Afterschooling Kindy student with Phonics Road?

[BBG580]

My DD turned 5 in July, after a ton of debate we elected to try public school. We did not pursue much preschool with her and now we are realizing that she is stressed because she feels behind a lot of the peers in her class in writing/reading. After a conference with her teacher, who assured us that she is perfectly fine and on grade level for this point in the K year, I have decided to afterschool her with a phonics program simply because she is feeling badly, not because I think she needs to be more ahead than where she already is. Does that make sense?

Her school does not offer a phonics/reading program, I believe it is the whole language approach and my husband and I were both taught in that way and now he is a terrible speller as an adult. My mother was a teacher so looking back I realize now that she afterschooled my sister and me in phonics though at the time I didn't realize what she was doing because it was pretty fun! I'd like my own children to have the same benefit and after a lot of searching around and reading reviews I've zeroed in on Phonics Road.

Is Phonics Road too intense for an after school program for a K student? I would take it easy and focus on the first 4 weeks of the program to give her a good base before moving forward with early reading.

On top of this, my son who will be 3 in January is picking up letters and basic letter sounds from playing with his sister. He now knows by site all 26 letters in capital form and is working on the lowercase identification. I've largely left him alone because I don't want to push academics on him at such a young age but I think he would like more from me in the way of instruction. Is the initial 4 weeks of Phonics Road going to be too advanced for such a young guy? I am also considering Winter Promise's I'm Ready To Learn program for him even though he already knows all shapes (he even knows pentagon/octagon/rhombus and so on) and colors and has easily mastered one to one correspondence and counts items well up to around 10. He can already easily count to 25. Will I'm Ready To Learn be fun for him?

Thanks for any advice!

[ElizabethB]

I would make sure you teach whatever sight words they are sending home phonetically, here's how:

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/sightwords.html

Also, at that age I just like to do 5 to 10 minutes a day from a white board, here's what I'm doing with my son:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208407

Using this plan, my daughter was reading at the 12th grade level by the end of the year. My son is going a bit slower, but he should be reading at that level by the end of 1st grade.

[fairytalemama]

I don't know anything about Phonics Road, but I wanted to respond to your thread because your situation sounds a lot like mine.

I'm using OPGTR with my daughter 2 or 3 times a week (she's in 1/2 day K five days a week) and it has really helped her reading skills. Her teacher (at this point at least) is only teaching them sight words so it's making me feel better that she'll have a good foundation for reading in the future. We do a little bit of writing practice too.

I too have largely left my son alone. He can identify all his upper case letters and numbers through 10. I tried with my daughter at 3 to do the Letter of the Week curriculum and felt that it really didn't do anything at that early of an age. In fact, I didn't think doing anything academic sunk in with her until she was nearly 5. We did a lot of playing outside, baking, painting, reading books and coloring which reflecting back was the best thing I could have done. I'm going to take this path with my little guy too.

[cherylfoster]

I really want to appreciate you for this thread because I think it will help the students as well as their parents.I was looking for like this post only for my daughter. And i wish that you will post more good threads of this kind. Which give knowledge to others.

[AmyinMD]

Phonics Road would be way too much for a 3 year old in my opinion. After the 1st 4 weeks it involves writing, doing spelling lists, and marking words with the rules. I think it would be fine for your kindergartener. I haven't done anything beyond the first 4 weeks yet with my 6 year old son because he is really struggling with both blending and handwriting. I think he needs to have a better grasp on both before we do more with PR.

For your 3 yo the WP program sounds fine. I used that one occasionally with my twins when they were younger and they both liked it. I found it a little too structured for me for that age but it has a lot of fun stuff.

[mich311e]

I'm a big fan of Hooked on Phonics! I have an older version of K-2nd grade reading. It was inexpensive (the new version is more expensive). Very easy, fun and my son was motivated by the sticker charts.

We also use Phonics Pathways but it's not as fun as Hooked on Phonics.

Good luck!

[engu]

We also use Phonics Pathways but it's not as fun as Hooked on Phonics.


:iagree:I would second PP as a great teaching tool for phonics. It's quite dry and boring, but it WORKS and it's cheap. It's highly recommended as a good phonics program in the older WTM book.

4.5dd can read using PP, and a combination of starfall.com and BFIAR. Just reading a book regularly before bed is a great way to help both of your dc. DD stopped before the long vowels in PP, but she is able to read the BFIAR books on her own. That's all due to pp and starfall.com.

[johnandtinagilbert]

PR would be an excellent supplement. You'll soon notice that her spelling words will not be taught ala rules, either, save a few, anyways. Using PR will enforce those spelling rules, which are an extension of the reading method. Once she' in 1st grade, they'll kick in w/ spelling words and most likely assign a lot of busy work so the dc will memorize them. Learning the rules would really help.

If you have any PR specific ??? let me know. I'd be happy to help.

I have a friend whose ds is in public school and I was showing her how the spelling list was phonetic. She was shocked. They sent home this LONG list of "sight words" that, of course, were not. I sent her to Elizabeth's page. That is another place that would help.