Hi all, New to using curriculum with my almost 5 year old. Just started formal reading work from 100 easy lessons. He picked up on sounding out with the 100 easy method/orthography right away but does not want to do the practice exercises anymore. He saw that there are pictures later in the lessons and wanted to do those exercises as well. Last night I let him go from picture to picture, having him first read the little story. "Sam is mad" or "This cat eats" followed by looking at the cartoon that goes with it and answering the comprehension questions. When there is something new, I skimmed back to when it was introduced (a new sound or a new way of marking the end of a word or something like that) and we reviewed it. What do you experienced reading teachers think. Just roll with it until there's a problem? He still needs phonics work, but we can do focused lessons on the new sounds. Like his mom, he wants to master and move on, not much into practicing! -Kim
I started 100 easy lesson after my daughter already mastered the basic phonic sounds so all the repitition got old fast and we would often skip it if she already knew it. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That's great that he is doing well with the stories/picture/comprehension. My daughter really enjoyed that part as well.
I am about 20 lessons in with my 3rd kid, and have used the 100ez with all of them. I wouldn't skip lessons. I go through them quickly and let the kids tell me how much is too much, but I found that skipping lessons with my first actually made him have troubles later on in the book, because the parts that I found boring or he didn't like ( like the rhyming, and sound writing) really helped cement into his brain things I didn't realize it would.
I used 100 with both kids. I would let them do their part of the lesson without all of my scripted part. After a while they got the do it fast do it slow stuff and did not need me to read that. Some times I would skip part of a page if it was too much review. I had a spell with both kids where they wanted to read the story with a picture and move ahead. I would hide the book and also I would fold over the pic until they had read the sentance. Some times I would fold a corner up or down of fold the page long wise. It became a game to get enough done to get to the next pic story as soon as possible.
I had to hide the pictures too with my other two, as well. I paper clip the pages together, top and bottom, so they don't jump ahead without learning the new stuff first. I think their brains are growing and learning so much the review is needed to keep it fresh until it has time to be put away where it belongs in their filing system. One day they act like they know everything then the next day they can't tell me a single sound. I also had them stop about half way and we had to wait a month or so and resume because it was like a mental block they just couldn't get it.
Thanks for all your responses. Here's where we are at now. Skimming ahead, pausing to introduce new sounds, try to do a rhyming exercise daily (he really resists this, but has been able to do it well when he is willing) and practicing writing with finger in corn meal each day. He's still working on "th" vs "t-h" and we haven't introduced any alternative vowel sounds yet. So far so good. I'm not rigorous yet on working every single day, but we're doing about 4x per week.
UPDATE: I'm a working mom, DH has his own way of doing things and we do best when we don't try to coordinate too much,sooo..... I am giving up! (Not really). August (will be 5 in June) just isn't into "doing school" with me right now. I was amazed at how fast he learned to really read, I mean, he's really reading! "the rat is sad, the ram is not sad" and that is super fun, but he's not really into it now, he doesn't see that it opens an amazing door, and I've decided to drop the subject. I'm not home at the right time for making this happen, anyway. I work until 2pm or 4pm, and by that time he's not really feeling cooperative. So, as a homeschooling mom, I'm going back to not schooling my 4 year old at this time. I know some of my recent push to start school is ego driven. He just isn't ready yet, I guess! Kim
He's probably bored with the book. If he's really reading, he probably just needs a few simple, colorful books to read and look at. You did a great job getting him this far. He has a great head start.
