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I'm trying to decide when to start ds5 (in June) on 100 EZ lessons (because I have it). He knows almost all his letters but not many sounds. I had thought I would start him on those lessons when we start LHTH but in light of some of the recent conversations here (better late than early) I'm wondering if I should just hold off and do the phonics program with Little Hearts...

Plus, it seems like it's putting the cart before the horse in a way, by teaching reading before he knows all the sounds, BUT

that IS what the authors suggest in the intro to EZ. That it is actually better if the child doesn't know the sounds ahead of time, but I've read many reviews that say that is not always the case. It seems in general that the further advanced a child is with sounds than the quicker they will learn. The author's reasoning is perhaps due to the unique sound combinations they use that might be confusing to a child who has learned all the letter sounds separately. I don't know how much of a problem this actually is.

Ideas?

The area of phonics and reading instruction is so hard for parents to wade through at times. In the end, you have to do what you feel is best for your child. Read all of the research, and then pray and ask for guidance.

There are many ways to teach a child to read succesfullly, and you'll probably make many mistakes along the way. I was a phonics purist with my oldest. I wouldn't allow him to learn sight words, I was so 'strict'.

Now, I've learned what works in our house (and I assume that each child may be a bit different), and I'll be doing things differently with these other kids. Sometimes going through it is the only way to learn.

I'm sure that doesn't help much!

I think you could start 100 EZ with him now if you wanted to. I started 100EZ with my ds when he was newly 5...it went fine, but felt weird to me not teaching him the letter sounds first..so we took a break and did the Explode The Code primers first and then came back to EZ. He flew through several lessons after that and I think that made him feel confident, plus he was more mature and ready to really try to decode words. That was just our experience. HTH!