How to know when it's time to stop phonics?

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  • August 23, 2015 at 6:13 am
    andream
    Participant

    how to you know when it’s time to stop phonics instruction?

     

    August 23, 2015 at 7:25 pm
    retrofam
    Participant

    I think that depends on what your goals were for starting phonics,  and how your child is doing with reading and spelling.

    For example if your child is reading and spelling well, and simply needs fluency practice,  I feel it is ok to stop phonics,  and continue with other spelling instruction.

    Another example is if your goal for phonics was simply to get the child started with reading, and they caught on quickly,  then I say it is ok to stop.

    If your child has dyslexia and is struggling to read, you may want years of intense phonics.

    We have experienced both sides of this. Reading Reflex is my current favorite,  and one child flew through it in months, while another had years of intense phonics.

     

     

     

     

     

    August 25, 2015 at 8:58 am
    HollyS
    Participant

    I agree with Retrofam.  It seems to really vary by family or child.  We generally cover only basic phonograms and phonics rules, which I believe is how Charlotte Mason covered it.  Classical homeschoolers generally cover quite a bit more and spend more time memorizing these.  With my DC, I generally cover phonics from grades K-3rd.  After that we begin dictation.

    We start with learning basic letters.  After that we start blending simple words (cat, pan, etc.).  Then we begin with the McGuffey Primer and learn new words as they are introduced in the reader.  As their phonics lessons progress, we spend less time learning phonograms and more time just practicing reading.  By 3rd grade, we are mostly working on reading fluency with just a bit of phonics instruction.

    Factors of when to stop phonics include figuring out your goals for phonics and if your DC has met those goals.  Do you want just the basic phonics instructions or do you want to cover it in detail?  There are pros and cons for both viewpoints.  Also, some of my children have gone through phonics lessons quicker than others.  A struggling reader may take much longer to pick it up.

    August 28, 2015 at 2:47 am
    andream
    Participant

    Thanks for your responses. Do you think it is important when a child is around ten to spend some time learning some of the harder letters that go together? Like -tion, -sion? Things like that for breaking down longer words? Do you ever go over prefixes and suffixes?

    Thank you

    August 28, 2015 at 7:54 am
    retrofam
    Participant

    We have covered those items in different ways depending on the curriculum we were using.  Sometimes it was part of phonics,  and sometimes spelling.

    August 28, 2015 at 8:27 am
    HollyS
    Participant

    My DD used the 6th grade level of LLATL last year and it spent quite a bit of time on prefixes and suffixes.  I think most of it she’d already understood just from reading books.  I’m not sure it was wasted time, but I’m sure she would have been fine without covering it too.   Dictation would be a good place to cover these topics as they come up in the dictation passages.

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