need advice on phonics/spelling 1st grade

[renee]

I am using Abeka 1 phonics, spelling, and language. I ordered Little Hearts for His Glory. My son came out of school last year (K) using Abeka K. He is 6 years old. He is reading beautifully. Abeka spreads out their phonics program over a 2 year period. I believe the third year is review. I do not want to continue Abeka phonics in second grade. I really do not like the endless review now, but it works! I believe he will be strong enough to do Emergent Readers for second grade. I do not want any gaps in his phonics. I would love to jump ship and use TRL now, but I am too nervous. I have the Owl at Home reader and he read it no problem. He seems to have great recall when asked about what he read. He reads Easy Readers level 2 with no help from me.

He does wonderful with the ABeka phonics and seems to be a natural speller, but the worksheets are killing him. I am not experienced enough to switch things up in this area. Not even sure how TRL would work for a child who is not at the beginning of phonics. Any thoughts?

Also looking into possibly dropping Abeka Language/spelling worksheet. Just not sure if that will mess up his phonics. Do you recommend spelling in first grade if the child is still in a phonics program? My thoughts were to save grammar/spelling for 2nd grade Beyond. He is not thrilled with writing at all. When asked to spell a word he can spell it from memory without having to write it down. He is very bright, but is easily distracted and "zones out" quite a bit. Not sure where to go from here? Looking for more advice!

Blessings,

Renee

[lissiejo]

Hope you don't mind if I jump in

I brought my daughter home during 1st grade after a year of using Abeka K at a Christian school. I too thought it was wonderful and she is an excellent reader! I'm now using the Abeka books with my second daughter as reinforcement because we already finished the phonics program suggested by HOD. I am opting to just use the readers without worksheets. She is doing fine with that. I also am letting her read anything she wants. This is how we did 1st grade with my oldest as well. I let her go at her own pace, which was pretty fast, and her reading was fine. I think jumping to a different program at this point would not be helpful. My sis-in-law used to homeschool and "jumped" around between a couple of different programs for various reasons and her son really struggled because even though phonics is phonics, each program teaches in a little different order or style and it can become confusing. If what you are using is working, then I would finish with 1st grade and move on to the emerging readers when he is finished with that.

You are also right that there isn't anything new taught phonics wise in 2nd grade of Abeka. It just reinforces the same things with more difficult words etc.

I hope this was a little helpful!

[renee]

Thank you. I do not mind at all! You were very helpful.

[farmfamily]

Well, I'm not Carrie either, and I don't even have any experience with Abeka . But, if he can read Owl at Home well, then I'd say he's ready for the Emerging Readers right now. You would not need to do TRL with him. If you wanted to go the HOD path for language arts, you could buy the Beyond Manual, and do the ERs from the appendix. It sounds like he could also start spelling list 1 from the Beyond appendix. If he really needs a little phonics review you could add an Explode the Code workbook (or perhaps you have a little something you could add in from Abeka). I am adding ETC with my second, but my first didn't need it. I think for many kids phonics "holes" just fill themselves in once they are reading. I never taught my oldest combinations like "ough" or "ture" or "ear" as in "earth" - she just figured them out herself from her reading. Now she reads & writes well above grade level, and she hardly did any LA worksheets. It sounds like your son would do fine. HTH

[renee]

Thank you!