Making reading fun?

[StormySar]

My almost 6 year old has caught on to sounding and blending out words. She is working through The Ordinary Parents Guide and we're working through the short vowel sound words.

Sentences seem to be very hard for her, but sounding out words not so much. When we try to work through the sentences, she fidgets, gets unfocused, guesses at words, gets upset when she's not right. A single lesson could easily take an hour because of fidgeting, loosing her place, guessing, etc.

Should we just work on sounding out words for a while, maybe do flash cards with the words she's done already and work on those until she knows them without sounding them out, then try sentences again? Are there fun word games I could come up with to help her with her short vowel sound words?

I'm not sure what route to go now. She can sound out and blend, and has no problm doing the single words at the tops of the pages. But the sentences are a problem. Oh, and distinguishing b, p and d! Any help there?

any suggestions?

[skueppers]

When my daughter was at that stage, what really helped was reading the beginner phonics books from Progressive Phonics. The format of those (free) books has the adult reading most of the text, and the child reading the red words printed in larger type.

It seemed to me that this helped my daughter get used to reading whole sentences, even if she wasn't doing most of the reading herself. Within two or three weeks she was able to tackle simple sentences on her own.

[theretohere]

Would something like the Bob books appeal to her? It's a frustrating phase, but it'll pass quickly!
I'd do the lessons on a white board- one word at a time until she's comfortable.

[atreyyena]

Tell her that b is just like B, but the snowman's 'head' fell off.

P and p are the same, so no problem there. But a P is a b who can hop. They need that leg at the bottom for hopping, just like there's a p in hop.

I've also heard about using the word bed- b looks at d, so it's easier to differentiate. Maybe show her a big/little d together- so dD (but with the only one line to combine the two letters-can't do that on the computer) and then say they're the dynamic duo....like little d is big D"s sidekick, so they stand back to back.

Lol, I don't know if this would work for your dc, but my son loves those type of things. Tonight he remembered that h was h and not u, because little h jumps up and then falls off a cliff.

[ambersrose]

My six year old is doing the same thing. We are having some success with her reading the starfall.com books online because if she doesnt know a word it will sound it out for her. She doesnt mind the computer helping her sound a word out as much as she does mom constantly saying "lets sound it out".

[yllek]

I am not familiar with the OPGTR, but I stayed at the cvc words stage with ds for a loooong time. Actually, he was already reading way beyond this stage by the time I finally started doing anything else.

We are using Phonics Pathways, and there is a LOT of text on the page. It's such a jumble that there was no way that my ds could have dealt with reading the words on the page, much less any sentences. We did flashcard games, bingo games, word sliders, flip books, homemade dice, magnetic letters, letter tiles, you name it. When we started doing sentences, we only read one line of text on a page.

During this time, sometimes I would have him track with my reading with his finger during storytime, and I would read to the pace that he set. I really think that it helped give my ds a handle on how to track text through sentences and paragraphs. When he was ready (actually he was probably ready way before ), we also did Progressive Phonics and Bob books, as previous posters have suggested. At that stage, I kept his "independent reading" texts slightly below his actual reading ability so that he had lots of success. Above all, I really tried to keep that beginning stage fun fun fun.

Now that he is reading more fluently, he has the stamina to read through more challenging material. His reading practice with me happens at an instructional level, where he doesn't quite know how to read all the words on the page. He doesn't get frustrated, because he has the basic skills to manage most words with assistance.

If the sentences are becoming a struggle for your ds, perhaps that's an indication to try something else for a while?

Another thing I heard that sounded interesting to me was to use a "cursor" - an index card to cover up most of the text, but with a 1/2" notch cut out of the corner to reveal just a little bit of the word at a time.

[moominmamma]

I would get her vision checked if you haven't recently. I had a 5yo who had been able to read single words for a couple of years but got frustrated with sentences. It turned out her vision was terrible. She got glasses and a month later she was reading novels.

But other than that, I just wouldn't worry about it. She'll be ready for the next step when she's ready. The struggles, the frustration, the wild guesses, those seem like an indicator she's not ready for the fluency required for tracking and decoding sentences. Continuing to push her forward with lessons that take up to an hour and are frustrating? Not a good idea! I'd play games with words and let her learning consolidate. She'll probably show you very clearly when she's ready to move forward again.

Miranda

[StormySar]

I tried the whiteboard idea today and it worked out well. Although my next question is - should she be expected to read sentences fluently and remember what she just read? Should we stumble through one sentence at a time and not read it smoothly after we sound out words, and just go on to the next sentence. Or should we read each sentence until it's smooth?

I like the bingo idea! What are flip books? What about homemade dice? I'd like to learn more about the homemade games idea - she loves games.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

But other than that, I just wouldn't worry about it. She'll be ready for the next step when she's ready. The struggles, the frustration, the wild guesses, those seem like an indicator she's not ready for the fluency required for tracking and decoding sentences. Continuing to push her forward with lessons that take up to an hour and are frustrating? Not a good idea! I'd play games with words and let her learning consolidate. She'll probably show you very clearly when she's ready to move forward again.

