Hi everyone! Welcome to the homeschool curriculum forum post series! Today we’re discussing reading and phonics. Since my children will be in grades prek, 2nd, 4th, and 5th this post will be geared towards elementary students. However feel free to leave a comment for whatever ages you are working with as I know it will help other homeschoolers out there!
For the early years I like to stick with basics and use Abeka for phonics and language practice. I prefer the more traditional approach to teaching letter sounds and blends as well as the reinforcing worksheets provided by Abeka.
I also like the various readers that come with the program as well as the comprehension questions after each story. You’ll want to make sure to get the “text questions and answers key” for the readers. I also like the “Read & Think” skill sheets that Abeka has starting in grade 3. They are timed reading exercises with comprehension questions at the end. The skill sheets are graded so you can assess how well your student does with comprehension. They also help prepare students for standardized timed testing as well.
Pros:
- Uses traditional sound blending for phonics practice.
- Material is grade level appropriate
- Stories are interesting
- Contains comprehension questions
- Contains Read & Think Skill Sheets for upper grades.
Cons:
- Can be pricey unless purchased used.
- Comprehension questions aren’t quite as in depth as the comprehension of BJU Press Reading program.
Another favorite is the All About Reading program! We are totally loving this program, and it’s no surprise really since we absolutely adore All About Spelling!
![aar1_thumb[1]](/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aar1_thumb1.jpg "aar1_thumb[1]")
I already started Tinkerbell with All About Spelling Level 1 at the beginning of this year, so she was able to skip ahead a few lessons in the All About Reading Level 1 program, but I still like how the two complement each other.
The Level 1 of both AAS and AAR have a similar scope and sequence. All About Reading focuses on decoding skills, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, and will include lots and lots of reading practice. All About Spelling focuses on the spelling side of things like how to know which letter to choose for a given sound. Both are complete phonics programs and use the same letter tiles which makes them easy to use together. We also love the workbook activities, the pages are hands-on and interactive which makes the learning more fun!
All About Reading also has several fluency exercises that will help strengthen reading skills. The student activity workbook comes with fun hands on worksheets to help your student practice reading more smoothly. We’re currently working through both programs together and doing great!
The kit comes with these wonderful reading books which your child will have read through by the time you are finished with the Level 1 program. You can see samples for all of the readers, including the Teacher’s Manual and Student Activity book on the All About Reading Level 1 website.
Tip from the trenches: If you have a reader who is just starting out, All About Reading might be a bit easier to do first because the letters are introduced more slowly. All About Spelling assumes that a child is either already reading, or is very ready to begin reading. If a child is struggling with learning to read, I recommend doing AAR Level 1 first and then starting AAS Level 1 to reinforce the concepts learned in AAR Level 1, as well as to learn valuable spelling rules that will create the foundation for strong reading as well as accuracy in spelling.
![aar1_thumb[1]](/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aar1_thumb11.jpg "aar1_thumb[1]")
What does the All About Reading Level 1 Kit come with? (Regularly $107.70, on sale now for $99.95)
- Teacher’s Manual
- Student Packet (Includes word cards, as well as Activity Book)
- Run, Bug, Run! reader
- The Runt Pig reader
- Cobweb the Cat reader
So, now comes the fun part!
What are your favorite Reading/Phonics curriculum, resources, websites, etc? Leave a comment below discussing your choices for this year and why.
Feel free to ask questions or reply to each other too!
It’s my way of doing a forum without actually doing a forum haha!
And hopefully, this will help us all as we start the process of researching curriculum, and trying to decide what will be the best fit for our homeschool.
Note: Please keep today’s conversations geared towards Reading & Phonics, I will be posting one for each subject separately so we can keep our comments organized.
Click here if you missed my previous Homeschool Curriculum Forum posts!
Disclosure: This was not a sponsored post, I may however be affiliated with one or more products mentioned. The opinions expressed in this post were not influenced by the company. They are products I have used and felt like sharing, cuz’ it’s my blog and I can if I want to.
I agree about Abeka. I loved it for pre-k and kindergarten. I liked it pretty good for first but I feel like it moved a little slow. For second it looks like it’s just a repeat of first so I am not using it this next year. I am not really using a “phonics” program. My children read very well so I am just using Language Smarts and AAS level 2. I haven’t been homeschooling for very long. Is there a grade in which you start to not need “phonics”?
Anyone out there use Abeka for first and second and agree with me that it repeats in 2nd?
I’d agree. 1st and 2nd are pretty similar. But depending on a child, that is needed to “solidify” reading/phonics rules and methods before becoming an independent reader. 3rd grade is traditionally the year when most students become reader independent. Meaning they can use all their sounds and phonics to sound out what they are reading. Also, this is the age where parents are typically confident in the child’s ability to read alone without have to hear the child as much. So, 2nd grade is typically a marriage of all the grades preceding it, mainly 1st. Think of it as a last “hoorah” before independent reading. 3rd grade is also where most programs begin to teach silent reading. In order to get there, students and parents need to feel confident that the child can sound out alone pretty well.
