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As I'm tweaking our plans for next year, I have a question regarding the "Reading Choices" box of Beyond. We've already started the ERS, so we plan on continuing with that. The question I have is in regards to phonics. I've always heard that one shouldn't stop phonics mid-stream just because a child is reading well, because it will cause the child difficulty once he hits fourth grade. We've been using R&S for our phonics program and it has worked extremely well for DS - based on a few on-line reading tests, ds is decoding at a 4th grade level. The problem is that R&S's phonics is a two-year program, thus ds has one more year to go. I don't want ds to miss out on important skills, but on the other hand, the Beyond guide says to chose "one" of the options listed and I'd be doing two. Is it best to have a little bit longer day (R&S phonics takes 15-30 minutes for the lesson & two workbook pages.) or am I trying to do too much? For those unfamiliar with R&S phonics, last year in grade 1 we covered digraphs, diphthongs, double consonant endings, silent letters (kn, wr, gn, etc.), sh = ti, ci or si, the sound of tion, zh = s, prefixes, suffixes, etc. It looks like grade 2 reviews and expands on grade 1, while also working on homonyms, syllabication, phonograms and spelling rules.

I've been leaning towards doing both the phonics workbook and the ERS, with the goal of being done with the phonics before beginnning DITHR, but I'd like opinions from experienced folks. Thanks!

I think it might be wearing on ds to do both every day. I do think finishing out a phonics program is a good idea. Could you alternate days between R & S Phonics and the ERS? That would seem to be the best of both worlds. Whenever you finish them, you can have ds start DITHOR 2/3, whether it's in the beginning, middle, or end of a year - you can start DITHOR at any point. It's very flexible!

In Christ,
Julie