need phonics affirmation

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!

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…

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.