Standing phonics on its head

Through my research into Phonics, I've found a different way to teach it. Most methods out there teach one phonogram = one sound. Student has a list of words to read & spell that matches that one sound study. Once this has been mastered, the same phonogram is re-introduced with a different sound. For example:

Lesson 81: EA = /long e/
meat, seat, seal, treat, read (/reed/) etc.

Lesson 96: EA = /short e/
bread, treachery, read (/red/),thread, tread, etc.

And sometimes EA can have a long a sound, too.

Another way to teach this is in complete reverse. We teach the long sound of E & teach the phonograms that all make the long E sound. Another way is to teach one phonogram and all the sounds that it can make. So a sample lesson might look like this:

Lesson 27: EA = /long e/ /short e/ and /short a/
Student would pronounce these 3 sounds everytime he sees EA. When he sees EA in a word, he would first try /long e/. If /long e/ didn't make sense (example: Mom baked a loaf of /breed/ bread), then the student would read the word again with the 2nd sound: /short e/. "Mom baked a loaf of /bred/ bread".

Programs that use this approach:

The Writing Road to Reading (Spalding)
Spell to Write and Read (Sanseri)
TATRAS: Teaching America To Read and Spell (note: TATRAS has much less emphasis on Spelling & isn't as indepth or complete a program as WRTR or SWR).

Apparently, this method of teaching has been given the name Vertical Phonics. I have yet to understand the difference between teaching Word Families, Progressive Phonics, and Horizontal Phonics, or if maybe all 3 are the same approach? But Vertical Phonics is definitely set-apart from all of the other programs available.

Free Phonics!!

In my pursuit for the perfect phonics program for our 1st grade year, I've come across some great FREE resources! Here are just a few:

Letter of the Week
Sound of the Week
www.letteroftheweek.com
This site has letter of the week for preschoolers learning letter names. One overlooked part of the site is devoted to Sound of the Week. This program has a sound combination that is focused on in activities throughout the week. A great resource for 1st grade! There is also a program for teaching spelling words.

Danielle's Place
http://www.daniellesplace.com/
Danielle's Place has a lot of good phonics/reading games. Some of the resources are free, some require that you purchase a membership.

BBC-Schools-Words and Pictures
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/index.shtml
Check out the links on the left nav: these have the different levels of games to play. There are CVC word activities and games, Consonant Clusters, Long vowel, Phonics Year 2, and high frequency words. I printed the pyramid game from the Consonant Clusters section and DD5 enjoys writing the words that we make with each roll of the pyramid. This has given us extra reading & writing practice!

Starfall
www.starfall.com
OK, who hasn't heard of this site yet? If you are one of the rare few, go on over & play!

Tanglewood Education
A Classical Education combined with Charlotte Mason
www.tanglewoodeducation.com
For the free reading program, click on 1st Grade (right side of screen on homepage), and then scroll down, down, down to Really Reading - click on the apple. Its in PDF form. Complete learn to read program in 21 lessons. Also, great booklists for literature & history.

A SPELLING Epiphany!!

I had a spelling epiphany today!! I've been fussing over what to do next year, and how am I ever going to keep up with the public schools when they seem so advanced??? And I started thinking - OK, forget public schools. What are MY educational goals for my children? I can tell you one thing that is the most important thing to me right now. I want my children to read, read, read, and read some more. I want them to love reading. I want them to say - "not now, Mom, I'm reading this book about planets!" -or- "can I do workbook pages later, I want to find out what happens in this book". I feel that until reading is automatic to DD5, progress in any study will be slow. By automatic, I mean she sees a sign that says "Do Not Enter" and she can't help but read the sign, because her brain just automatically saw the words and processed it. I want reading to be easy for her. I'll get to my spelling epiphany in a minute...

