Homeschool World Forum

Hi! I was just wondering what people have used to teach their children to read. I have a 4 yo who is interested and so far we have used homemade letter flash cards, reading a lot of books and we have written out the letters but we have not moved on from there. I was wondering how many people teach by sight , and how many by phonic recognition? I do not want to mess it up from the beginning!

While I am not a big TV advocate I have to highly recommend the Leap Frog dvd's that teach phonics. The Letter Factory, The Talking Words Factory, Code Word Caper and finally the Storybook factory. Our son loves them and they are great jumping off point into phonics.

Starfall.com is a great website to get them into reading and it's free!

Thank you!

My kids really liked the Bob Books.

It sounds to me like you are off to a great start! I used Alpha Phonics to teach 4 of my 5 kids to read, and it has worked very well (child number 5 hasn't started yet). Naturally, I believe phonics is the way to go. Though there may be words they just have to memorize (but not many) learning phonics will teach them to read anything. One thing though, a child of 4 may, or may not be, ready to read. Just be sensitive to his/her readiness. If child is getting frustrated (and so are you), you may need to take a step back and just continue what was going smoothly. That has been my expirience anyway. Have fun!!

I used time4learning.com and Bob books along with some other easy readers/pre-readers. It just sorta happened for us. It wasn't a real conscious process just a result of doing what we were doing.

Don't laugh, but if you're going to do phonics, let me recommend renting The Electric Company DVDs. There are 2 volume sets--- each volume set has 4 DVDs; each DVD has 5 episodes on it.

This show was all about phonics and only phonics. My kids (ages 4 and 5) have absolutely LOVED them. I have to admit, I get a lot of jokes now that must have breezed over my head when I was a kid. So, I really like watching them, too.

I think that program really helped bridge the gap for them that the sounds letters make are put together to make the words. They're reading basic words through phonics now.

We did Leap Frog DVD's and the Bob Books. He really took off with those!
Cally

I have taught reading using phonics since I was 12 years old. When I started homeschooling my first 2, I taught them a totally-phonics approach using the Dr. Seuss beginning readers. I have since learned that some phonics people abominate the Seuss readers as whole-word books, but since there are no instructions in them I had no problem adapting them for phonics use. My kids were reading at a college level by the end of 2nd grade.

With my third and fourth kids I experimented with a bit of whole-word just to see what happened. I didn't care for the results, although they are both pretty decent readers anyway, so with #5 I'm avoiding the whole-word materials and going back to all-phonics, all the time. LOL!

Before starting them on reading the Seuss books to me, I take them through the alphabet doing first all the letters that make just one sound, then those that make 2, then those that make 3. Then we do digraphs, silent letters (every letter is silent in at least one word in English), a whole unit on just "ough" which has about 7 sounds, and then I have them memorize the vowels. Mostly this is oral discussion, but sometimes I make worksheets for them pertaining to a hard-to-remember topic. (Today my 4-y-o colored sheets of H, Q and W because their sounds are not in their names.)

We also have a set of 200+ early-learning card games that are a joint project of Bantam Books and the Children's Television Workshop. I go through them in my own systematic way at the same time I'm doing all the above, from age 3 through about 2nd grade.

I get them lots of books from the public library every week or so at their reading level.

I have them read me their own names, names of the rest of the family, print matter around the house (eg. a sign on the living room wall that says "Home Sweet Home"), and signs we see out and around.

I don't have all the Electric Company stuff, but I sure love their methods. We occasionally watch the little we have, and I always copy their approach.

Ramona

Phonics is the way to go in teaching your children how to read. It sounds like you've made a good start. After your child knows all the letter sounds, particular the consonants and short vowel sounds, he or she can practice blending. Put your flash cards together. If they have trouble linking the two sounds, draw a slide with the blend or consonant at the top and the rest of the word at the bottom. Tell them, "Make the 'c' go down the slide and run into the 'at.'" Then use simple phonics readers such as Bob Books.

Hi-
Wow, you're getting some great advice here! For me, even though this is my first year teaching, I was a professional teacher and have hs other people's children and I've found that PHONICS IS ALWAYS THE BEST. Depending on how your kids learn, you want to involve as much of their senses as possible. For example, have them write a letter and say its sound at the same time.
I love using the old-fashioned books because our forefathers were great readers and writers! You can go to Mott Media or Christian Books and find the original McGuffey Reader set, and it now has a parent-teacher book, too. The English language has about 80 phonograms-1,2,3, and 4-letter combinations with 1 or more sounds. I've taught them like flash cards to my 4 kids and they are doing so well. My 10 yo daughter was barely reading and now is up to grade level and beyond, I'm sure, in just 8 months. You can get a set of these "phonics made easy" flash cards through Mott Media or in the Rainbow Resource catalog. I know this is a lot of info, but Reading is so important. Feel free to send me a pm or personal message if you have any questions.