Bob Books by themselves???

[ellen_aaron]

For at least a year, I've been trying to find the right phonics program for my kindergartener. We tried SWR, Explode the Code, and Phonics Pathways -- he hated all of them, and none of the programs were really working with him, even though he has great phonemic awareness and learns letter sounds easily. He learned all the SWR phonograms easily, for example, but after List A, he could never remember how to spell most of the words no matter how much we worked with them. With Phonics Pathways, his blending skills actually seemed to deteriorate as time went on. Reading lists of words in isolation seemed to muddle something in his brain. Explode the Code seemed to be tedious for him. He really does not like a lot of repetition.

I finally decided to just put away all the phonics programs and just sit down and read Bob Books with him every day. Finally, this is something that is working! We read 3 books per day - 2 review books and 1 new one, and the process of reading is finally starting to click !!! Experiencing the words in the context of a story seems to help him connect with the process; each word is a puzzle to be solved to get to the reward of the story.

We are half-way through Set 2, and at this rate he'll go through all 5 sets by January. I'm pleased with his progress as far as that goes.

But, now I'm wondering what I should do about systematic phonics? I do briefly analyze the phonics of each new word in the Bob Books as we go through them (using SWR phonograms) but doesn't he need to complete a full phonics program to cover all the bases?

I plan to use the Pathway Readers after we finish the Bob Books, and starting in 1st grade I'll start him on All About Spelling. So I know he'll get the phonics eventually as part of spelling, but I wonder, will it hold back his reading progress if he doesn't complete a systematic phonics program early on?

I thought about just teaching him the rest of the SWR phonograms (we only got about half-way through them), but if I did that, should I teach them as we encounter them in our reading, or try to teach them in isolation again? (He really hated doing the SWR flashcards.) :confused:

Ellen
ds 6 yo -- Bob Books, copywork, Rightstart A
dd 2

[debbielong]

Well, children are all different, but what you describe is very similar to what I experienced with my now 7-year-old. He despised every phonics program I put in front of him. And, I, like you, ultimately resorted to exclusively Bob Books.

For us, this approach turned out fine. His 7th birthday was yesterday, and he is reading the Warriors books. I don't remember exactly how old he was when he was finally able to move forward on the Bob Books. I know I tried a couple of different times. He was at least 5.5, though.

So, for him, once reading clicked, it exploded. And as one might expect with a child who goes from Bob Books to novels in 1.5 years, his phonics isn't strong. He is reading with sight words and context. Still, he has excellent comprehension and retention. Learning to read without phonics did not hold back his reading progress.

He isn't a natural speller, however, so he is learning his phonics through spelling. I have found the Phonics Pathways book, that I tried to use to teach reading, to be an excellent spelling book!

None of our children learned to read with a systematic phonics program, and all three are very strong readers. So, it is possible to learn to read without being "taught" phonics.

But, everybody is different. One of the primary blessings of homeschooling is finding the approach to each subject that works for each child. Time consuming and tedious, yes! Ultimately rewarding, all the more so!

[dawn of ns]

The Bob books have been working here as well. I think it's simply that they put words in the appropriate context; telling a story. My son understands why it's useful to learn to read which wasn't happening with other phonics programs. Once a chil can see why something is useful to learn, Bingo!

[matroyshka]

I used Reading Reflex to teach the basic code, then we just read Bob books and other phonetic readers from the library, and just continued reading from there. I would point out new letter and sound combinations as we hit them.

Around 2nd grade I added Sequential Spelling through which I would reinforce spelling/reading phonetics.

My kids all have a really good grasp of decoding, so much that they learned to read Germain in 1st grade and Spanish in 2nd (well, the latter is ridculously easy to decode :-) and have had no trouble figuring out the different phonetic structures of the three languages. (I do attribute a lot of this to the fantastic way RR uses to explain phonetics.

[dkt320]

My 6yr old (1st grade) is using BOB books and a Plaid Phonics workbook, we also do sight word flash cards. He is progressing well.

[mo2]

For at least a year, I've been trying to find the right phonics program for my kindergartener. We tried SWR, Explode the Code, and Phonics Pathways -- he hated all of them, and none of the programs were really working with him, even though he has great phonemic awareness and learns letter sounds easily. He learned all the SWR phonograms easily, for example, but after List A, he could never remember how to spell most of the words no matter how much we worked with them. With Phonics Pathways, his blending skills actually seemed to deteriorate as time went on. Reading lists of words in isolation seemed to muddle something in his brain. Explode the Code seemed to be tedious for him. He really does not like a lot of repetition.

I finally decided to just put away all the phonics programs and just sit down and read Bob Books with him every day. Finally, this is something that is working! We read 3 books per day - 2 review books and 1 new one, and the process of reading is finally starting to click !!! Experiencing the words in the context of a story seems to help him connect with the process; each word is a puzzle to be solved to get to the reward of the story.

We are half-way through Set 2, and at this rate he'll go through all 5 sets by January. I'm pleased with his progress as far as that goes.

But, now I'm wondering what I should do about systematic phonics? I do briefly analyze the phonics of each new word in the Bob Books as we go through them (using SWR phonograms) but doesn't he need to complete a full phonics program to cover all the bases?

I plan to use the Pathway Readers after we finish the Bob Books, and starting in 1st grade I'll start him on All About Spelling. So I know he'll get the phonics eventually as part of spelling, but I wonder, will it hold back his reading progress if he doesn't complete a systematic phonics program early on?

I thought about just teaching him the rest of the SWR phonograms (we only got about half-way through them), but if I did that, should I teach them as we encounter them in our reading, or try to teach them in isolation again? (He really hated doing the SWR flashcards.) :confused:

Ellen
ds 6 yo -- Bob Books, copywork, Rightstart A
dd 2


I also gave up on phonics programs (after trying about 4 of them) and went to Bob Books. So far it's working. I may try to do some phonics a little later on.

[LivingOutLove]

What about starting a phonics/spelling binder for him? That way you can keep track of what phonics/spelling stuff he's learning?