That's exactly what I was thinking - sometimes it's just a matter of the system not being ready yet, and some children are ready much later and do just fine. And the vision consideration should definitely be taken into consideration - my son's visual acuity was just fine, but testing (at age 12) by an optometrist who specialized in vision skills found that he had several problems, one of them being that his eyes were not tracking across the lines of text smoothly. Until the vision therapy that followed that, he had always read only for information but never for pleasure. Lillian

[Rivka5]

Maybe it would help to make the lessons shorter, even if it means that you take a few days to work through an official "lesson." At this early stage when they're sounding everything out, reading is really fatiguing. When she gets to the point of guessing and getting frustrated and missing words you know she should be able to read, stop for the day.

I second the recommendation for Progressive Phonics. Because the child only reads certain words, it's easier to preserve the overall flow of the sentence so that the meaning comes through. It is so frustrating to read a sentence one slow word at a time - it doesn't surprise me that beginning readers don't want to do it.

You might also want to try leaving her notes. I got a little tin mailbox from the dollar bins at Target, and a few times a week I will write one or two sentences on an index card and slip it into the mailbox. I always make them short and fairly easy, so they're rewarding instead of a chore.

[AAK]

Everyone has given you great ideas. I wanted to add on more. My dd would get frustrated because a lot of sentences had words that didn't necessarily follow the phonics patterns that she was mastering. This is annoying. Then we were pointed to these books. They are awesome! http://3rsplus.com/

The first set relies on the pictures for telling a lot of the story--not to give "clues" to the words, but more like an actual wordless book--the pictures tell the story. But, these aren't wordless, but the words are very simple. The first book only uses three words. (I, See, and Sam). The text is like this (line breaks mean new page)
See.
See?
"I see. I see."
"Sam?"
"I see Sam."
"I see."
"Sam! Sam!"
"Sam! Sam! See Sam!"
"See Sam?"
"I see. I see Sam!"
"See Sam!"
"I see Sam! I see Sam!"
Sam

Like I said, you need the pictures to get the whole story, but what is happening is this. Mat (a rat) is looking at a picture book and sees a picture of a lion. Sam is a lion, so the rat gets excited about the picture of the lion. Mat gets Sam to look at the picture too.

But, the sentences are so short that they are easy to adjust to.

At the beginning of each book, it lists new words and new sounds (or new ways to represent a sound).

Amy

[yllek]

Originally Posted by StormySar

I tried the whiteboard idea today and it worked out well. Although my next question is - should she be expected to read sentences fluently and remember what she just read? Should we stumble through one sentence at a time and not read it smoothly after we sound out words, and just go on to the next sentence. Or should we read each sentence until it's smooth?

I like the bingo idea! What are flip books? What about homemade dice? I'd like to learn more about the homemade games idea - she loves games.

I hope that someone with more experience will chime in. All I can tell you is that I did not have ds read any sentences while he was still at the stage of sounding out words. But I'm not a big fan of "drills" or anything like that, so we played lots of games with cvc words until he knew them cold. I made a huge assortment of games and manipulatives so that the repetition of seeing these words didn't drive him (and me) crazy. My ds loved having lots of novelty while we were basically reviewing three-letter words over and over (and over and over...).

I got many ideas from all sorts of places, but here is a link for a TON of free phonics games and manipulatives:
http://www.fcrr.org/Curriculum/stude...Activities.htm

Scroll down to where it says Book 1 and Book 2. Fair warning - the links are HUGE pdf files. The downloads take a while. You'll see examples of the flip books, word sliders and dice on these pages. Lots of other stuff too.

I made a ridiculous number of games and manipulatives. Ridiculous. But like I said, my ds loved them. He genuinely looked forward to phonics practice, and now he really loves to read, even when the text is a bit beyond his ability level.

I introduced new words as word families. After he knew the word within the word families, we started mixing words up. Then we did sentences and books. After a few weeks of that, we moved very quickly through consonant blends, long vowel sounds, suffixes, digraphs, etc. But of course, by this time, he was also reading words like "generally" and "afternoon" on his own without a problem. Mostly, when it comes to homeschooling, I'm the one who is a little slow.

Anyway, if it were me, I'd slow waaay down (because I'm like that) to really let my kid consolidate these initial skills. In my limited experience, spending the extra time at this stage pays off later.

[StormySar]

Wow thank you all so much! I am going to slow down a lot, and just review all the new words she's been sounding out. then when she's got a good grasp on that, we'll move forward in the book. I really like the book, but the amount of sentences she has to read is very overwhelming to her. She loves games :-)

yllek, thank you so much for that link. I'm exploring it right now. I'm also going to google phonics games and come up with a bunch of games so we can just "do games for school" as she's asked so oftn - because that's what I do for her brother who is doing preschool. Lots of games and child-led learning. I'll also visit progressive phonics.

My daughter brought me a notebook today and asked me to write her a note in it every day - so maybe that will be the extent of our sentence reading, just a short note consisting of words she can easily sound out, with a new sight word every few days.

Ok, crises averted. My "I think I can" has moved forward to "I know I can" Or rather, I know SHE can... I feel very relieved and confident... and excited once again!

If anyone has any more ideas on specific games or manipulatives or tips for this stage of reading I'd still love to hear them!

[earthcore]

My DD really likes to do treasure hunts. I write one sentence clues on index cards. I try to incorporate a new word or two in each hunt. It's been a great way for her to learn household words like chair, couch, kitchen, as well as position words like under, inside, etc.