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...