Trying to decide if my ds is an "emerging reader"

[ShellyM]

Hi,

I have posted a few times, but not for a while. I have been reading lots of others posts over the past few weeks and get more and more excited about getting HOD for my kids next year!

I am pretty sure that Beyond will work best for my ds, Sammy who is not really enjoying school, and I hope Beyond will make school something he likes more.
He is 7 1/2 and will be in 2nd grade in the fall. I was pretty sure he was an "emerging reader", but I want to make sure. He has been slow to catch on to reading and has just started taking off with it the past few weeks. He is reading Pathway readers, and has zoomed through the first two. He started the third one a few days ago. He is finally getting excited about reading. I was kind of worried about that. We used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for a while, then switched to Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise which I like much better. He has done about 70 some lessons (about half the book), and the first 3 ETC books. We are taking a break with phonics books right now and just reading the Pathway readers for the summer.

OK, so does he sound like an emerging reader? If he takes off even more with reading over the summer, should I still have him do the emerging reader set in Beyond, or start him in DITHOR?

Hope this all makes sense!
Thanks!
Blessings,
Shelly

[kiloyd]

yes, I would do emerging reader.

We are finishing up Beyond for my 7 yr old 2nd grade son. And we did the emerging reader stuff. I think DITHOR would have been too much for him, but I haven't actually seen it for real, just what's online about it. I'm thinking about doing it for 3rd grade, or I may wait 'til 4th.

He wasn't liking school either when I switched to HOD. He still doesn't love school or so he says, he just doesn't like the writing part. He loves the history and art.

Hope that helped.
Katherine

[Carrie]

Shelly,

I am wondering how much of the OPGTR that you have left to do with your son? Typically, moms finish the phonics program they're using before heading into the Emerging Reader's Set, however if OPGTR goes on with phonics for several years, you may be able to do the Emerging Reader's Set along with the final bit of OPGTR. Either way, I'd make sure to complete your phonics program as it will be important for your child to have completed phonics (since it's a huge help for future spelling and reading decoding).

Blessings,
Carrie

[ShellyM]

Angie and Katherine,

Thanks for the words of advice and encouragement! It's good to know others are out there in the same boat! I have a dd who is 12 and took to reading so easily and quickly, so my ds is completely different. He has been resistant to learning to read, and has kept saying things like "I can't read" or "I'm just not a good reader". Now, it is finally starting to "click" with him and he is getting excited about reading and is even picking up easy reader books we have around the house and trying to read them.

Carrie,
Thank you so much for your input! I had originally thought about giving Sammy a break with the Ordinary Parents phonics book and just reading Pathway readers for the summer, but now I am changing my mind. We are going to do some school just for an hour or two in the mornings this summer anyway, so I think we will keep going with the phonics to try to get it finished. I should say though that we also did Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons almost all the way through, like into lesson 80 something, and he was struggling and hating every minute of it. I guess that book doesn't really teach "pure" phonics and OPGTR seems to be much more true phonics based. We have also been doing ETC books and I think we will continue those next year. It sounds like emerging reader would be the right placement for him which is what I thought. I just wanted to make sure since my dd will be doing DITHOR hopefully and I thought if he was ready, I could do it with him as well, just different books than what my dd would be doing. It sounds like that might be too much for him at this point. I am so glad for this board, I am learning so much!

Thanks Again
Shelly

[my3sons]

Hi Shelly! We decided to do the Emerging Reader's Set even though my ds was reading quite well. I'm SO GLAD we did! He has loved every bit of the emerging reader's set, and the questions we've discussed using Beyond's Appendix have helped his comprehension skills grow by leaps and bounds. From using the set, my ds has found new series of books to love as well - like Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, etc.

In Christ,
Julie