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My 9 year old son is doing Bigger and reading the Emerging Readers right now and is doing reasonably well with them. I pulled him out of public school after first grade, and these past two years he has improved with his reading, although he still struggles somewhat and is not yet a fluent reader. Since he technically knew "how" to read when I brought him home, I never did phonics with him, we have just worked on reading. He has done a book or two of ETC. I tried a couple of LA programs with him before Bigger but ditched both as they were above his level and have just done reading these past two years. (we are "between" LA programs right now, I'll probably do either R&S or PLL). I have seen mentioned in a couple of threads though about "finishing" phonics programs with children even after they learn to read. This is the first I have heard about this and I am thinking I should have done this with my son. Is this really helpful? Is it too late for me to do this with him now? And what program would I use? I am using RME with my younger son, would I just do maybe the last third of the book with my older son also? Or would a series of ETC books be more appropriate at this point?

I'd love any advice on this. Thanks!

Monique, I have a six year old daughter who basically taught herself to read while I was busy trying to find the RIGHT phonics program . We went ahead with phonics anyway and is has eliminated her guessing when she does come to a word she has not seen before. Phonics has also improved her spelling IMO but that could also be maturity as well. For a nine year old I might be hesitant about using the same thing as what a younger sibling is using kwim. I think the most important thing is to choose a program and follow it through. HTH

I don't know if you "need" to do a phonics program or not, but wanted to give my experience. My son, now 11, learned to read easily. I used several resources with him including Alpha Phonics, games at home, reading signs when out and about. We also used Explode the Code series at a relaxed pace. He just completed the 8th book, which is the last book in the series. Even though he could read well above his grade level, I required him to finish the ETC series. I'm very pleased with the ETC books, and feel they do a good job helping the child learn phonics rules in a fun, incremental way. If you wanted to use ETC, it would be easy to add it to your day, and it is very quick for them to do. My son did it all on his own, except that I would read the phonics rule to him, make sure he understood it, then he would do the pages.

I'm using ETC and RME now with my 9yodd as well. She is a struggling reader, but ETC and RME are helping her.

HTH

Hi! I just wanted to add that a few weeks back I was questioning what to do with my daughter & someone had mentioned McRuffy.com for a phonics program. If you can spend the $$, it has been something we look forward to every day & that has really strengthened her reading abilities. I am amazed at her improvement in just about a month's time. The program has wkbk. pgs. as well as fun board games & readers all included (plus handwriting if you want). You can also pick your child's grade level & don't have to start at square one. I too just figured since my daughter could read, I didn't need to continue on with phonics but it can only help, right?

I'm so glad your ds is moving through the Emerging Reader's Set, and I would think doing the last portion of Reading Made Easy would be a good idea. You could just tell him you realized you hadn't really done that with him before, and thought this would be an easy way of having him do this at a quicker pace and without him really having to write (he should love that if he's a typical boy ). I'd start him at the point in Reading Made Easy that he could do fairly easily, and then clip along for awhile, so he feels confident and sees that he's moving through the book more quickly than his younger sibling. Then, upon completing RME, I'd do a few ETC books, maybe 3 and 4, just letting him pick between 2-4 pages a day to do in order from them. We did that with my dc, and they liked being able to pick how much to do. They also thought the books were funny. If you are choosing between R & S and PLL, I'd go with R & S, as PLL will have many LA skills in it that are already covered beautifully within the context of history/science and CM style way of doing things in HOD's lesson plans. You may have heard this before, but in case not, a good portion of R & S can be done orally. Most ladies just leave about 1/3 for the child to actually write. After completing your Emerging Reader's Set and RME, your ds should be ready to begin Level 2/3 of DITHOR. We used the Level 2 book pack after finishing the Emerging Reader's Set, and found that to be a nice place to pick up after the emerging reader's books. You've gotten some good things to ponder here on this thread, and these are just ideas for you to consider too, as you will certainly know what seems to fit your ds the best. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

Thanks for all the great advice. I have a plan in place now and I think it will really help my ds get over his struggles. I was thinking he just needed more time, and I know he does need that too, but these other strategies will really help him along.