When I started teaching DD5 to read at the age of 4 1/2, I wanted to test my own knowledge and just see how I read words. How does my brain break apart sounds and interpret the sounds as letters? Does my brain do it in chunks, or one letter at a time? How do I know that a word is spelled with a K & not a hard C? I had my husband read 3 words from the dictionary - 3 words I have never heard before. I don't even remember the words, now. I wrote them down and came pretty close to the accurate spelling. I took the words in chunks, and pulled from my knowledge of word roots. Anything I had read in novels or non-fiction books came in handy.

The other day, my husband had me write down a list of tools he needed. One of the words was "pneumatic". How did I know how to spell it? I have read the word "pneumonia" before, and during Bible study, have read that "pneuma" in Greek can mean breath, wind, or spirit. I took that word chunk & stuck it with the end word chunk & viola! pneumatic.

Was it week after week of spelling word lists that gave me this knowledge? I aced my spelling tests by just taking a quick glance at the words before each test. I remember a few times ignoring the teacher completely. One day I was introduced to the word "machine" and had to write a sentence for it. I saw the word in print but hadn't listened to the teacher say it. I flubbed my sentence. My sentence was "I have many machines at home", I figured it was generic enough that the teacher would never know I didn't know what machine was. I got an A. I'm not sure when I learned that machine sounded like "mu-sheen".

All this to say...I learned spelling from reading good literature. I learned spelling from reading interesting books about history and science. I listen to a story and I am able to process the sounds and translate them into words and thoughts. I'll never forget learning odd words like "steatopygia" through my own study of Ancient Egypt in 8th grade. I made a point to use the word in sentences for English;) My English teacher wasn't pleased.

So will we fall "behind" the school system if we don't do spelling next year? I'm really thinking about focusing on our reading skills - getting those up to a 4th grade level, and then adding in spelling. My spelling epiphany is that I can probably give my DD5 more spelling skills through helping her to read well and easily, and through reading a lot of great literature. I think that is my answer for next year...

Tools of the Trade

Thought I would mention some of our homeschooling tools that have made teaching easier...

Electric Plug-in Pencil Sharpener: I was using a little handheld pencil sharpener. I was sharpening pencils several times a day - oftentimes breaking the lead and having to start all over again. I finally broke down and spent $15 on a plug-in pencil sharpener. It was the best $15 spent!!

Poster Putty: also known as Plastic Tack. It costs about .99c for a square of it, and the square will last forever. Hang your child's artwork without putting nails in the wall or using tape, which could ruin your paint. We also use it to post our learning charts around the kitchen. One other favorite use for poster putty: put in on the bottom of your child's paper as he is creating a masterpiece; that way the paper doesn't shift around.

Pocket Chart: this runs about $20 from Bob Jones University. Other places tend to sell it for $30 or more. This is great for playing word building games, math problems, and creating a calendar. Actually, I wouldn't mind having several pocket charts: one to devout to reading, one for math, and one for making a calendar. A pocket chart is simply a piece of cloth that you hang from the wall - the cloth has clear plastic pockets to display word cards, numbers, pictures, bulletin board displays, calendar pieces, or anything else you can imagine using it for!

why isn't learning to read easier?

Why isn't learning to read easier? Why are there all these stories out there of parents that didn't do much of anything and ended up with a natural born reader by kindergarten? I've noticed that most (if not all) of these stories have a taste of "whole-language" to them (in other words, child sees an entire word and knows that "orangutan" means a big furry ape-like creature). I find these stories very frustrating, since my children, thus far, have never seen a whole word & will never learn to read this way. I can tell that they will never learn to read without some sort of daily instruction and practice. But it seems so painful! And so disheartening to a homeschool mom that hears yet another success story of a child learning to read without any formal instruction. I want that too! My main goal for my children is to have them reading well ASAP. Why? Because there is so much joy in books, and I know they would get so much more from their books if they could read them. Because, sure you can learn things without reading them, but the information comes so much faster, easier, and better from print. I feel like we would enjoy our school so much more if DD5 could read. We do have many successes during our days. Yesterday DD5 brought down a book from the grown-up library because she could read one of the words in the title (the book was God After All, and she saw the word God). We do have these wonderful moments when a word clicks with DD5 and she has read something off of a sign. And yesterday, she sat at the computer and typed out "the orange cat" and had me make stories out of it (a story starter). Today, I am just wondering when will this reading thing happen a little faster? When will she read a sentence easily and maybe only find one word that she couldn't read before? It just seems such a slow and painful process sometimes!! I know there will come a point when she easily reads most words in easy reader books and the rest will build upon that naturally. But when?

