Name: CHEC Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-06-12T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Denver, CO

This topic has 7 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 6 months ago by wearejenandkev.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

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November 19, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Tia
Participant
i have the abeka phonics curriculum. i’ve pretty much ditched the teacher’s manual and just started teaching the sounds and reading the readers (i DO love the readers). i want someone to tell me it’s okay just to teach her the sounds without the language and spelling portion. i also don’t need the intense review that they factor into every lesson.
i also need someone to tell me it is okay that she doesn’t remember every single sound every time i put it on the board…that this will come with more and more reading practice. she is reading frog and toad books fluently…we only have a handful of sounds left to learn. i want to learn them and move on! someone please tell me this is okay. unless it’s not, then please tell me i’m being irresponsible! LOL
November 19, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Rebekahy
Participant
It’s OK! Skip the spelling, skip the grammar, those come later. My DD 6 hasn’t yet finished our reading program (sing, spell, read, write), but she seems to already know the rules/blends/sounds that we get to before each new lesson. If your daughter is reading frog and toad, she probably knows more sounds than you think and may know them used properly in a word, without knowing them all by themself up on the board… Could you tell me what OO says? maybe not, but you can read the word cook, book, look, you can also read balloon, noon, soon. right? While phonics IS important, how often do YOU really use phonics these days? Exactly. Almost never, even when coming across a brand new word, chances are that if it is odd enough that you haven’t seen it before, it probably doesn’t even follow that phonics rules. So while phonics is helpful for beginning readers, I find the more frequently and prolifically they read – the less important it becomes.
November 19, 2010 at 9:29 pm
MamaSnow
Participant
Yes, I’d say it’s fine. My daughter started learning to read at 4 and we just focused on the sounds, and skipped any writing/language aspect of it. (We are starting to let those things come up to speed as she gets older and more interesting in actually trying to write and spell words and sentences.) We also started with a reading curriculum, which we then ditched later in favor of reading books and learning the sounds in context. Later, we’ll take the newer sounds we have encountered in our books and play around with other words with that sounds with some letter tiles and a little white board. I have found this much more successful than first reading lists and lists of words with a certain sound, and then trying to remember them when we encounter them in books. She still needs gentle reminders as we read together now and then (“Remember, ‘ay’ makes the long a sound”), but the more times she encounters words within the story, the better she remembers. And in the end, if she is reading books like Frog and Toad fluently, I’d say whatever you’re doing is working! Phonics, I think, is a means to an end not an end it itself.
HTH!
November 19, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Esby
Member
It’s okay!!
November 20, 2010 at 12:25 am
suzukimom
Participant
Not only do I say it is OK… Charlotte Mason would say it is ok too. In her writings she (paraphrasing) said not to bore the children with phonics, but to let them learn interesting words…. That is definitely a paraphrase…. but there is a lot in her books about teaching reading…. and beyond doing the basics on the sounds the letters make, and a bit of word-families, really the main part of it was to learn whole words.
So basically, I go with a mixed approach.
And if she is reading Frog and Toad fluently, she is doing fine. Find good books for her to read, and if she needs help figuring out a word, explain the rule (or exception) then…
November 20, 2010 at 1:35 am
Tia
Participant
thank you all so much! as a new homeschooler, i am most drawn to miss mason and her writings (obviously, since i’m here! LOL), but i have found it the most hard to let go of the traditional grammar/phonics stuff. living books, nature study, etc. are not hard for me to get on board with seeing as i love the outdoors and books naturally. i was so scared of not teaching her to read correctly, i felt the need to do something very organized and steamlined. it was actually when i started teaching my 4 yo to read this year (per her request) that i realized all i needed were books and the list of sounds to learn. it was then i thought, “why don’t i do it this way with my oldest as well?” 🙂
i have definitely found that seeing a word in context helps it stick a lot better. i wrote “ould” on the board a million times and she could not seem to remember it. but, she reads would, could, should in books without hesitation. go figure! thanks so much for your assurance!! 🙂
November 20, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Sue
Participant
Teaching the skill of reading, overall, is a bit like trying to get someone who has not climbed a ladder all the way from the ground level up to where they can walk on the roof. If your goal is roof repair, you’ll be climbing a ladder. Phonics is like the bottom rung or so. The ladder may look long and perhaps intimidating, but you have to start by just getting on and steadying yourself on the first rung.
How long you need to stay on that rung before moving on varies according to the individual, but eventually, it’s time to just move on! If you sense your daughter is ready to move ahead, just finish up those last few sounds and don’t worry about it. The rungs of spelling and grammar will come later on, and they will probably be easier to handle.
I have a son (autistic) who took a very long time to move through phonics–just the basic CVC words were hard for him to recall. However, he reached a point where it seemed as though he was reading fluently beyond the sounds I had taught him and could read words with sounds we had barely covered. Then I knew it was time to condense the remaining lessons and move on.
November 23, 2010 at 7:58 pm
wearejenandkev
Participant
If you choose to stick with the phonics, then I would suggest the book the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise. It is available at my local library. So, you may check yours. I have used Abeka phonics before and it is not fun! But, OPGR is much more teacher friendly! It takes about 15 minutes a day, which is all my kids could take of phonics! But, they learn a lot in that 15 minutes!
Jennifer