favorite program for phonics

[blessedmommyof4]

I have been researching various phonics programs all day. I used Abeka for my son. I like their approach, but I feel that it may be too complicated to use at this point. When I used it with my son, I was only teaching him. Now I will be teaching a son (4th), daughter (K), a three year old, and will have a newborn. So, I was looking for something simple, yet effective. I would like an intensive phonics approach. I have looked into the two recommendations from HOD (The Reading Lesson and Reading Made Easy). I like the looks of TRL, but I also wanted to see what programs many of you use and really like or dislike. Have any of you used Adventures in Phonics (Christian Liberty Press) with the Noah Webster Reading Handbook or All About Reading--Level 1. I like the looks of both of these. Any feedback would be very helpful!

[bethelmommy]

For simple, yet effective, I recommend TRL hands down. I have AAR, but have found it redundant for my kids and too time intensive for me. For us,it's just extra busy work and we're getting ready to drop it. My almost 6 year old ds is on lesson 13 of TRL and dd 4.5 is on lesson 8. Both of them prefer TRL over any other reading curriculum we have. Sorry, I'm not familiar with the other programs you asked about.

[MeadowWay]

We are using TRL with our 8.5 old son, who has processing issues. We tried using other programs, (one that I had successfully used with his older sister) but could not get past the first pages. We purchased TRL w/o the cd (I didn't know it existed) and find it a good fit. First, the pages are bright white and not very cluttered. My son gets very distracted and cannot focus if too much is on the page. He has no problem knowing the sound of each letter, but even still he struggles with blending. But knowing his strong points :excellent memory, after he sounds the word out, and cannot blend successfully, I have just told him the word and he can remember it. However, our first goal is to try for the blending. This week , we finally saw a flickering of him being able to blend, he just heard himself over and over and realised it was a word he was familiar with , so therefore it must be a word. I have hope it is all coming together now. Meanwhile , Mike Austin told me about the CD and we decided to purchase it. It has been a good move. It is quite the motivation for him. He does his lesson from the book, knowing the CD with Mr. Giggles on the puter follows. We like the reinforcement and interactiveness it gives to the lesson...
Blessings
KK

[KristinBeth]

I bought Adventures in Phonics and didn't like it. The page was way too cluttered and required tiny writing. I was using it with my daughter who didn't write. I shelved it and used The Reading Lesson, and was extremely happy with it. The page is simple and the lessons are focused and brief. I only had the book, not the CD, because I bought it prior to HOD from a place that didn't sell the CD version. Even without the supplemental CD, it worked like a charm.

[mrsrandolph]

The people who produce All About Spelling have recently released All About Reading. I am using it with my 6 year old with GREAT results. I LOVE it. Check it out.

[MelInKansas]

Another The Reading Lesson fan here. I haven't tried any of the others you mentioned, I did use "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" with my oldest, and partially with my 2nd before starting TRL. My 5YO is on lesson 8 of TRL. TRL lessons really ARE easy, 100 Easy Lessons were not. I have seen my daughter grow a lot in her reading in the few weeks we've been using TRL.

[blessedmommyof4]

Mrs. Randolph,

I have been looking into AAR Level 1 as well. I have really liked what I have seen, so it is great to hear that you have been using it with good results. I was wondering if you feel that it is a complete program or if supplementing with something such as Explode the Code would be beneficial. Also, have you used any other phonics programs that you could compare/contrast it with? I used Abeka with my son. I liked Abeka's approach, however I felt as if it was overkill at times. I do want to provide and intensive phonics program for my daughter, but with more balance with other components for her K year. One last question, have you used the All About Spelling as well? If so, what are thoughts on this program? Thanks for any advice you can give me.

[mofbethany]

We used The Reading Lesson with both of my older children, who have completely different giftings. My daughter was an automatic sight reader, so by the time we were in lesson 5 she could read through lesson 20. We actually tried to go through the program but eventually it was just far too easy so we jumped ahead to the Emerging readers. She is now 7 and reads at a very high level. We also used The Reading Lesson with my son, and here is where the program really shined. He did have to go through it all, and started at age 4 1/2 so we did fill in with some simple early reader books (like BOBs, etc) from the library, just because he was so used to sounding words out that he wasn't memorizing them. He completed the program in January and is now in the Early Readers Bible in the Emergin readers. I found the transition from TRL to the Emerging Readers flawless. Again, he is not necessarily a gifted reader, but TRL did the trick and he is certainly up to speed in his reading. Because of positive results with 2 very different kids, The Reading Lesson is one resource I always highly, highly recommend for any type of learner.

