolate chips. He gets a prize out of the treasure box (a box filled with cheap little items) whenever he finishes reading a new book. Sometimes he asks for the rewards, sometimes not, but it does help!
If your son is really frustrated, maybe you can just take a couple of weeks off to give him some time to recuperate. As far as the Seton books go, I wouldn't toss them after 1 or 2 times of use though. I haven't seen them so I can't say anything about it, but complaining is normal in our house (especially with my DS5). If the problem is that they use too much writing, I would hold off on using them if he isn't ready to write. Best of luck!
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kristinannie
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| Posted: June 18 2011 at 3:06pm | IP Logged
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One more thing that works for my son is to let him know how much I enjoy the one-on-one time with him during our reading lessons. We lay down on my bead to read and I give him A LOT of praise. It is something we both look forward to (until I pull out OPGTTR  ).
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Meredith Rose 7
Dominic Michael 4.5
Katherine Elizabeth 8 months
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time4tea
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| Posted: June 20 2011 at 5:50pm | IP Logged
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I have had good experiences with CHC's Little Stories for Little Folks. I taught even my dyslexic dd to read using LSLF. If you purchase the set, buy it new and not used so that you will be sure to get the complete set. Follow it just as the directions state, but take your time and go at a pace that works for your dc. As we got toward LSLF level 4 readers, my dc began reading easy readers on their own as well as Faith and Freedom readers. CHC also has several new follow-on books to LSLF that you could use as well.
Hope this helps!
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knowloveserve
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| Posted: June 20 2011 at 7:11pm | IP Logged
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Can't say enough good things about the Explode the Code books.
We tried 3 or 4 "programs" to teach reading and my son hated them all. But he adored EtC... so does my second son. Now my 5 year old is begging for them so I'm considering getting the "Get Ready for the Code" primers for him...
At any rate, I do tend to think that parents in America panic over kids who aren't reading early and we all would do well to relax some... but this doesn't convince everyone. So I can respect that... but Explode the Code books are excellent, for some reason they do what other programs couldn't do... and now I'm a believer. I was convinced I wasn't going to do any kind of program after reading up on the Moore couple's theories of "Better Late than Early" but EtC made me at least feel like we were doing SOMETHING productive... and he liked it so I just let time do it's thing and he eventually got it.
FWIW: My oldest didn't really read well until age 8 or so. My second son completely taught himself via Bob Books and Explode the Code and is now a better reader than the older boy at age 6. This gave me confidence to understand that kids will learn to read when they are ready... and not really prior to that without a whole lot of pain, frustration and tears.
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*Lindsey*
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| Posted: June 20 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged
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knowloveserve wrote:
Can't say enough good things about the Explode the Code books.
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 DD loved those!
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Lindsey
Mama to DS (11), DD(9), twin dds(7), DD (5), DS (4), DS (3), and 5 angels in heaven.
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RyaneM
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| Posted: June 21 2011 at 7:03pm | IP Logged
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*Lindsey* wrote:
knowloveserve wrote:
Can't say enough good things about the Explode the Code books.
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DD loved those! |
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We use (and LOVE) Explode the Code also!
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Ryane in NY 
Mama to ds (3/05), ds(1/09) and dd (4/10)
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Heliodora
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| Posted: June 22 2011 at 8:28pm | IP Logged
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It sounds like you are getting a lot of pressure from other people. That's not easy. A boy of six is not always ready to start reading whole hog. My oldest was eight when he started reading, and yes, a lot of people were making me feel very inadequate for my "poor job" of homeschooling. Every kid is different, and your son is normal! Try not to compare your friend's son to yours. It might be time to stop spending so much time with her, even though she's just trying to be helpful.
I have so far taught five of my children to read, and am gearing up for the next two. They all learned a little differently.
I never cared for 100 Easy Lessons. My kids hated it and I don't like their choice of letters to start with.
I like the Alphaphonics, but I wouldn't insist on doing too much with that at a time. I disagree that doing "word families" is easier necessarily. You want to teach them to sound each word out, not guess at what it is supposed to say by the way it looks or the word before it was. Some kids might like that, but it isn't essential.
I love the Little Angel Reader books. I don't think anyone mentioned those yet. They are colorful, and the stories are interesting. I usually use those as first readers, simultaneously with the Writing Road to Reading, which I love, but it isn't easy to get started with it. Laura Berquist has a short guide available to help with lesson plans. It might be a good book for you to buy to read for yourself to understand the process of learning to read phonetically, even if you don't use the word list and notebook. I always teach the phonograms from that method- actually, I use the enhanced phonograms from the Riggs Institute. They have very detailed plans available for the Writing Road with their own expansions and enhancement. Not cheap, if you want to save money, but their phonogram cards can be bought separately and are very useful, with lots of information on the backs.
I don't like MCP Phonics at all. It doesn't mesh well with the way I use the Writing Road, and I've ended up skipping lots of pages. I think once they have started reading, that their more advanced phonics books are pretty good, but not while learning to read.
I actually just bought a couple of the K workbooks from Seton for this next year, so I will see how they work.
Something else I have used are the pre-K to K series from Rod and Staff (available through Seton.) These have coloring, cut and paste, and different activities to do. My little ones always like those. Something like that would maybe satisfy your husband's desire to see you do "something."
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Heliodora
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| Posted: June 22 2011 at 8:40pm | IP Logged
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I'd like to add:
I reread your post- the part about you not wanting to buy more books if you can help it. The Writing Road to Reading is usually available at the library, or often can be found for only a few dollars. Reading that would definitely help you to better use whatever books you decide to go with.
I also thought that maybe you could look into one of those Montessori at home books (can't remember the title, maybe someone can help me out,) also usually available at the library, to help you find activities that he can do in the mean time until he learns to read. You can often make your own tools to use so you don't need to buy all the expensive Montessori materials.
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Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. -1 Thessalonians 5:21
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: advise me please on phonics for k please