Preschool

My 3yo is interested in all the typical preschool stuff. She especially loves cutting and has learned how to cut out pictures. She practices cutting a lot!! I spend a lot of time scouping up little pieces of paper from the floor, chair, and table. She has been trying to write her name, so I have started teaching her how to print letters. We are using Handwriting Without Tears. So far, we have used the HWT chalkboard to practice the first letter in her name, "Z". We have also used playdo to make a "Z" on the chalkboard. Soon I will print off HWT paper and have her print Z on paper. She loves to practice writing Z on pieces of paper. When she first learned to print a Z she said, "I'm good at this game!" To a preschooler, learning to sound out letters and write letters isn't a huge revelation that leads to conveying ideas and reading life-changing literature. Its a GAME! And its fun! The other day, I heard her in the car say "smnf" and then she exclaimed "I sounded out a word!" LOL. Its amazing to see these little steps and know that this puts her on a lifelong path of learning, reading, and sharing ideas.

Subtraction & -ing words

We are learning subtraction in math. I taught 4-3=1 for our example. DD5 picked up on this and right away turned the equation around to read 3+1=4. I'm not sure how much of that she understood, but I was amazed that she came up with that concept. We are also learning to count by 5s to 50. She wants to count by 5s to 100, so I promised her that we would do that as soon as she can count to 50 easily. I posted our 100 chart on our kitchen cabinet so that we can work on this in a few minutes each day as I go about my kitchen work.

So far we have covered sh, ch, th, wh, and now we are learning -ing. We've learned words such as bring, ring, sing, thing, and now words that end with the -ing ending, such as fishing, singing, etc. Tomorrow we will cover -nk (thank, ink, etc.). I was thinking I would take this opportunity to practice writing "thank you" and send thank you cards to Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle E for the nice Valentine's presents they sent.

We had a homeschool Valentine's Day party at our house last week. It was crazy with 6 moms and 13 kids, but a lot of fun. We had mostly boys here. We decided not to do craft projects but to let the kids run and have a good time, doing their own thing. I wanted to take pictures, but found myself so busy that everyone started leaving by the time I finally was able to settle down and enjoy the party myself! Everyone brought snacks to share, valentines to pass out, and a decorated valentine's box to hold their cards.

Phonics Programs

I have reviewed a few phonics programs: Hooked On Phonics, Phonics Pathways, and The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. Here is my insight:

Hooked On Phonics: if you use the tapes, then it is pretty independent. You can just have your child listen to the tapes and follow along with the flashcards or the workbook. It also has a lot of games that would be fun to play. The easy reader practice books are amazing! The earlier ones are b/w so your child can color them (if they wish). The later books have amazing illustrations and content, many books illustrated by famous authors. The disadvantages: HOP does NOT explain WHY certain rules apply. It does not seem to explain why OA sounds like long O, or OW sounds like ow (as in ouch) or long o (as in throw). The sight words are used to pick up the reading pace, which I don't mind - but DD5 is confused by words she has to spell vs. words she has to sound out. Many sight words can be sounded out if you have been through enough lessons (such as "like" can be sounded out if you know about the silent e rule).

