Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: beginning reading, phonics, readers, reading

This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 4 months ago by HollyS.

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

Author
Posts
August 31, 2012 at 7:18 pm
eawerner
Participant
Dd is 6 and can currently do ok with books like Frog and Toad, Little Bear, etc. I’m wondering when we stop doing a ‘learning to read’ curriculum and just practice reading. Or do you just constantly do both? Do your young readers read to you every day? A couple times a week? Do you shelve the curriculum for a couple months and then pick it back up if they start to get stuck on something?

August 31, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
I had my beginning readers read to me every day from the Pathway Readers. If your son is already reading Frog and Toad books, you could probably start with Days Go By and progress to More Days Go By, then (2nd grade level) Busy TImes and More Busy TImes, then (3rd grade level) New Friends and More New Friends. Once they were able to read easily the third grade level books, I “turned them loose.”
September 1, 2012 at 1:03 am
binky
Participant
Sonya,
I am doing DR with my turning 7 in late october son. I was going to have him read the first pathway readers everyday as well. Should I wait to begin the pathway series or is it ok to run them side by side? Should I use little bear and frog and toad readers before we start pathway? Thanks for the input.
Binky
September 1, 2012 at 2:36 am
Sonya Shafer
Moderator
Here’s what I did; you can decide if it fits your son or if you want to tweak. 🙂
We did the first few lessons of DR, going until we finished Rain. Then I started adding in Pathway Readers, beginning with First Steps, every other day. So we did DR on M, W, F, and Pathway Readers on T and Th.
September 1, 2012 at 3:24 am
binky
Participant
Thank you so much! That sounds like a great idea.
September 2, 2012 at 3:32 pm
SueinMN
Participant
I would suggest that you have them read aloud some of their books until they are in fourth grade. By then they should be able to share in family Bible reading too. When I was teaching my oldest I made the mistake of not keeping up her reading aloud and she forgot how to do it. She could read silently and understand but somehow she couldn’t read it aloud any more. I didn’t make that mistake with the rest of my children.
Phonics is only necessary until they are reading well. Once they take off in reading switch to a spelling program of some sort.
January 4, 2013 at 6:44 am
Christine Wood
Participant
What about the accompanying workbooks? Did you use them? If so, did you use them until the third grade? Thanks
January 4, 2013 at 3:45 pm
HollyS
Participant
We’ve been using the McGuffy readers (since my oldest was 6), and the material goes through high school ages. They are available for free at gutenberg.org, but I finally picked up a used copy.. I plan on having them read aloud all through school. I want them to be able to read aloud well as adults. My 5th grader only reads aloud a couple times a week (she does independent reading each day as well), but my 2nd and K’er read aloud daily. I alternate the McGuffey readers with “fun” books like Frog and Toad or Amelia Bedelia to keep their interest…although they do seem to enjoy the other readers as well.