Reading & Phonics

[ARC]

[Jill]

My children learned to read using the BOB Books. Once they got through the first set of books, they took off reading everything in sight.
SO...they never really got good phonics instruction. They were awesome readers but horrible spellers.

I found All About Spelling (based on the Orton Gillingham method) to try to improve their spelling. It really stresses the phonics rules and has worked wonders.

They have added a reading program called Beehive Readers but I haven't used them personally.
Best wishes!

[sartasd]

We used Christian Light Education: Learning to Read light units. We found them at Rainbow Resource. We will begin the last unit next week, dd is already picking up chapter books and reading them on her own! She is even spelling words that her brother struggled with.

In the past I tried Teach your Child to read in 100 lessons, We tried Liberty Press readers, and also other programs with some or little success for our first child. He is reading now but only after lots of work and practice. He still struggles with spelling.


Rainbow Resource will send you a HUGE catalog that is so full of resources that you won't even be able to read it all in a year! Rainsbow resource covers every subject. I find their prices are wonderful and alot of them lower than other places.

their link: www.rainbowresource.com if you want to examine all the reading resources they have. Christain Light Reading is only one of many that you can use. There is also Pathway Reading (Amish)that is similar to Christian light.

We also use Starfall.com dd loves starfall. We have their workbooks and minibooks.

[Bettyd52]

You might want to try the book How Jill Learned to Read Using Phonics. All all the resources are in one book. It is a heartwarming story of a young girl who learned to read. The books she read and her struggles and successes. Reading A_Z is an excellent resource that I use when teaching my students.

[mschickie]

I used the Horizons Phonics program and that worked well for dd. We also supplemented with things like Bob books (and other phonics books) and sites like Starfall.

[ncmom]

[pecangrove]

[elliemaejune]

There are several excellent phonics methods/products in addition to those published by ABeka, BJUP, and other similar companies. I tend to prefer those.

AlphaPhonics, Phonics Pathways, and Victory Drill Book are all comprehensive and phonics-based and easy for a homeschooling parent to implement.

My favorite is Spalding and its spin-offs, Spell to Write and Read and Phonics Road (which has a longer name I can never remember, lol). Spalding teaches children to read by teaching them to spell, and in the process also teaches penmanship, capitalization and punctuation, and punctuation. There is some lead time for the teacher (that would be you) to learn how to teach the method, but the results are *amazing.* It can be tricky to implement at home with multiple children of multiple ages, but it's worth the effort to figure it out.

[hscoach]

My children learned to read with Abeka phonics. Even though I am not a huge fan of Abeka, I do really like their curriculum for teaching a child to read. It works!

[rocketcitymama]

My children respond very well to ClickNKids.

The web site makes it look campy and not very "professional", but I'll tell you what, it works.

I started my 1st grader in mid 1st grade in November. We started about halfway through the Phonics program. At the time she was reading very simple "level 1" or "level 2" readers. We did 1 phonics lesson a day on ClickNKids and now we are on level 97 and she is now reading simple chapter books independently. (The program completes after 100 lessons.) She is 7 yrs old, and IMO pretty average academically. Clearly reading at the public school was progressing much more slowly.

My 4 yr old preschooler expressed and interest in the program so I bought a second license for her to use as well. She does not use it regularly - as a preschooler I am not making it mandatory for her, it's just for fun. She went from reading nothing to now reading and spelling basic words and simple sentences. I frequently hear her in the back of the car saying things like "Muh- Aaa - Ttt - MAT. MOMMY! I know how to spell MAT! M-A-T!" Seriously zero effort on my part, she has done maybe 6 or 7 lessons.

The great thing about it, IMO, is that the kids can do the lessons entirely independently. All I do is have them read back to me the small paragraph from the lesson report, and do supplemental reading from whatever library books they check out as practice.

[lisakinter]

I'd pick a curriculum partially based on her interests and learning style.

One of my kids never really did any phonics. While she was a toddler, she had us read to her. Constantly. One day, she started reading the books to us. At first, we thought she had memorized them but in fact, she had learned how to decode without any formal or visible phonics training.

The other of my kids learned to read through an absolutely classic phonics approach, consonants and vowels, combinations of letters etcetera.

Another question to ask is does your child like workbooks/textbooks (Abeka, AlphaPhonics, Phonics Pathways, etc) or online learning (Time4Learning.com, ClicknKids, Headsprout)?

Lastly, do you want a comprehensive integrated curriculum or do you want to assemble an eclectic mix yourself?

Comprehensive: Abeka, Spalding, Time4Learning.com etc
Eclectice Elements: Headsprout, SpellingCity.com, Alphaphonics etc

[ARC]

[sartasd]

My dd loves Christain light Education's learn to read. She just finished the program and is in grade one of CLE. You can compare CLE to Abeka, both are similar, only real difference is that Abeka is expensive and in color and CLE is cheaper (under 70 dollars for reading) and in black and white with old fashion pictures.

If she is reading just move onto the next grade, when my kids finish one grade we start a new grade after about a 2-3 week break (we don't wait for August).

Keep reading to her, borrow library books and read, read, read.

[Jakk]

[heidijo]

I had never heard of ClickNkids. Thanks for sharing the discount. It looks like fun if your children like the computer approach. I think lisakinter made a great point and had great examples of programs to use for different learning styles.

Not every program works for every child and no one knows their child better than the parent.

We used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for all 4 of our children and somehow it worked for all of them. We didn't do the writing part though. Bob books were OK, but didn't teach them enough. Abeka looked WAY too complicated.

With our last child we found All about Spelling and love it.

Just keep letting your daughter move ahead at her pace. It sounds like you are doing a great job with her if she is reading so well and so much.