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Phonics in Delightful Reading?
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So my understanding is the Delightful Reading teaches reading in a whole word/language format…is this correct? The phonics are added in later, and only in small part?
I guess it could be the PSer in me that balks at that idea, but I also have looked into whole language versus phonics before (looking at the “Your Baby Can Read” product) and read alot of research that showed that phonics is very important as a building block for future reading skills. I have also read several old posts in this discussion forum by parents who used Delightful Reading and later had concerns with their kids’ phonics or lack of.
SO…if you have used it please give your input on whether you think it is effective in the long-run as far as kids being able to increase their reading level and word difficulty, etc. That is my main concern. I am an avid reader and am passionate about instilling a love for reading into my kids. I’m so nervous that I will pick the wrong curriculum and cause them difficulty in this area!
Thanks in advance.
Laura, I haven’t used Delightful Reading but I certainly hear you on the debate about balancing whole word/context/phonics in teaching a child to read. You may want to check out one or several of Ruth Beechik’s books as I believe several of them talk about combining the two reading approaches. Another suggestion – I own and am just beginning Valerie Bendt’s “Reading Made Easy” with my 5 year old. This is a very cost effective (and well reviewed) one year program. It’s designed to begin around age 5 or 6 to teach reading using what is supposed to be the most carefully thought out balance of sight/whole word and gentle phonics.
My other two kids began their early reading programs in PS and were already reading when I brought them home, but I can tell you they were completely lost on strategies to figure out new words (it’s still a bit of a problem to be honest). The approach that had been taken at the PS was a combo of sight words and very loose phonics. It seemed to leave my boys pretty lost on both methodologies but perhaps that was just my kids and/or our particular ps!
Hopefully you get a response on DR. I do recall that some of the Moms here use DR and/or something like it, and then just do a little Explode the Code alongside to get some phonetic awareness built into their kids. Perhaps that’s an idea for you.
Blessings, Andi
LauraNthree, DR teaches reading with a combination of sight words and basic phonics. It is not an intensive phonics program, but basic phonics are introduced and reinforced via the word building activities.
I am using a mix of DR and Spell to Write and Read. DD loves moving the letters around to build words, but was getting frustated trying to sound things out when they were blends, and she would ask “why can’t I just sound it out”. I then was given Spell to Write and Read but DD was feeling lost. So we are learning the phonic rules from Spell to Write and Read as we do DR and I think we have finally found what works. It seems that with reading many times it is not just one program that woks, but sometimes a mix of different ones.
We did something similar to what Sarah described above when I was teaching my dd to read (although the DR kit wasn’t yet available at the time she was at that stage.) I wanted a little more phonics than the word family approach taken in DR, so as we came across new words in our reader, we did DR style word building lessons using the same phonogram or rule, if that makes sense. I found this approach quite effective in that it took the DR approach of learning words within a meaningful context, rather than just off of a list in a phonics book, and still gave her the tools she needed to attack unknown words with similar sounds, if that makes sense.
Jen
I didn’t know about DR when I was teaching dd to read. I used the word building from CM’s writings as well as reading nursery rhymes the way CM did. But I also felt that dd needed something more. About that time wé were given some old copies of Abeka readers and the Abeka Handbook to Reading. We received no lesson plans or anything. We just used these materials in our own way. Reading really started clicking with her and after going through the first two little readers, she just took off reading everything. We still pointed out phonics as we came to it in story books.
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