My 6 yo DS and I are using Reading Made Easy but have seem to have hit a brick wall, I am not sure why. He wants to learn to read and he ask to do the lesson because he wants to read so bad, but he just isn't getting it. He was doing great at first when the words were just CVC but now that they are CVVC or CVCV he just doesn't get it. We go slow and are going over each leason at least 3 times and doing the work sheets that go with them, but... Don't know if that is enough information for you to offer suggestions, but I hope so. Thanks for the help!
I taught both of my kids using "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" It is fabulous! I highly recommend it to everyone! It is also under $20 so it's win-win....good luck!
Yeah, I'd suggest anew approach. If he has the desire, that's great, but he has to also have the ability. I mean I have the desire to sing, but not the ability. But with reading, he will develop the ability, but it may take some time. My youngest wanted to write long before he physically possessed the ability to do so. So we did lots of different things along the way, changing it up to make it fun. I also often explained to him that it was okay that he couldn't write yet,t hat his hand just wasn't ready....
I think a new approach is needed as well as some time to mature. My daughter (age 7) was really having some difficulty earlier in the year with the CVVC. Our lessons came to a standstill as I repeated that lesson over and over. I ended up printing off worksheets, getting level 1 books from the library, Bob Books and just read, read, read. It took about 2 1/2 months (REALLY!) to get her to understand and get over that hump. Now, she's reading much better and moving along in her phonics lessons. As for a new approach, it may very well be that he doesn't get how the curriculum is teaching it. Maybe trying something new will help.
I tried everything with my dd who is 6 to no avail. There were more fights and tears than I would like to admit. I finally found readingeggs.com and within 3 days she went from only knowing letter sounds to being able to read small words and sentences. It is a pay to use site, but for me it is well worth it.
Www.starfall.com It was a lifesaver here. All three kids used it. Last time we were on it was free, I'm assuming it still is.
For my littles (who are 5 and 6) I found that switching around things, and using a variety of resources worked best for teaching them to read. We used 100 Easy Lessons, the Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading, www.readingeggs.com, starfall.com, and explode the code.... also playing games involving letters/words like Zingo, Scrabble Jr, applegrams (I think that is what it is called-- it is an apple filled with little letter tiles), boggle, alphabet circus...
Although I'm using CLE Learning to Read, which I love, with dgs (age 6), I do change things up for him. Someone gifted me with a Lifepac LA, which I'm not overly crazy about but I'm using it as review pages or introduction pages for particular skills. We're reading the little spiral readers with it too. We're also reading the little paper Abeka K4 and K5 readers, and a few Bob books that turned up out of nowhere. We're including the Christian Liberty pre-K and K phonics readers, and whatever other storybooks I have at his level. We'll probably add in some Pathways readers in awhile, too.
My youngest dd struggled with reading until I bought her Hooked on Phonics. It clicked for her so well that she could read Lord of the Rings in 2nd grade. She is a visual learner and struggled with sounding things out until we got HOP.
Honestly, changing to the more complicated words with long vowels causes a brick wall in a lot of children. It may take some time. If he is still asking and you want to keep plugging ahead than just know it may take awhile. If he really wants to learn but one or both of you is starting to go nutty maybe you could pick a book that would be easy to teach with sight words. Of course, he can keep sounding out the c/v/c words. You could make flash cards or go over the book many times and if there is a few c/v/c/v words that you just want to mention in a casual way then you can. Don't do too many though as you are trying to take a break and not stress him. Do as many books as you like, then after a break, you could go back to specific phonics lessons and you may find that it is much easier at that time. Just an idea.
I find it's pretty easy to go from CVC to CVC-silent e by practicing adding that silent e to the regular CVC word. Like rat/rate, hat/hate, dot/dote, mat/mate, cut/cute, and so on. Just practicing some of these a couple of minutes for several sessions seems to get the idea across. We also find using a breve over the short ones and a macron over the long ones, with a slash through the silent e, to be helpful.
I afree with changing the approach, we used dvds, cds and other kinds of games to get the sounds down.. phonics helps too with this. Reading is not something that you need to push yet, just allow it to flow as it naturally does with your 6 yr old. It will come and if you do not make a big deal out of words he cant get, that was a big lesson for me! I was told to follow along while ds 1 was reading and just smoothly interject the words he stumbled with and help him not to get flustered. Eventually I would say it, he would say it and then go on.
Thanks for the help ladies. I will give some of your ideas a try. I forgot to add that we are using ETC also. He does want to learn and neither of us are in tears yet. He begs for me to teach him and I have changed things up but I was afraid that it might confuse him. No?
Honestly, it depends on the personality of your child. If you are happy and he is happy though than there is probably not a reason to change. I do like white boards though because you can write as many practice words in a day as you want and there is no end of page and you can switch it up so you are not doing the exact same lesson which can be memorized. I also did what Lindina did with things like adding a silent "e" but it does take awhile to start incorporating a variety of all those variations into your reading. Don't be discouraged though because though it's slow they often take off and start reading a lot from context and getting words with phonemes you haven't even covered yet. All of the children I have taught seem to learn in spurts like growing or maybe it just seems that way because they suddenly "get" something and then you meet another challenge.
We use ClicknKids. It's ok. You got to pay a one time fee to use it. I am not crazy about it, but it did work with our oldest. I am going to try readingeggs.
100 Easy Lessons is good, but my son got annoyed with it very quickly, though it works great for others, all depends on the child! We LOVE Explode The Code (I see you use it!) Starfall and Leapfrog. All have been mentioned here and are super fun approach to learning to read! They saved me from my fears of not being able to teach him!
My 4 year old wanted to read and was reading easy cvc words - I found for her changing to silent E first to teach long vowels worked well and she got the CVVC words after teaching the silent E came easily as she was used to the long vowel sounds. I stopped all cvc words during the time I taught the silent E and just concentrated on that. After that AI says A and so on just seemed to make sense to her.
Hey, I'm downloading this http://store.funnix.com/home/fnx/fbr2012_form_main.html for my youngest it's free until the 16th. It takes 2GB of space on your computer, but it's supposed to go from prereader to 3rd grade level...I haven't actually opened it and looked at it yet...but it's free, normally like $250 and I think there is a placement test with it. If you're thinking of switching just to get over a hump, might as well try free first, right?
