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Reading instruction
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I have an 8 year old that is feeling keenly the fact that he cannot read. We have used the Victory Drill Book through five children with success. Now I’m thinking that we need to try a different approach. Any recommendations?
Thanks,
Cindy
I like the Scaredy Cat Reading System, but I wonder if maybe it would take too long for him to have quick success because there are several books in the process. Although, you may be able to skip some of the beginning books.
My other thought is a book that really helped my friend, Tammy, get her child “over the hump” to reading successfully. It’s called At Last, A Reading Method for Every Child. I haven’t used it, but I know she highly recommends it.
Just two possibilities. I’m eager to see what others suggest.
We used “Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons”. After 15 lessons they were reading simple stories, after a few more, Level 1 readers. We didn’t finish the book with either one of them and once they were easily reading Level 2 readers we just launched off on reading good books. They both LOVE to read and are completely undaunted by adult literature…they’ll try anything (and actually do pretty good)! For us, it was a good thing. And Donna Young has a whole series of accompanying worksheets to go with it…http://www.donnayoung.org/penmanship/100ez.htm.
Thank you. We actually did try the 100 Lessons about a year ago. I found it confusing, but am assuming that it is my own confusion because so many have used it successfully. He was thrown with the long vowels because he has the Victory Drill Book ingrained in him that does only short vowels for quite a long time. I was constantly correcting his pronunciation. I had difficulty following some, not all, of the directions. Maybe you could give me some advice on where I may have gone wrong. Perhaps Donna Young’s worksheets would help with the flow.
I guess my biggest concern at this point is confusing him with yet another method. After years of homeschooling, we’ve had ample opportunity to see how confusing it can be for a child to be pulled from one method/curriculum to another–I say this sheepishly :).
If there were a curriculum that could help, and that we could move easily to from the VDB, I’d love to hear about it. I’m going to check out the program you suggested, Sonya. Gr8tfulCMom, if you have any advice, I’d appreciate it. I’ve also heard the Keepers of the Faith’s phonics curriculum is similar to VDB, but, the author says, better. I’d like feedback on that, if anyone has used it or looked through it.
It’s interesting; we have 5 voracious readers in the house having gone through the VDB. Just when you think you’ve seen it all…
My heart goes out to him when he says, “I just wish I could read.” But God is using it and we are thankful. Everyone that can read gets to learn to minister to the one that “should” but cannot. I get to empathize and encourage the heart of the parents that have children that so much want to read but just have not bloomed yet. He gets to learn that God makes not mistakes. It’s good to learn how to walk closer with Jesus.
Blessings,
Cindy
Cindy, I just want to thank you for the encouragement your post gave my mommy-heart. My daughter with special needs has been working on three-letter “_at” words for more than a year now and some days can be really discouraging. She’s not at the “I wish I could read” stage yet, but I sometimes find myself feeling sorry for her — that it just isn’t clicking. You are absolutely right that it is an opportunity to remember that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I can choose to be thankful that it gives us more mommy/daughter time because I still “have to” read to her one-on-one, and that it is a built-in ministry for her siblings. So thank you for turning my focus to God in this area today.
I wanted to chime in why I think At Last! A Reading Method for Every Child was a winner for my children.
First, the lessons are short and do not contain reams and reams of busywork.
Second, the program blends both sight and phonics: the child learns common letter combinations that make no phonetic sense and learns ONLY the most common sound used in English for a phoneme.
Third, it focuses children on context when they sound out a word and it makes no sense. For example, you are reading a story about a child fixing lunch. Your child reads the word bread with a long e. You teach them to think about the story, does breed make sense? No, but if you twist the sound to bread and see that the boy in the picture is holding a slice of bread. The author calls it a twister. I thought this sounded too complicated, but my very literal daughter with autism caught onto it right away. She rarely catches onto new things quickly.
Fourth, when totally stuck, they call it a killer and the child comes to you. When older, they are taught to look things up in a dictionary.
Fifth, to make sure the story flows well, you usually practice reading any unfamiliar words before the story so that the child can read through the entire story with hardly any glitches.
A good book to read on the subject, whether you use their method or not, is “Teach a Child to Read With Children’s Books”. I used the 100 Easy Lessons a few years ago with my now 10 yodd. She wasn’t having problems reading, I was having problems being consistent! Teach a Child to Read…is not a pull out of the box and do it program, but I like how Mark Thogmartin stated it’s not “either/or”–it’s both! Phonics and sight reading. My 10 yodd went from finishing 100 Easy Lessons to reading some of the recommended books (there is an extensive list of children’s books already graded from PrePrimer through 2-2, meaning second grade second semester) last year, then in May took off with chapter books! I’m planning to use this with my next two dds, if I can get my schedule under my control! (That’s a whole ‘nuther post!)
Hope that is helpful!
Trisch
This has been a great thread.
“I’ve also heard the Keepers of the Faith’s phonics curriculum is similar to VDB, but, the author says, better. I’d like feedback on that, if anyone has used it or looked through it.”
We are using the Mott Media McGuffey Readers from Keepers of the Faith. I DID purchase the corresponding workbooks for Reading and Writing but have since decided to leave them off. Instead, they read the lesson silently or aloud to me, narrate, copy words and then do some oral spelling. It has been working *beautifully*. I will add that we have struggled tremendously in the area of reading with two of our three sons. Our 11 year old has been reading fluently with comprehension for a little over a year. Our twelve and nine year olds are still in the decoding stage. Ughh…it has been a hard road for this mom who read at 4. We keep pressing on, encouraging them that God has a plan and we just need to cooperate with Him.
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