Explode The Code

It’s been a long time since we used Explode the Code because my children are older.  But back in the day, we supplemented the workbooks with the online Explode program (available through subscription…I think it is still avail on Homeschool Buyers Co-Op…you can google it).  The variety of book and online might make a difference for your son?  It did help the “boredom” for my boys, but I really, really question whether anything from Explode really “stuck” for them.

We did Explode for some time with my eldest two boys because efficiency in reading was slow to come for them.  Like your situation, the Explode sentences were easy for my boys –  but applying the skills in their readers really didn’t seem to be happening.   I so much wanted my boys to become great readers and just didn’t know what else to do – so we kept up with Explode.  If you are in school and this is the requirement, I would guess you are stuck with it.   But if you really want results, I’d suggest you do something else as well:

I look back now  (having had several more children, all of whom learned to read in different ways/with different strengths) and realize that there is nothing like simply sitting with a child (one-on-one) and reading aloud together.  Schools can’t do this one-on-one with every student, so they use programs like Explode.  But daily one-on-one stretches of reading aloud and sounding out from real books is way more effective in my opinion.   In my house we call it “Buddy Reading”.   Child reads a couple of sentences and you read a couple of sentences.  For his sentences, when he stumbles on a word:  stop, sound it out for him, say the word yourself, and then say the word together.  Don’t make a huge lesson out of it – just sound it out by yourself, say it once by yourself, say it once together and then move on.   Most important is just doing it EVERY day – – for as long as he can handle before getting bored.  And keeping things light and happy.  At the height of our time doing buddy reading, we would read sometimes for 15 minutes in the morning and again for 15 minutes in the afternoon.  Sounds like a lot, but I can honestly say it never felt like a chore.    The book choices are the key to keeping this a happy activity.  Use Paddington (there are many, many books in the Paddington series and lots of words that require sounding out).  If Paddington is too hard at first, trying starting with Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and such…

Bottom line is that by “buddy reading” with your son, the story will still “move”  – and therefore the experience is usually a nice one –  because you’re enjoying the plot, the scenes and the laughs together.   This (the enjoyment factor) will ensure you keep doing it!  Most importantly, the skill of sounding things out will begin to become second nature to him because he’ll see YOU doing it, over and over again, while still moving through a story.

HTH!