Typically, phonics “falls off” by third grade. There may be some basic review in 3rd but phonics is not heavily taught. I have never seen phonics in any 4th grade material I have researched. I used to teach middle and high Language Arts and never saw it there either. By 3rd, most students have the necessary phonics rules to sound out words.
We have had a huge problem with learning to read. DS has multiple language processing issues and we are complete phonics failures. We are having to learn using the whole word method and it is a matter of memorization. It isn’t fun and is immensely frustrating. I’d like to thank Erica for her Sight Caterpillars they have been wonderful fun. Does anyone have a whole word program that they can recommend?
Edmark Reading Program is the only one I have heard of. I think they pretty much did away with many of those philosophies when they realized that it wasn’t working for the masses.
Hi, recommend that you visit the All About Reading website. It is not a whole word program but it teaches reading differently that traditional phonics programs. It’s worth a look, I believe. You should go to the website and read about the woman who created the program and the learning issues her son had.
re: whole word learning
Lili, you didn’t mention the age of you son, but I’d recommend checking out the BrillKids website http://forum.brillkids.com/ . It is an early learning forum that agrees that both whole and phonics can work together – however, while the littles are little (baby – early toddler) or a bit behind, whole word works best.
They have a product called Little Reader that we used when my son was tiny. It’s like a flashcard program that you can personalize by adding your own photos or voices. There are tonnes of free Power Point programs there that you can use, too. Another free option is “Reading Bear”. It’s a great program that I saw when it was in it’s Beta version, now that it’s “official” I think it would be an excellent tool (my son is past this point, but I”m sure we’d use it if we were needing these skills).
Thanks everyone! DS is a newly minted 8-yr old and finishing Grade 2. I appreciate your recommendations and am now off to look them all up.
I use All about reading for my really struggling reader. It is OG based and is really recommended for dyslexic kiddos. It is mastery based so we go REALLY slow. Give them a call. Their customer service is phenomenal. For whole word learning you can use Picture me reading. It is fairly inexpensive. However, I highly recommend giving an OG based phonics program a shot. My oldest son is somewhat dyslexic and he was taught on a non phonics based program in public school. He can read on grade level (he’s in 5th) but has absolutely NO word attack skills. So, we are having to remediate somewhat. I know that my youngest who also has processing/language issues could learn faster with whole word, but I know that it I will eventually regret it. Just some thoughts:)
I absolutely LOVE Abeka for reading and phonics is the early years. My son (4) is just beginning their program. WONDERFUL! I also have a 7 year old who is getting ready to transition to a 3rd grade curriculum. I find that Abeka is great K-2. In 2nd-3rd grade, I find is best to switch to another program. Abeka does not too much to advance and progress in reading (in my opinion) past 2nd/3rd grades (depending on where your child is comfortable reading at.) We made the switch to BJU in 2nd grade for my eldest. I still supplement because I’d rather my child read books as opposed to mini stories in a grand text. But for text book reading, BJU has proved worthy.
We do Hooked on Phonics for basics and then my kids memorize the 72 phonograms and we found a “story” with all 200 sight words in it called “The Best Thing in the World”. I googled sight words and found it, but a better search would be “the Best Thing in the World”. Once my son knew the phonograms really well and all the sight words, his reading took off. My son who just turned 7 has been reading really well for at least a year and my daughter who turned 5 in January just started phonograms and the story. It takes about 3 or 4 months for them to know them really well. We started in the fall of last year and by mid year (Decemberish), he was reading pretty well. When we felt confident about his reading, I assigned daily reading of 15 minutes. This year I upped it to 30 minutes of daily reading. He is starting now to read much more than 30 minutes at a time without encouragement. One day he got a book that was 300 pages long and sat down and read the whole thing!
One of my big goals of beginning school is to get them reading well as quickly as possible so I don’t have to do so much with them.
We also use HOP and my boys love it. When they are in K, we also add in All About Spelling Level 1. It seems to work well together for us 😉 My first grader is just finishing the first set of master readers level in HOP. He loves to read.
Thank you for mentioning “The Best Thing in the World.” Just googled and printed it off for my son to read! We’ve used a mish-mash of a lot of things…memorizing sight words, Bob books, HOP, Explode the Code, and All About Spelling. We’ve kind of “hit a wall” with everything we’ve used– except AAS. We finished AAS 1 and I have yet to pull out AAS 2– need to invest in a bigger magnetic white board. I have him read from AAS readers or books we find at the library that are appropriate, but even those aren’t ideal. *I* think he is doing great… he has yet to enjoy reading though. What I need to do now is teach all the different Vowel Combos and more sight words… I may just keep pulling activities from here and there because everything I have looked at he’s done a lot of!
