Learning to read

[samssugarmomma]

Help! At 4.5 Natalie has decided that she is "sick and tired of not being able to read" and wants to learn. I totally support this but I'm not sure where to get started.

She knows all of her letters and the sounds that they make. She can identify them and write them. I have a few preschool workbooks (that are way to easy for her) that I bought at a teacher supply store and they have sections on phonics - but it is mostly one letter sounds - not putting two or more letters together.

I've tried to start working on helping her put letters together and sounding the out (cat, mat, dog, etc) but I think that we'd both benefit from a workbook or a program - something with instructions or lesson plans - not me just pickng random words.

A friend recommended the book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" and I've thought about picking up the BOB books.

Homeschoolers, other parents - what "system" did you like to help get your kids reading?

Definitely try out www.starfall.com. We tried it after someone else on here (Cumberland?) recommended it. DS had a lot of fun playing the games and caught on pretty quickly.

We also bought a couple of the beginning BOB sets, but DS didn't care for them at all. I don't even like reading them so I can't blame him. Do you have Hop on Pop?

[ladymoreta]

I also decide I wanted to learn to read before they were ready to teach it in school. Since she already knows her letters and sounds, I'd say jump right in and have her "read" to you. My parents didn't have any program or workbooks, but they started me on books that we had. Since I already knew the stories, it helped me learn to start recognizing whole words at a time. Then I could sound out the ones I didn't remember.

My parents kept a book with stickers for each book I read. Stickers were a big motivator for me.

[Rapunzel]

I use a program from McGraw-Hill in conjunction with the Evan-Moor phonics workbooks.

The McGraw-Hill program is 96 books total going up through a third grade reading level.

If I were going to do this with less of a financial commitment (those books are price-y - as in $600-$700) I would start with the Bob books. It's the same concept as the very beginning McGraw-Hill books. If you want a good workbook that helps with the "rules" of basic phonetic reading then I would recommend the Evan-Moor phonics book series (workbooks levels A-D which cover preschool through third grade material). If you can find a workbook that covers the Dolch sight words you'll be pretty well covered (the Dolch sight words are the basic words that a child must memorize in order to read meaningful text from the beginning - words such as "the", "to", "school", etc.).

If you want to find any of these books a Google search should turn them up really quickly. I think Lakeshore Learning Materials (an educational supply chain store) should have all of these things (the Bob books - all levels, the Evan-Moor phonics workbooks, and Dolch sight word workbooks).

[Rapunzel]

I'll also add that the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham actually has wonderful beginning reading text. You'll find examples of basic phonetic families along with the needed basic sight words. And, of course, it's a silly, fun story.

[PrincessFiona]

Another good one is the Hooked On Phonics learn-to-read program. They are $45 right now on Amazon.com!

Kris

[GrayMatterWife]

Definitely try out www.starfall.com.

Ditto. Love Starfall. Got the rec here. DS uses it all the time.

And, LISTS. We have LISTS and he goes over the words. And we do a lot of informal, "real life" reading: sounding out signs, etc.

DD2 likes the Bob books and DD1 learned to read using a collection of Dick and Jane books she got as a gift. I like the Bob a little better. Both are pretty dry and getting over that hump of less-interesting reading material is/was an obstacle with both kids. DD2's teacher said she will probably be the type of kid who just starts reading chapter books. She is on her way to doing it but the books we read to her engage her more than what she can read herself.

Ditto the Starfall suggestion and the lists. She has been writing Christmas lists. I love reading her phonetic spelling of things. She also likes writing letters.

[Deebs]

We haven't started using them here yet, but I have a friend who uses post it notes that have sight words pre-printed on them. They are available at our teacher's store here, but she found them at Target. She starts new words on the refrigerator in the morning, and then they "follow" the kids as they move throughout rooms in the house in the course of the day.

We've always just used those LeapFrog fridge letters- Katie is 4 and knows how to put together her name, and mom, dad, cat, and a few other simple words. I just kind of play around with, say, "at" and putting different letters in front of it. Takes them a while to learn how to blend the sounds even when they know all of them, until "muh" "at" becomes MAT... I praise a lot and spell silly words (poo is funny) and she thinks it's a great game and not a chore, which is exactly what I'm aiming at, !