Fun reading lessons

We tried SEVERAL reading programs before we switched to Delightful Reading. DD is 7. We both love it. I think it’s very child and parent friendly and definitely gentle. We enjoy the time we do this now and it tells you pretty much what to say.

All I used for my first three was a small phonics handbook from Abeka that my sister gave me to get them putting sounds together and then we just started reading the Bob books and a Dick and Jane book. (sorry that’s not very cm’ish though) but we just went our own pace and went back if we needed to review a sound. It worked well and that’s what I will do for my last one as well.

I have a question, is your child learning/retaining things from 100 easy lessons? If so, with you being more than half way finished, I would talk about how it’s not the funnest part of your day but that as soon as you finish ____ lessons it will be done. Maybe even set up a celebration to look forward to. It could be enough to get you both over the last part of this and done if the program is actually working (teaching him how to read). I would guess if you have made it this far he really is learning from it, it’s just not fun. I would stick it out for 30 lessons and plan a fun celebration together = start planning NOW with him. Motivation to just keep going may be all he needs to breeze through the last little bit here.

If he’s not retaining what it teaches then drop it!

We haven’t really used a curriculum. Oldest learned a new letter group’s sound each week beginning at 3.5 and all week we did a fun theme with it, so ‘fr’ was frog week, etc. She was asking about letters/words, or I wouldn’t have tried it. Then we started reading the Now I’m Reading sets by Nora Gaydos and they’re funny animal stories so she loved them. She took off into chapter books at 6.5.

For next child, a son, he had zero interest in letters so we played games from Rocket Phonics, which we were given to review. He learned letter sounds and could sound out basic short vowel words, but that was it. He had speech delays and needed surgery at 4 to fix them too, before we began Rocket Phonics. We dropped it for just homemade practice once he knew letter sounds. We have All About Reading Readers, Now I’m Reading readers, and a few Pathway Readers now. He is wading into easy chapter books and turned 8 a few months ago. He doesn’t adore reading but has never hated it either. Just does it to get it over with so he can move on with his day.

Third child is a girl, she picked up letter sounds at 18 months from a Leap Frog dvd in about a week. With her there were no formal lessons, just playing with letter sounds and reading from readers, which she enjoyed. She’s just turned 7 last month and started happily reading easy chapter books this month. (She’s finished 2 in 3 weeks.)

Fourth child is a boy. He taught himself to read at age 3, no help from me. He’s now 5 and chapter books are easy for him. Reading was never a chore to him but I never really had to do much in the way of lessons either.

Fifth, sixth, and seventh children are boys ages almost 4, 2, 1. The almost 4 year old knows all his letters by name or sound but has zero interest or ability to blend sounds yet, so we’re not doing anything about it. If he’s not made that move by the time he’s 6 we will begin formal work with readers. But until he’s ready to blend he can’t read. No hurry. The other two little boys are not ready for letters or anything.

What I have found is the more we play with words/sounds/letters and the less I worry about it all the better it goes. Games are fun. We like readers that begin very simple, but we move up once they’re able to do those. I figure if a child hasn’t shown real interest by age 6 we’ll begin formal phonics practice each day.

Needless to say every child is different!