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The first two lessons go over short a. DS isn't picking up on the distinction between words like "cup" and "cat" etc. I draw out the vowel sounds as the book suggests. We repeated lesson 2 yesterday to give it another go. Still, he had problems. We also did the worksheets and again, he struggled. Should I just put it away for a few months and give it another go? I know he'll read eventually and that the average age for boys to read is 7-9, so I'm not worried. I just don't want to force him.

Marcee,

Maybe before you do RME and the worksheets, you could just make sure that he really hears all the sounds. We just discovered that my ds has dyslexia, and part of his problem is that he doesn't really hear all the sounds or can't always distinguish between the sounds. So, right now we are only working on sounds. I'm definitely not saying that your ds is dyslexic, but it is a scientific fact that in order to read and spell effectively, you have to be able to distinguish all the sounds a word is making. Most people can do this very naturally and intuit a lot from language, some on the other hand need to be explicitly taught. I hope that helps.

Tracy

When did he turn 6? I think I would go slow or maybe just practice the vowels for a bit. Make sure he knows all of the letters and the sounds they make before starting RME.

I'm not familiar with RME. I really can't answer your specific question. I do know that if I child can't hear the differences in sounds then they won't be able to sound things out. See if your library has (link removed per board rules) this book. It may help to look through and use some.

Tree House Academy wrote:When did he turn 6? I think I would go slow or maybe just practice the vowels for a bit. Make sure he knows all of the letters and the sounds they make before starting RME.

He turned 6 in April-

John'smom wrote:I'm not familiar with RME. I really can't answer your specific question. I do know that if I child can't hear the differences in sounds then they won't be able to sound things out. See if your library has this book. It may help to look through and use some.

Reading Made Easy is here.

My ds turned six last August. I tried TRL and he was just not ready for it. We held off until the spring and now he is flying through the lessons. If I would have pushed it earlier he would have just had a lot of frustration and tears. I would wait a few more months until trying a formal phonics program and just focus on letter sounds in the meantime.

Would you say he knows a sound for each letter or so? If not, you may want to get the "Leap Frog Letter Factory" DVD. It's cheap and is a great way for dc to inadvertently learn their sounds. As far as RME, I'd probably spread lessons out over a few days and keep going giving as much encouragement as you can sum up (I have to say that while teaching phonics is a privilege because we are in essence teaching our dc to read... it's also very trying on my patience some days. So, I say the encouragement bit for that part of the process, as phonics can be tough on "mom". ) But, I do think I'd move forward, even if it is just a bit at a time. Otherwise, you could set it aside for a few months and try it again at that point. You never know, it might click more then. We had that with potty training our toddler recently... a few months did wonders. However, if you do that, I'd still get the DVD if you can.

In Christ,
Julie