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DS is in K this year. We are going to start BLHFHG. I asked his teacher about phonics and where he was at...this is what she said...

" He has done well in phonics (letter-sound) correlation. He can work on blends, digraphs, rhyming word families, (magic or silent e) and long vowel sounds. Although we have done many of these this would be a good place for him to start."

I was just going to do the emerging readers but it sounds like they have not finshed phonics. He is reading at a 1.8 grade level. What should I do?

I would pick a phonics primer one of HOD selections or something else, and assess were he is at. You can work with him a bit over the summer or just start in the fall. When he is ready for the emergent readers start those. You can always start those mid year. Also emergent readers are scheduled in the back of Bigger, so it is ok if he is still in them then. Phonics is far too important to skip.

I'd see if your public library has any of the following, and then start with CVC words and skip through it, reading a few words on a page until he starts having trouble. If he still needs phonics, you'll have a place to start.
The Reading Lesson
Phonics Pathways
Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
They're all open-and-go, no prep. Portion of post removed here by moderator due to board rules. HOD recommends TRL or Reading Made Easy. I've only taught one to read so far, so hopefully others will have suggestions

We are continuing phonics along with the ERs. They do 2-4 pages of ETC each day. I started the ERs with DS when he was reading quickly enough to get through the day's reading. We tried it at the beginning of the year and he took ages to get through a page. A few months later, he was zipping through books and we re-started the ERs. It's been going great ever since, but I still want to continue with ETC.

You could also use teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons just run him though 1 a day for 15 min, when you hit something he doesn't know it will be obvious and you can slow down and take your time in covering it.

Krista,

The ladies are giving such tried and true advice. I agree that from what the teacher shared, some further phonics review would be a great idea. You can accomplish this several different ways. I'd lean toward either doing something like Explode the Code over the summer and continuing it into the fall, If you chose this route, you'd also want do some additional reading of Level 1 or early Level 2 books or something like the Bob books over the summer too. Or, if you'd like to go a more program oriented route, you could get The Reading Lesson and work through that to make sure he has learned all the phonics needed. I suggest The Reading Lesson, in that case, because it is one of the easiest programs to go through more quickly, or to jump into the middle instead. So, it works great to fill in gaps.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks ladies! The kids will beout of public school the second week of June and I plan on transitioning straight into homeschooling. I want to do a year round schedule and be sure I am cut out for this before school starts in the fall

He reads very well, his teacher says that he is one of her top readers in the class. He gets overwhelmed with books with a lot of words or pages but he can read things like Green Eggs and ham easily if I make it not too overwhelming. We got our emerging readers and he was so excited to look at the Frog and Toad Books. he started reading it and did great! He had trouble with words like wrote, written, knocked, dark, high.

If I were to do ETC, where would I start him in that? Or do you think I should do the reading lesson? This will be my first year homeschooling and I guess I am afraid to chose wrong! I am not familiar with the reading lesson and I have only done part of Get Ready for the Code Book A with my 4 year old.

I'd probably start him in Explode the Code 2, and work through 2 and 3. Or, if you want an easier start for him to build confidence, I'd start him in Explode the Code 1. These books are short and fun! I just had my dc choose 1-4 pages to do each day, and they loved that. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

There should be a place on the decription of ETC that says what is covered in each book. Okay I readily have the books so here in a nutshell is what is covered in the different books.

Book 1 Consonant pretest and short vowels
Book 2 Initial consonant blends and final consonant blends
Book 3 One syllable words ending in a long vowel, including y; silent e digraphs sh, to wh, ch, ng ck trigraph tch ee ea ai ay oa ow
Book 4 compound words common endings: ful, ing, est, ed ,ness rules for syllable division open closed syllables syllables ending in y and le
Book 5 Word families all alk, old olt oll ild ind three letter blends thr shr scr str spr spl qu words ey words three sounds of ed
Book 6 Vowel plus r: ar, or, er, ir, ur, wor, war second sound of ea ie igh oo dipthongs oi oy ou ow au aw ew ui ue ou
Book 7 Soft c and g silent consonants ear ph ei eigh
Book 8 suffixes and endings

My guess would be book 2 or 3

HTH
Sarah