This sounds like what I am doing with my kinder. HOP, explode the code, bob bks, sight word practice, etc…problem is he was in public school until a month ago and now I see they did no formal phonics curriculum outside of letter sounds! He is reading cvc words and he fluency is improving. Not sure if I should go back and teach a formal phonics curriculum like AAR level 1. Tried SSRW and that was to overwhelming to both of us! Any ideas or feedback would be appreciate!
Teri- I tried to do the reading and phonics the cheap way it just didn’t work for us. We have a daughter who can not hear the phonic sounds BUT some how we made it! and we are still making it! She can read, the only problem is spelling! What I’ve learned over the past 5 years is whatever curriculum you pick make sure you want to work work with it. If you have to spend the $$ on a program such as phonics I say do it. Fluency comes with time. Our daughter did not start reading until she was in 3rd grade and she reads on a 6th grade reading level. So by God’s grace we just keep going.. 🙂
Hope the story helps your child. The 72 phonograms are great too. You can google “the 72 phonograms are” and a word document will come up.
I have found that they start reading really well when it clicks, if that makes sense. That is going to be different ages for different kids. Just keep working with him and he will get it.
Just wanted to add another on favor of the Oridinary Parents guide to Teaching Reading! Covers everything in a great, cohesive plan, easy to use! I love it! We supplement with readers from the library and bob books!! I pretty much love every curriculum Susan Bauer Wise has done.
I love this program as well! So simple, straightforward, and when you finish the book, they can read anything! Has anyone used HOD’s Drawn into the Heart of Reading? I have been looking at that…. I also am using AAR Level One with my pre-K daughter before starting the OPG.
Colleen,
We have used this program and really like it. You can tailor the program to fit your students interests and needs concerning reading level. I found this to be much more motivating for a child than dry readers. We read lots of genres we might not have, did more book projects, and took our time through each book selection. I used this for a literature class at our co-op and found it to be easy to use and very doable. I did add in literature terminology/discussion of things like simile, metaphor, imagery, personification, onomatopeia, types of characters (round, flat, protagonist, antagonist, dynamic,static) etc. that the curriculum did not cover. Teaching the Classics was also helpful with my class but I mainly used Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. The author’s book suggestions list is worth the $5, also from Heart or Dakota. Feel free to email me if you have more questions.
Andrea
dajonesfamily7@gmail.com
My 1st grader and I LOVE the Explode the Code series. It’s great! He learns a set group of new words and uses them several different ways throughout the lessons each week. They are priced for any budget and a teacher’s manual is not needed. As for reading, we are doing the Abeka reading program. The phonics mastery program of Explode the Code works well with the Abeka reading program!
Teaching reading has been a very frustrating experience in our house. We started with How to Teach . . . 100 Easy Lessons (boring and confusing), Phonics Pathways (boring), then moved to Veritas Press Phonics Museum (not enough repetition and then moved too fast at the end), then to Hooked on Phonics. HOP wasn’t bad, but it didn’t take my son far enough. I then tried ABeka, and it worked well to fill in the gaps he was missing. It wasn’t until we found All About Learning Press that we realized we hit a gold mine! AAR wasn’t even around then, so we used AAS, but that was enough! At that point, phonics began to really make sense. He is still behind in some reading areas, but he is improving each year. With my other two, We only use AAR and AAS because it works!
We love All About Reading and Spelling. After my kids gain confidence we use real library books of our choice and plug them into a program called Drawn into the Heart of Reading. I used this alongside of Teaching the Classics at a co -op this year and we read from 8 of the 9 different genres covered in the DITHOR program. Anyone with high school students should look into Excellence in Literature by Janice Campbell. It is a self -guided tour through different periods of literature with great links and essay prompts.
I cannot brag enough on Phonics Pathways. It is one book and so simple and the boys love it. I am using it now with my 6-year-old twin Kindergartners. They love the little character Dewey in the book and really connect with him. I am borrowing our copy from the library right now but plan to purchase soon. I think it goes on amazon for about $20 and we’ll use it for years. I believe the book goes through 3rd grade and is 266 pages. Lots of good teacher instruction included in the book, as well. Great for special needs kids (my boys have autism), adult learners, or anyone learning or brushing up on Phonics.
We will be using All About Reading and All About Spelling next year. I did my own phonics combined with Sonlight Core A for my oldest (in K) who was already strong in letter sounds. He’ll start AAR 2 and AAS1 next year. My youngest is more math geared so letters/letter sounds have been more of a challenge for him. We’ll be doing All About Reading level 1 with him.
Hi Haley,
I’m looking into starting with Sonlight Core A for my oldest (K) next year and am wondering whether their language arts and readers package is sufficient or do you think it’s good ot use an extra spelling program like AAR/AAS?