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I used Reading Made Easy with my oldest, but I don’t feel like I did it well. Not knowing any better I moved her out of it after finishing 80% of the lessons in Kindergarten to the Emerging Reader Set in first grade. After struggling through the ERS for a year, I realized I moved her on too quickly and I had her RE-read the ERS in 2nd grade which she was excited about and now she’s on track in 3rd grade with DITHOR. However I’m trying not to repeat the same mistake with my second daughter. She completed the Reading Lesson in 20 weeks, but is not ready for ERS and is only 6 years old. She did read the easier Bible in the ERS, but was not ready for Owl at Home. I have decided to use the last 20% of Reading Made Easy so she will continue with formal phonics instruction to bridge the gap. I didn’t like how complicated the lessons are in RME. That is where I hope the Message Board can help me. The manual recommends 3 days a week of lessons and two for review. It emphasizes review! Each lesson takes more than one day to do. So, how did you all who used RME structure it? Did you do half a lesson on day 1, review only day 2, finish lesson one on day 3, review only on day 4, and start lesson 2 on day 5? What did you do for review that didn’t bore your child?

In case anyone else is interested, this thread is along the same lines as my question:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=17675&hilit=Reading+Made+Easy

I guess I’m having this conversation with myself, lol! I had thought this must have gone smoothly for someone.

I re-read some of the intro to Reading Made Easy and the author says to do 3 LESSONS per week and review the other two days. When I tried to have my child do the phonics part, and the cards, and draw a picture, and dictate a story, and read the story to me, and do the copy work, and read a story together as suggested in each lesson it took 45+ minutes to do one lesson. Naturally both my children bulked at this and complained at the length of the lessons. The author talks about finishing the book in one 36 week year or two 36 week years if going slow. It would only be possible to finish 108 lessons in one year if the student completed an entire lesson in one day following the recommendation to reserve 2 out of 5 days for review. I question whether this is even possible because I tried it.

By my figuring, the program could be done as written in 2 years if completing 1.5 lessons each week only reviewing for a few minutes on days 2 & 3. The program author says the child should not move on to the next lesson before she has mastered the words from the current lesson. The author also suggests taking a few days or weeks break if the child has difficulty along the way making it more likely you will have to aim to complete only 80% of it in 2 years. How is completing this program as the author suggests doable at a reasonable pace?

When sticking to the 15 minute idea it does seem much more enjoyable for both myself and my child, but I would like to complete it in a reasonable amount of time. I’d like to know if anyone has had success with this phonics program and how they accomplished it. What did you consider success? Maybe everything after the cards is supposed to be very optional?? Is the meat of the program the phonics work at the beginning of each lesson? Could I just do this part of the lesson and move on once mastered? Is the rest of it fluff that is really unnecessary? If my child doesn’t especially like creating stories and drawing pictures should I skip this or is that the part that garners a love for reading? Is the copy work beneficial considering my child is already copying part of a poem daily?

Have you read these blog posts about phonics?
https://www.heartofdakota.com/blog/tag/phonics/

Hi! I visited with Carrie about your post, and she said it would be too difficult to come in on Reading Made Easy at the point of the last 20% of it. It won't correspond with where your daughter left off in The Reading Lesson because it has a different scope and sequence. Jumping in at the end of Reading Made Easy won't make your daughter successful at making the transition to the ERS. Instead, she recommended two options. One option would be to do Sound Bytes phonics. A second option would be to get The Beginner's Bible and have her try reading that. Which option would be best depends on whether she needs further phonics instruction or whether she just needs further reading practice. Hope that helps!

In Christ,
Julie

Some of those blog posts I had not seen. I found then enlightening. Thank you!

I could not find a search on the blog by topic. How are the blog archives accessible?
Is there a blog entry about LHFHG like the one about Beyond?

My 6-year-old wanted to start school at 4.5-years-old and so we started LHFHG using Reading Made Easy. (BTW: If I had to do it all over again I would have started with LHTH, but didn’t realize it at the time.) We completed 80% of Reading Made Easy the first year doing a whole lesson in one day and reviewing two days a week as the intro directs. My daughter did the phonics part very well, but the length of the lessons made her dislike reading. Just the phonics part and the cards took 15 minutes, but all the other stuff added 20-30 minutes to each lesson. I was unhappy that the lesson lengths were turning her off reading. She didn’t mind the actual phonics part, but she bulked at the time required to complete an entire lesson in one day. Without guidance I had no idea how else to structure the program and my personality naturally expects a lot from people. I wasn’t plugged into the message board then. Also I am very independent so it didn’t occur to me to ask HOD.

Even though my daughter did very well with the reading aloud part of RME I could tell she wasn’t ready to move on to the ERS and so we did The Reading Lesson the following fall and finished LHfHG in December. We both enjoyed the shorter simpler lessons in TRL. In January she placed in Beyond and started that as she turned 6 that month and she read the entire easier Bible very well. After that (a few weeks ago) I had her try Owl at Home and she was suddenly nervous stumbling all over the place. It seemed to me to be a maturity issue, not a lack of phonics knowledge. That said, I am in no hurry to move her on unless it becomes obvious she is bored. If we do something too easy she’ll let me know.

Since she had done most of Reading Made Easy her first year I think we could finish it up and that would give her time to mature. I had already decided to do that and we have done two lessons so far to test it. It is not too hard. She doesn’t seem to pay much attention to the unique phonics clues, but relies more on memorization at which she is very good.

To deal with the length of the lessons we are doing only 15 minutes each day taking 3 days to complete a lesson, reviewing only a few minutes on days 2 & 3. I was just curious about what others had done with RME and about whether we could skip the copy work, story writing, and picture drawing at the end of each lesson. Also I am frustrated with the lack of practical directions up front in my opinion.

I would still be interested to hear how others dealt with the length of RME lessons.

Thank You!

I enjoyed visiting with you on the phone, and I think you have a good plan going forward! Have a good Memorial Day weekend and a wonderful upcoming homeschool year with PHFHG and Beyond!

In Christ,
Julie Grosz, M. Ed.
Heart of Dakota