Delightful Reading

I was using DR as a ‘gap-filler’ for my dd6 for awhile last year, but we ended up discontinuing it. I think that the method behind it is great (starting with words you know and have learned in a meanigful context, and then using it as a starting place to build other words with a similar sound pattern). What I found, though, is that she was really too far advanced to gain a lot of benefit from the program as written – we were spending too much time on words/word families she was already comfortable with and not enough time on the areas where she needed more work. (She was reading on around a first grade level or so during the time we were using it – She could read Dr Suess type books and the Pathway Gr. 1 readers fairly easily, but most other things were still difficult/frustrating for her.) What I ended up doing was just having her read to me daily and then using the same basic method as the DR lessons used to spot teach on the specific sounds I noticed she still struggled with.

Soo….that all said, I think it depends on exactly what your son is struggling with in reading. If he still has a difficult time with reading overall with a lot of noticeable gaps in decoding skills, then I think it would probably be beneficial to him to go ahead and work through DR with him. If he is on his way to reading fluency and just has gaps in decoding skills here and there, or with specific sounds, then it may be better to teach to those specific areas rather than work through the entire program with him. Either way, I would highly recommend having him read something out loud to you several times a week at a minimum, daily if possible – even if it is only a page or 2 at a time if he frustrates easily – I would say this is what has helped my dd reach a point of reading fluency more than any of the more formal stuff we have tried.

Blessings,

Jen