[mrsrandolph]

I do use All About Spelling with All of my children as well as All About Reading with my 6 year old.

[blessedmommyof4]

Do you feel that the All About Reading and the All About Spelling work well together? Or, do both together end up being too similar? Any thoughts you have about these two programs would be so helpful to me!

[twoxcell]

My hands down favorite is Phonics Pathways. I have tried others but I always go back to it. It is just straightforward and covers phonics up to a higher level than most others. I own AAR level 1 because I reviewed it. AAR is an excellent program but it is expensive and you will need several levels to cover what PP does in one inexpensive book. If you want handholding and built in hands on, worksheets, and readers than AAR would be perfect. I have succesfully taught two children to read with PP. I plan to use AAR level 1 with my 4 year old next year and then switch to PP. I have not seen TRL but I own Reading Made Easy. RME is a great book too it just did not click with my dd or me.

[mrsrandolph]

All About Reading and All About Spelling CAN work together. I do them both. Or you could just do one.

[netpea]

I haved loved The Reading Lesson with my first two kids and can't wait to use it with my 3rd! I thought it was perfect in the way it progressed from little on the page with large type at the beginning of the book to larger sections of printing with smaller type at the end of the book. Both my older kids loved it and it was quick and easy to do each day. We placed the stickers on each page we read, they loved that, upper corner for one kid, lower corner for the other. I like how they have "stories" from very on to read. The kids were so proud to read the "story" to their Dad. I've never used anything else but I just can't say enough good things about The Reading Lesson.

[farmfamily]

Just to give a different perspective here...

I know there are a lot of The Reading Lesson fans here, but I have used both The Reading Lesson and Reading Made Easy, and I think RME is by far the better program.

In TRL, there are LOTS of points where things are just not clearly explained. For example - in Lesson 11, the child is told that "oo" makes the sound in moon. As soon as she begins to practice "oo" words she gets this list: moon, soon, good, look, took, room, root, book, etc. As you can see there are a lot of words in there that don't say the same sound for the "oo!" My 5 year-old daughter was pronouncing "look" as "Luke" - and from the instructions given, she was exactly right! This is just one instance of many where tricky words are presented with no instruction whatever. For example, we recently got the words "any" and "many" in the lists of words to read, with no introduction. These are sight words - they don't follow standard rules and they should be presented as such. The result of all this is that my daughter guesses a lot when she sees words out of context - if "any" doesn't say "Annie," then perhaps it's Ay-ny or O-ny or who knows? She guesses and guesses and says reading is too tricky! I don't blame her...

She is however, good at guessing when the words are in the context of story.
Even though we are now in Lesson 15 (out of 20 lessons), and she has made progress with TRL, I feel frustrated with this program, and I'm strongly considering switching to RME.

My older daughter used RME all the way through, and it worked wonderfully with her. By the beginning of 2nd grade, with no other phonics instruction (just practice reading books), she was reading at a fourth grade level. RME explains everything very clearly, which I think gives young readers more confidence that they can get it right. There are different symbols for "oo" as in "look" and "oo" as in "moon." "Any" is a sight word, as it should be. There is a little more "teacher work" in RME, but not much. I often didn't do the index card activities - though I added them on occasion when we had time. We were able to add in worksheets and a little bit of writing too - we only did the worksheets we wanted too - it's all on a CD, so it's easy to pick and choose. She enjoyed the creative side of it too - where you draw a picture, make up your own story and copy a sentence from it. I like that it has a writing component, but you can do as much or as little of the writing as you like (same with the index cards and worksheets). Also in my opinion the stories in RME are much cuter and more fun than the ones in TRL.

Well, all that to say - I vote for RME! I'll definitely be using it with my third child.