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Learning to Read
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My son just turned six years old. For the past six months, we’ve been using Explode the Code books and reading aloud to teach phonics/reading. Over the summer I’d like to start using a more formal reading program with him. I looked at two of the program’s listed on the AO site…Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and Alpha-Phonics. Can anyone recommend one over the other, or share their experience with either, or recommend a different program all together? Thank You!
We use 100 easy lessons. It works, but it was torture. My daughter hated doing it. With that said she is reading at about a second grade level now. She just turned 6 in April. The stories are not interesting. It is very scripted which I needed, I like that I could not mess it up because it told me exactly what to say. We didn’t do the handwriting that each lesson called for. We technically sill have 6 lessons left to do before we finish the book. My favorite thing was that it has comprehension questions as they go so they aren’t just reading it teaches them to actually pay attention to what they are reading.
We also have used 100 Easy Lessons. I agree with Kayla, it worked well, but it was very rough with my daughter. I think that in our case, it was mostly me though. I felt a lot of pressure and worried that she wasn’t going to “get it” if she struggled with something. I should have just slowed down and relaxed.
I used it for my son a couple of years ago, and it was a completely different experience because I gave him the time that he needed. If we needed to go back and do some lessons over so that he could build his confidence, we did it, and it worked well for him. I only wish I had employed that same attitude with my daughter, but I guess you live and learn.
We’ll be using it for my daughter this next year. The one thing that’s nice about 100 Easy lessons is that you can get used copies relatively cheaply. You could get it and try it, and if it doesn’t work for your child, you can try to other option. I’ve heard of people that loved it and people that hated it, so I guess it just depends on the kid sometimes. Hope that helps!
If you like ETC, Sonlight has a program we used that goes along with books 1-3. We kept up ETC after that too though, and their I Can Read Word List book matches ETC through book 5 or 6. It is what we used and I would not hesitate to use it again. Their copywork comes from the readers, which also match ETC. We did not use all of the teacher’s guide and worksheets in it though. The main part is the set of I Can Read readers that go along with ETC. You could pull your own copywork from them and not have to use the teacher’s guide.
We used the 100 easy lessons book as well. However, I did not do it every day. I tried to keep the lessons very short and enjoyable. We never did the writing part of the lessons. We did it all orally. When my daughter was halfway through the book, we put it up and started practicing using easy readers every day. My friend used it with 4 kids and she used it the same way.
We used the 100 easy lessons book as well. However, I did not do it every day. I tried to keep the lessons very short and enjoyable. We never did the writing part of the lessons. We did it all orally. When my daughter was halfway through the book, we put it up and started practicing using easy readers every day. My friend used it with 4 kids and she used it the same way.
I used a similar approach with my two girls. Because they like workbooks, after 100 Easy Lessons they continued with ETC workbooks and we read together every day – Frog & Toad, etc.
Hi AFthfulJrney, hope you’re doing well. I would like to share my experience with you — I hope it will help you and especially your child.
A year ago I bought an ebook online, and to my surprise, the results were very impressive. My child was able to read within 12 weeks after I had gone through the book and used the simple methods which were mentioned. I hope it will help others as well as it helped me as well.
Here’s a story of us and how we trained our child to read which was published on a news blog:
http://www.newsdailygroup.com/my-son-could-read-before-he-was-even-potty-trained/
Here’s a tip which I would like to give: You NEED to give something to your baby in order to make them read. Remember how we all used to tame our parrots? Give it some seeds and let it sit on our finger. Similarly, you have to reward your child as soon as they hold a book. It will be difficult at start but your child will develop a habit — that is for sure.
I like Reading Reflex, which I bought used on Amazon for a few dollars. I use All About Spelling letter tiles with it instead of the paper letters that are recommended.
I did not like …100 lessons. The stories aggravated me.
For my struggling reader I bought Ring Around the Phonics game.
Thank you all so very much for your time in responding! I’m so torn on what to do with him because I struggled greatly with teaching my daughter how to read and want to do better this time around. I never quite found anything that “clicked” with her. We did ETC and Pathway readers as well as lots of reading aloud, but she’s still not a very fluent reader and I feel that it was because of something I did.
I don’t want to invest in a costly curriculum because I believe reading can be taught without all that, but I do know that I want some sort of guide or outline pointing me in the right direction so I feel confident tha am doing it right! This is why 100 Lessons and Alpha-Phonics appealed to me. Cheap used and both have gotten a lot of positive feedback on various sites. I just trust the SCM community so much that I wanted to ask here and see what feedback I got. I may purchase it and give it a try over the summer and see how it works. Would be so thrilled if he was a reader before we start back to our more scheduled, routine, days in August.
wings2fly – thank you for the Sonlight recommendation. I’m trying to find this program used on various sites. Will I be ok just purchasing the Teacher’s Manual and then borrowing the books from the library or finding them used?
retrofam – thank you for the reading reflex recommendation. I’ve never heard of them before so will definitely have to look into it!
AFthfulJrney, you can also check your local library for what options they might have. Our local library had 100 Easy Lessons, Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, Hooked on Phonics DVDs, and lots of easy readers. If nothing else it might give you a chance to peruse some different curricula before you buy anything to see what might work for you.
jawgee – I actually did just that! 🙂 I love my library and was so happy to see that they had all the titles of different programs available for me to put on hold. I also found them all pretty cheap on a few used homeschool book sites! So, once I get a chance to skim over them, I’ll hopefully have a better idea of what will or will not work for us and I’ll head over to one of those sites and purchase it! Or, I may not like any of them and be back at square one! :/
100 lessons for our family was a disaster. Alpha phonics was better, but still not the easiest for my kids. Two out of the three kids, I have taught so far, have really struggled with reading. We have a family history of reading issues, so I don’t think it is the program. I do like the lists in alpha phonics, and my neighbor borrowed the program and loved it. Good luck finding a system that works!
One recommendation that I don’t see very often is The Reading Lesson. It is an option in one of the Heart of Dakota packs, but otherwise it doesn’t show up very often. It is very phonics-heavy and I’m not sure it would jive with Miss Mason…but it is a solid program.
With my firstborn, we simply read through it. There were a couple of hiccups where he didn’t enjoy the lesson as much, but nothing compared to some of the stories of difficulty that I have heard regarding 100 Easy Lessons. The Reading Lesson also has a supplementary cd rom, as well as a downloadable reader (which I think was a free .pdf). My son knew his letters and sounds when we started, but was not reading. By the end of the year (at 6), he was reading at a 2nd grade level. A year later (at 7), and with no further reading instruction (just good living literature), he was reading between a 4th and 5th grade level. (Decoding words like “motivation” and “interview”.)
Now, I will say that my little guy is very “language-smart”, so reading came easily for him. However, I do feel that TRL gave him an excellent basis from which to grow. 🙂You could also check out the Joyfull Shepherdess blog for a run down on CM reading lessons. It is very thorough and she has all the posts combined into one pdf download. Another option is to check out Brandy’s CM reading lessons using BOB books on her blog Afterthoughts.
If you are interested, I have both Reading Reflex and Phonics Pathways on my shelf but they are looking for a new home. Email me at eawerner at uwalumni dot com if you would like them. Used, but super cheap. 🙂
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