Phonics Pathways: I LOVE how Phonics based this is and how much it focuses on blending sounds smoothly. Many, many lessons break things down so that your child has no choice but to blend the sounds. For example, the early lessons teach "a (short a sound) - sa - sat" Later lessons will begin with a break down similar to this, so that the child is still having to blend the sounds together. It teaches spelling rules, so you know that "c will make the s sound in words followed by i or e", etc. I really liked knowing why a word sounds the way it does.
Disadvantages:
Pages are not broken down into lessons - so you don't have any clear definition of where to stop or start. You might spend a few days on half of one page. Also, I thought that the whole pages of words looked overwhelming. To a mom like me who gets overwhelmed by the idea of having sooo much stuff to teach, this book scares me! LOL. Other than that, I really really liked this book.

The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading: I really liked this book too! This book (unlike Phonics Pathways) is broken down into lessons. You have a clearly defined start and end to the lessons. The materials to have on hand is simple. Just like HOP & PP, Parent & child work through the book together (so no teacher manual to have to juggle). You are supposed to teach blending of sounds, but the book leaves it into the parent's hands to manage that. It teaches spelling rules. I really liked how it would teach a rule, but it would also include the sight words that break that rule. So like, when you learn the silent e rule, you also memorize the words give and have, which do not have a long vowel sound & break this rule. I find that this book teaches the way I've naturally found to teach reading on my own. The games look fun and simple. The book is scripted & the language of it reminded me a lot of the kindergarten level Saxon Math. I like how the book does not emphasize handwriting. Your child can learn how to read without having to transpose the thought into written form (which I think is hard for this age). The disadvantages: The saxon math-like script might get kind of annoying (one reason I didn't pick saxon math). Also, I wish that it focused more on blending exercises & helped the parent through that a little more (Phonics Pathways has some wonderful "eye-robics" exercises to train & strengthen the eye for tracking & reading).

In a nutshell: I wish we could take the independence of HOP & its beautiful books, and combine it with Phonics Pathways emphasis on blending, and its eye-robics exercises, with the clear, concise explanations and broken-down easy to follow lesson plans of OPGTTR. I also wish OPGTTR didn't have such a long title! LOL. Picky, picky...

Count my blessings

I could've written "Today was the WORST homeschool day EVER! I mean EVER!" DD5 kept leaving the table in the middle of lessons to 1.) get a drink from her bedroom instead of the one on the table, 2.) Run upstairs and gather toys so that it'd be ready for her when lessons were finished, and 3.) chase and catch her sister, who stood there taunting "try and catch me!" Obviously, her mind was not on lessons. When asked about the future, DD5 will answer that she will grow up to be a bum, so she doesn't have to read, and she will climb into the garbage and find her day old lunch. While I was on the phone, she was misbehaving so I stuck her on the couch. While on the couch (so not technically breaking any rules), she gathered all the toys she could & had all the little pieces from 3 different toys thrown about the room. It was not a good day. But then, as I sat folding laundry, she came in voluntarily and began to help. She took charge. She saw my stack of towels and happily announced "I'll put these away!" She folded wash clothes and hand towels. She handed some of the work to her sister and helped her put them away. She saw the clean Barbie pajamas and was so excited, she put several pairs of pajamas away (with the promise that I would let her wear Barbie pajamas to bed tonight). All of this was voluntary and done very cheerfully. And so, my lesson as mom today was: "Count your blessings". Things may not be going right in the way *I* think they should be, but things are going right in other ways.

Story of the World & Mystery of History

At last co-op, I got the opportunity to review 2 history curriculums: Story of the World, and Mystery of History. I'll share my thoughts on these two books...

