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Teaching a child to read..
- This topic has 21 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 2 months ago by
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Hi Shanna,
Thank You for starting this post. My story is so much the same with my son who will turn nine January.
Some things I have used that are helping the process are;
http://www.clicknkids.com, there is a one time fee for setting up an account but it has been well worth it. You can try the lessons for free. I did this with my children before i set up the account. It has been well worh it for us. I use it about two to three times a week, you can adjust the lessons for duration and speed as well as repeat a lesson as many times as you want. This helped take some of the “emotion”
( me ) out it for him. I then have printed off the pratice sentences and we use it in copy work for reinforcement.
I am also using a remedial reading program (free) that came through a link from a previous post on this site. It is titled “Remedial Reading Drills”, by Thorcleif G. Hegge, PH.D. Samuel A. Kirk, Ph.D. Winifred D. Kirk, M.A. with directions by Samuel A. Kirk, Ph.D.. Interent Edition for Free Distribution by Donald L. Potter
Odessa TX 2005. The word lists are great, but what is best is the very simplistic way in which the course is used. I learned so much in just the 5 pages of directions for teachers. I think it was first published in 1936. I have added prayer and my own sense to make adjustments to this program, but we made big breakthroughs that helped him with his clicknkids program too. He is still not reading although he knows the sound of each letter now. He can make the sounds in a faster manner ( I inerantly would draw out the sounds, making them longer, trying to get him to “hear it” when it only distorted it for him), so that someimes he “hears it” for himself, this is the best reward for him!! This program helped me be a better teacher. I saved this file to my computer but not the site I got it from so that is why I gave you as much information I could. I am also considering the R&S reading program. I just purchased the math 1 and know it will be great for him ( he loves the thinking lessons from Ray’s Primary Arthmatic and i think that the workbooks from R&S will be a very good morale booster. He has strenghts that build him up and that is handwriting(italics) and math. I have decided for a time that we will enjoy those and develop them at the rate he is able. I think he will gain more confidence in his sucesses in these areas and that will help him as he tackles the one that is not so esay. I thank Faith for her great suggestion of building a sight word list. I can see where confidence will come with the ownership of a list of words that are mastered without the labor of hearing and sounding.
I am also using http://www.starfall.com
When we go to the grocery store I find three letter words for him that he has had in the lessons from home ( just when I see it and as the Holy Spirit directs me) I do not want him to feel hounded by me to read. Which is a big challenge for me because don’t we all REALLY want our chidren to read well and soon?!
I just look forward to any other posts on this and if you do the R&S I would really like to know your impression of the materials and how it turns out for you.. as those are the next steps I am thinking of taking.
May the Lord Bless you!
Heather
I had a time with my DD (5). We also tried 100 Easy, Alpha Phonics, Phonics Pathways. Nothing would click with her. So, I got the Explode the Code Primers that teach the letter sounds. From there I got the “I See Sam” books from
http://www.roadstoeverywhere.com/BRI1.html.
When I took out book #1, she read it the first time. Today she’s started book #11.
They are very CM friendly in my opinion. No phonics to study separetly. She loves them.
Take a look.
I have a question concerning reading and phonics. I just re read CM’s thoughts about reading and I am confused. She said that you can introduce the alphabet and the child will learn it on their own. My daughter is five and a half and she does know her upper case alphabet but we are working on the lower case. She desires this so I am going with it. After the child has learned their alphabet you move onto two letter sight words (e.g. an in at) and then put a letter in the front of those sight words to make three letter words like bat and cat. We have done this, but with all the phonics talk I don’t know if I should be teaching specific phonic rules. I’m stuck. Do I have her master some larger sight words and just forget about the phonics? I need some help from you mastered home schoolers.
Great questions. Charlotte used a combination of phonics and sight words. On some days the child would learn sight words, using a familiar, fun rhyme. Then other days they would take a word from that rhyme and use it in a phonics way to teach a “word family” series (like “star,” “bar,” “car, ” “tar”).
As far as phonics rules goes, I like to teach them as we come to a situation in which they are needed. For example, when we’re doing the word family exercise, I’ll mention the phonics rule that applies to the word family we’re learning about. And later, when the child starts doing easy readers (like the Pathway Readers, for example), if we come to a word the child doesn’t know, I’ll give the phonics rule then while he’s interested and has a need for the rule and will remember it because he applied it right away.
Now, let me mention that I’ve used this “minimal” phonics rules approach with my oldest three daughters and it worked well. I am finding that with my youngest (with autism), I will probably have to do more coverage of phonics rules because she has a hard time generalizing, or taking what might be true in one situation and applying it to the next situation. But I still want to teach the rules as we can apply them immediately. Does that help any?
Hello Shanna and everyone,
Have you tried the Montessori method of teaching to read? Before I became a homeschooler, I wanted to be a teacher. LOL I ended up being a teacher. Anyway. the Montessori method works really well with children with disabilities including speech. Basically you are color coordinating, the vowels would be blue, consonants red, and phonograms green, diagraphs are a different color and i think that was purple (well i had forgotten and used purple ). They call this the movable alphabet. I used this with my son utnil he was 9 and then it all finally clicked in. Basically your spelling small words and then increasing the words with word families. then changing worlds. The color coordination seems to help them wehn they read. He suffers form a speech impedement and some auditory processing problems. He never really went to speech therapy until he was 8, I was strong armed by my family. To be honest I think we were doing fine and the speech therapists thought so too. It is all about time. In reference to comprehension. Since he was small we acted many of the stories out. I got to know my son’s body language when he didn’t understand what the story was saying. I stop and ask him if he knew what I had read and he would give me a different version or just shake his head no. Here at this point I would become so fustrated. Through alot of praying , God decided we should be in thearter. LOL I started acting out lines and he would start to act out with me and the compreshension came along. I know it sounds time consuming, but it really did help. Another thing we did was use explode the code series, yes they seem really childish but it really helped and I also implemeted it when we spoke. He would say cat instead of cast and I would ask him just like in his workbook, do you mean cat , as in meow or cast as in I broke my arm? It seemed less intimidatig and nagging to him. Antoher thing I ran across this past year was an AVKO program that many people use for speling. I didn’t use it for spelling, but I used it more for reading. We only have book1 and will be getting book 2, but this was really great for dffering sounds. This year, he wanted a spelling work book he likes analogies and he wants to learn to spell so we gave him the scott foreman one. I think he wants independence from dear old mom when it comes to spelling. Iknow how fustrating it is, but it will come in time. I will be praying for you son too. God’s grace was good and will be good to your son too
My kids aren’t special needs, but I would like to chime in for the “whole-word” method of teaching reading. Phonics didn’t click with my son and he learned to read using the whole-/sight-word method
I teach spelling after the kids are fluent readers. Phonics come in handy when spelling, but then again, many words are simply memorized.
I think we’ve been conditioned to believe that teaching phonics is the best way to teach reading, when really it’s only ONE way. If your child responds to the look and shape of words more than blending the individual letters, whole-word reading might be helpful.
He’ll get there, I’m very confident in that. All the best to you.
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