This Progressive phonics is great!! They have handwriting as well as phonics. This is a keeper! I also like how they teach phonics by reading. There is a short story. Some of the words are big red letters while the rest are normal font. The child is expected to read the big red letter words while the parent reads the regular font words. Interesting method.
They certainly are all individuals! I've got my grandson (finally!) into the last of the 10 Learning to Read units, which we should have gotten into in January. I just could not make him review or read a lesson over again no matter what! Not the first page, or even part of a page. He absolutely refuses! He has also refused (until now) to do a reading speed drill, and insists on sounding out before. blending. every. single. word. He's refused to read the lists in AlphaPhonics anymore - he got up to about list 12, I think, but doesn't even want to see the book. This week, I dug out my Victory Drill Book (when I saw that CLE now sells the revised edition, it jogged my memory) and we're going back over the short-a list. For the first time, I've convinced him to be timed! Yesterday he read 20 words a minute -- the speed VDB lists as preschooler level. He'll need to do 40wpm to move on to the next page, but the page has 100 words, 20 in each of 5 columns for ease of counting, and he can read either down or across, starting on any column or row, so it's different each time (he absolutely refused to do that with the Learning to Read exercises!). He needs tons of repetition, but just won't consent to it. So now that he has most of his phonics down, I also dug out my old set of Ginn Basic Readers, the preprimers. They're on the order of Dick and Jane, but with Tom, Betty, Susan, Bunny, Flip, and Pony. (I had managed to track these down on the internet several years ago, but they're the Revised Edition from the early 60s, not the originals from the previous decade that I had in first grade.) Yesterday he read completely through My Little Red Storybook (the first preprimer). I already had a strong feeling that he doesn't have a strong visual memory, which is why he still has to sound out everything -- put that together with not liking to review/repeat, and it's a really good thing that I have TONS of materials I've collected and saved up over the years. Just this minute he came to me and said that he LIKED My Little Red Storybook!!! So I guess it's on to the Green! You never know when the maturity, or desire, or whatever it is that it takes, is going to come, so just keep on keeping on! When he was 4 we had used Starfall, and 100 EZ Lessons. He had practically memorized Green Eggs and Ham, and Hop on Pop. Then when he was in public kindy, he lost all desire to be read to, so out went the Dr. Seuss! I think it's time to drag those out again too!
I am late in answering this one... but I had one child who had trouble with the actual reading I read a book or article somewhere that said to not allow them to struggle over the word but sit there beside them and gently say the word they were struggling on and have them repeat it and continue on. Eventually it became easier. The 6 yr old who comes to hang with us and I read some things and when he comes to a word he sometimes will substitute a word he knows automatically for the word. So I do the same thing, gently repeat the word for them and they will continue on enjoying reading because it will not be difficult. I found when I forced him to sound it out all himself it became too 'hard' to read but once we started 'reading together' and did it this way reading became a good thing!
I am tutoring a boy with autism and learning disabilities. He was having trouble learning to read. The program below was the key to getting him started. He did not finish the program, but it was amazing to see him have success from the beginning. http://www.learntoreadfree.com/ Blessings, Susan
Have you used the "Learning to Read" section of Starfall, not just the letter sounds section? Just curious....because it works on blending the sounds together. It doesn't help much with the certain letters saying more than one sound, other than the vowels.... Also, I agree with the "sometimes you just have to wait for it to click" and it does. That lightbulb goes "on" and it's done!!!