Story of the World, book 1: the wording was so simple & easy to understand. The progression is taught chronologically, not by culture. So first the book talks about Egypt, then Mesopotamia, then China...all in its earliest days, then it goes back to Egypt (Middle kingdom), Mesopotamia, China (etc.) in a later period, and then back through all the cultures again in their later periods. Greece & Rome are introduced at their appropriate time in history, as well. So you get a good picture of what the entire WORLD looked like at one time, not just one culture. The only drawback to this is that, if you wanted to treat history as a unit study (or do a project like lapbooking) I'm not sure how you would do it, since you don't learn about a culture in one big chunk. So if you were lapbooking SOTW, you would have to start a lapbook on Egypt, put it on hold, start a lapbook on Meso, put it on hold, etc. and gradually add to each one as you revisit the culture. Unless there is a better way to do this? However, SOTW is perfect for using to make your own timeline.

Mystery of History: the wording is a little more complicated than SOTW. Also, it feels more like a textbook. It teaches history chronologically, as well (like SOTW), but teaches it according to the order in the Bible. So first, Creation, then Mesopotamia (& Abraham & his family), etc. I can't remember where this history ends. A lot of people really like MOH, I keep hearing rave reviews about it. I honestly just didn't like it as well as SOTW - it is probably better for older students (though I have heard of 7 year olds using the program successfully).

I'm really considering Story of the World for our history curriculum next year (1st grade). I haven't decided if I will buy the workbook that goes along with it (I haven't seen that yet). I really just want history to be enjoyable. I may just treat it as a story without any added bells and whistles. Haven't decided yet...

Homeschool Co-op

We joined the local homeschool co-op, which happens every other Friday (so every 2 weeks). We love our co-op!! It really seems to fill in the extras that we would like to do on our own, but just don't take the time to do. The day is so busy! We have 10 minutes between classes. It is just barely enough time to pick up 2 kids from their last classes and deliver them both to their next classes, and then get myself to a class where I help out. Remember the first week of high school, when you had to find your classes in a crowded hall of other students? Co-op has that same crazy feel (but in a positive way!) with a huge gathering of homeschool students bustling from one class to the next and trying to find the right room. Imagine managing your high school schedule, but for 3 people!! It is a lot of fun and it is such an awesome support system for the homeschool moms. I leave feeling rejuvenated about my teaching "career". Here are my daughters classes:

DD5: 1st hour class is about Stranger Safety. 2nd hour: ballet. 3rd hour: storybook art. 4th hour: she hangs out with me. 5th hour: sign language

DD3: 1st hour Action Adventure (she learns her ABCs). 2nd hour: ballet. 3rd hour: Action Bible Stories. 4th hour: Playdo. 5th hour: playtime in the gym.

Me: 1st hour Blissful quiet time ALONE. 2nd hour: I help out in ballet with my daughters. 3rd hour: I help out in karate. 4th hour: DD5 goes with me & we attend a Mom's support group. 5th hour: I help out with the little ones in the gym, DD3 is with me.

We rush to fit a small snack in between classes. Everyone is tired by the time we leave & ready for a nap. We try to spend about 5 minutes per day practicing what we learned in our co-op classes.

Report Card

I read a great post on TWTM message board about creating report cards. It has inspired me to create a report card for each semester, for both my girls. It basically reads something like this:

Reading: completed lessons _ through _. Learned Consonant blends (st, sp, cl...). We practice reading a new reader each Friday. DD5 has also discovered that she can read several words from The Cat in the Hat and reminds me daily to practice with her.

Math: completed lessons _ through _. Learned Fractions: we made Pizza Fractions for lunch, and folded frog fractions for craft. DD5 understands whole, half, thirds, and forths.

I also include categories like Art, Home Ec (our cooking experiments and the great cleaning help that DD5 gives), Social, Phys Ed, etc. I try to write things that we would enjoy reading 10 years from now, and the things that grandparents would like to read (we'll send a copy to interested relatives). I think this type of report card will be much more enjoyable years from now than a simple card that says -
Reading: A+
Math: A+
Behavior: C (LOL)

The trouble is keeping each semester within one page. We've had such a rich & lively year! I've enjoyed seeing every a-ha moment. Overall, I'm glad I've chosen to be my daughters' teacher.