Phonics

I have no experience with CLE. Are you trying to have your child read an entire story in one day in AAR? I would suggest you slow it down and break the story up into a few days of reading instead until he’s ready for more in one sitting. We never do everything in a lesson in one day. We almost always break a reading up over more than one day. Those pre-reading sheets – are you skipping them? Because they really are helpful for gaining fluency if you use them. Again, we even break those up over more than one day. You don’t have to finish a lesson in a week. My 7 year old is in AAR level 2 right now. I have 4 older and 4 younger than him. 3 of the older ones I taught to read without any real program. 1 of the 4 older taught himself to read before I could teach him anything (he was reading chapter books at age 3.5, just taught himself).

Just because he knows the sounds doesn’t mean he’s ready to read fluently, as you can see. He needs lots of time and repetition and practice to gain fluency with what he has while slowly adding more. It’s one of the reasons I love AAR. Use the word cards. Use the letter tiles. Use the fluency pre-reading pages. Use the activity pages (we keep ours in page protectors in a binder and get to pick out 1-2 for practice each day). Use the readers. Use, reuse, and take your time. Let him really master the lessons you’ve covered instead of moving on when he hasn’t mastered them (gained fluency). It doesn’t matter what age a child is when they learn to read so there is no rush to get through a program quickly.

I don’t know yet if we’ll use levels 3 and 4. At some point most kids just take off with reading and ‘get it’, so I am guessing we may not need level 4 at the very least. However I have also had one of mine need explicit instruction in every facet of reading, who would have used all 4 levels if they had been available.

I guess all that to say, I’m open to getting and using all 4 levels. And as I have 4 more learners below the current learning to read child they’re a great investment for me. We will simply reused everything 4 more times.

About the very scripted nature of AAR – I love that it is there so I can literally open and go, no thought, no preparation on my part. However on days or weeks when I have time to read ahead what we’ll be working on I don’t use all the scripted bits. I just study that myself and share the material in my own words. So I don’t feel tied to it, but I appreciate that it is there when I want it.

I say do what works for your child. How old is your son? Is he stuck on just that sound (ng)? I would consider moving ahead 1 lesson and keeping up some short daily review of ng too, but if he grasps the next lesson fine just trust that some sounds are harder to hear and developmentally come later so if you are working with a child on the younger end you may be asking him to do something he’s not quite developmentally ready for with the ng sound.

You haven’t mentioned how old he is, but honestly, I don’t think you need anything else at all assuming he’s 7 or under. Remember, many places are not even remotely starting to teach reading until age 7. Also, all studies show that outcomes are better for children who learn to read later, than earlier (assuming neurotypical children without learning delays). Learning at 4 or 5 or 6, gives no benefit, no edge, over children that learn to read later at 7, 8 or 9, and in fact, they often end up behind those that learn later.

It’s very easy to memorize a rule, or a simple sound. It’s a lot tougher job to blend them together. I think the worst thing you can do is start overloading a child who is struggling with yet MORE work, another program etc… If anything, back off for awhile, give him time to mature.

What can be taught in 6 months at 6, can be taught in 6 weeks at 7, can be taught in 6 days at 8. If we would just wait until children are actually developmentally ready, the learning process would go much easier/faster.

So… at the most, just continue with what you’re doing and just continue to read to him, every day. Get him some simple BOB books if you want, or the I Can Read It! series is great, if he WANTS some extra practice. Otherwise, if it is stressing him out, then I would back off.

The range of the normal age for learning to read is 4-10. The median is 6-7. There’s no reason to rush it.