Phonics help

[mom2agang]

I'm so lost with my daughter. She is 7 1/2 and can't read. I tried 100EL and phonics pathways. She can get her blends like /sa/ /se/ /so/ /si/ /su/ but then to add /sa- t/ she is totally lost. She knows all her letter sounds. Is there a phonics program that will help? Every!!!!! Day we are in tears. She can write fine and loves math. She is at grade level for everything else.

[Ottakee]

Check out the I See Sam books. They are phonetic books but they take things at a slower pace and give a LOT more practice.

http://www.teacherweb.com/CA/PomeloDriveElementary/Mrssakamoto/printap2.stm Here you can see the first 2 sets for free and print them out if you wish. www.3rsplus.com or www.iseesam.com are the websites to buy the books.

They start out and look super easy. They start with 5 sounds blended into 3 words. That is it for the first 2 books. Then they add another sound and a few more words and slowly build from there. Each new word is used 5 times in the story and then used in each of the following 5 or so stories.

The website (the one with the free books has terrible directions, don't follow those) has information on how to use a cursor/notched card to help with blending, tracking, etc.

http://www.prometheantrust.org/soundfoundationsbooks.htm also discusses this in their Dancing Bears teacher's books--you can see the entire book online for free.

These are the books that finally got my struggling readers going. I have posted about them quite a bit so you might be able to find more posts on them as quite a few people here are using them.

[merry gardens]

I'm so lost with my daughter. She is 7 1/2 and can't read. I tried 100EL and phonics pathways. She can get her blends like /sa/ /se/ /so/ /si/ /su/ but then to add /sa- t/ she is totally lost. She knows all her letter sounds. Is there a phonics program that will help? Every!!!!! Day we are in tears. She can write fine and loves math. She is at grade level for everything else.:grouphug:

You say she knows her letter sounds, but many people who "know their letter sounds" add vowel sounds to the short, quick consonants like t, making the t say "tuh" rather than a quick /t/. Lots of popular children's educational programs and many teachers add those extra "uh" sounds. Added vowel sounds can confuse some children because the word is sat, not sattuh.

You report she's blending C/V (consonant/vowel). The next step might be to blend when the vowel sound first, like the at in s-at. Not every child is ready to move onto three sounds quickly.

You might also want to make sure she hears the individual sounds in words. Reading involves blending; spelling involves the breaking apart of the sounds. A number of reading programs approach reading by combining it with spelling. And some children require extra work with individual sound before moving onto blending sounds.

Barton's website has a screening for their program that might be helpful to check out. My son couldn't pass part the screen because his phonemic awareness was too poor. so we went through the LiPS program by Lindamood first. LiPS introduces both C/V and V/C before C/V/C words. Before any of that, it works with how to make and identify the individual sounds of letters.