I could really use some new ideas for my 6 y/o dd. She is reading, but barely. She is doing very easy 1 sentence phonics books like the bob books. I bought the Bob Jones K5 reading/phonics program, but we stopped using it after a few weeks. It is alot of word families which for some reason is not clicking with my daughter at all. I started doing a "word wall" with her where I write down commonly used words on poster board. I will add a few more words each week to the list (we are now up to 54 words). She reads the wall daily and when she masters a word we put a sticker on it. This works fine until she is reading a book and she comes across a word she doesn't know. She will not look at the word and sound out the letters. She just starts blurting out letter sounds that are not even in the word. I know she knows her alphabet and all the sounds they make, I don't know why she does this. I sound out the letters and make her repeat it with me and she eventally does and gets the word right. I also turn on educational shows and video tapes daily where they sound out the words on the screen. I just don't get why this concept is not clicking with her
My oldest daughter has always struggled with reading. I have been using several things to try to help her out. When she was in first grade I used a regular Hooked on Phonics set everyday to help her warm up before we tried reading a book. In second grade we purchased the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader kit so she could play the computer phonics games. She enjoys practicing by playing the games. In second grade we also bought the Read, Write, and Type typing program and Word Qwerty from Talking Fingers. As far as she knows she is learning to type but these programs teach phonics too. I also bought a book called Increasing Fluency with High Frequency Word Phrases by Edward Fry PH.D from Lakeshore Learning Store. They have this book for every grade level. This book comes with a CD so that they can listen to the phrases read while they follow along. Then they read together with the CD (or you) and finally they try it on their own. The key for daughter is that I have to have patience and consistently work with her on her phonics and reading everyday. By combining computer programs and work we sit down to do together it makes it much easier for me to give her all the practice she needs to be successful. Hope some of this helps.
www.starfall.com ? Maybe let her play on it for fun? I used this with my two oldest to teach them reading, and they are excellent readers. I know some kids don't click with starfall, so if you've tried and it didn't work....sorry.
How is she doing with writing? My eldest started out really well with writing but no interest in reading. These last few months she started to show an interest in reading and a lot of what she learned came from writing. Maybe your daughter is the same- more interest in writing and the reading will come?
I would suggest to keep her reading at the level she is comfortable. She needs to enjoy reading. If it is constantly frustrating her, she won't. Give her time.
Thanks for the replies I have tried starfall, but she doesn't do it right. She does the coloring pages instead of the books. And when she does the books she doesn't follow along with the sentence, she clicks on the animation parts of the book and just fools around. I have looked into explode the code, but I wasn't sure if it was similar to starfall. I don't want to spend the money for her to just play around with coloring pages. Also, I read alot on here about ETC but are you all doing the books or the online version ?
My daughter is doing ETC with the books. She really likes them. Our rule is no coloring the pictures until her work is done correctly! It has really helped her confidence and picking up on new ideas with phonics.
I use the books. There's a LOT of writing if you do it the way the book says, but we do most of it orally.
I would just take it SLOW... my son was a slow reader. He has ended up being (so far) a grade level behind in Language Arts. BUT... I stopped pushing hard and now he LOVES reading. He used to hate it cause I was frustrated and he was frustrated. So, from my own experience with the exact same thing and the tears I cried over it... I say No to ETC. It didn't work for him at all. It simply caused more frustration. He knew his letter sounds and his letters. The books ABC just went over those things. The next book was assuming he was already putting those sounds together with no issues. He had some issues. I just kept working on this where he was at and eventually his brain developed enough. It just wasn't ready. Just as you cannot push a child to walk if they are not ready, you cannot push a child to read if their brain is not ready. I eventually took him back an entire level in Sonlight LA and did that with him. He had success at a year behind level and loved it. I slowly worked him back to attempting to read. Finally a full year behind what the public schools would have put him, he read. We both cried. Now, spelling is our issue. We are starting All About Spelling, I would recommend you take a look at it. It teaches them the different Phonograms in a mastery based program. SO far both of my kids LOVE it! I can already see that it has the potential to be a HUGE help with both reading and spelling. The one other word of advice is do your best not to stress about it. Just like every child walks at a different time, and rides a bike at a different time and for that matter talks at a different time, and cuts teeth at a different time, each child reads at a different time. They do not fit a cookie cutter and that is one of the reasons traditional schools do not work well for all kids. Now, here is my disclaimer. This is my experience with my child. Each child is different. ETC works great for some. It didn't work for us. We now use it again, but it didn't help us learn to read at all. It is helping us continue that journey, and I do use it for that, but it didn't help that initial click. So, you need to slowly find what works for you. I hope this post was encouraging and not discouraging.
