Home school and reading for 5yr old

[bbrandonsmom]

I can't seem to find a home school thread here, unless it's in the home school forum?
So far we are going to home school. Ds is turning 5 next week and is wanting to read. Other than reading to him, I'm not sure the best methods to use to help him. I've looked at a few different methods-Barbara Beers, Charlotte Manson and Five in a Row. I'm sure he memorizes the smaller sight words, it's anything larger. He wants to read say, the word "Thursday" and spell it as well. Or one of his super heros like "Scorpion", which he did read by sounding it out, but got stuck on the "ion" part.
I guess I'm just stuck on "how" to teach him to spell and read, and on what method would give him a firm grasp on the english language. I know it's different for everyone. I'm probably going to end up trying many different things, but I feel like now, at his age, I don't want to complicate learning to read and spell.

[no5no5]

There are a lot of threads on reading curriculum in the Learning at Home forum. Do you see your son as needing a particular/special type of curriculum because he is gifted?

[heatherdeg]

Yeah... Learning At Home And Beyond is the forum to go to. But if your son knows his letters and letter sounds, I would teach him phonetic reading using the BOB books from Scholastic by Bobby Lynn Maslen. Then you could just let him develop a LOT of those skills by continuing to read to him (to model good reading, pacing, pronunciation, intonation, etc.), but also allowing him to read to you (so you can correct pronunciation as needed).

My 6yo has been reading for a few years and we're still not really tackling too much actual spelling/grammar/language. I mean, I've done a worksheet or two with him just to feel out what he knows, but it's not any regular portion of anything we do. Honestly, we're not doing much.

[HeatherB]

Moving over to Learning at Home and Beyond!

[BellinghamCrunchie]

DD is five, and we are using several different things, no one of them daily, and as she prefers.

1. Read to her every night and when she wishes.
2. BOB books as she wants - they are really great; she read her first BOB book all by herself a month ago, it was pretty darn exciting
3. Starfall.com
4. Readingeggs.com (we did get a subscription)
5. The Starfall Board game once it arrives (just bought it)
6. She dictates, I write her stories in large font on the computer then print out
7. Workbooks when she feels like it, nothing in particular just whatever she wants
8. Leapfrog dvds (letter factory, etc)
9. I write letters on the chalkboard, and she says the sounds. For example, I'll write "at" and she sounds it out, then I'll put a B in front, then a C, then an F, and so on, so she can sound out how the different letters in front of "at" make different words

[WhaleinGaloshes]

We've played with starfall.com, readingeggs.com (we found this too late and I won't end up subscribing since she got 29 out of the 30 diagnostic questions and it put her at the end of the progression, but it's a very nice site) and both are fun.

Bob books are nice, but the bored DD.

My best find, for us, was http://progressivephonics.com These are free ebooks and the rocked for DD! She tore through one a night and asked for more. I thought she'd be bummed when we ran out of material and she was perfectly happy to go back to intermediate book 1 and work her way back through the end of the advanced again. I love them.

[Storm Bride]

Reading suggestions??

Edit...meant to post a new thread..

[dotnetdiva]

You've got some great suggestions! I agree with everyone. Just adding what we've done in particular with our 5 year old. We started very casually when she was 4, but then more in earnest at 4.75-5ish.

• Reading aloud every day - we plan to do this even way past when she is independently reading, and hope to make this a family event even through teenage years
• Leapfrog Letter Factory - to jumpstart learning all the most common sounds
• Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading - this is our phonics book we're using. It goes through all the phonics rules systematically up through 4th grade reading. We'll be finishing it this year, while she's still 5 I bet though. Lessons are super easy to teach, it is hands-down our easiest subject.
• ReadingEggs.com - we use this as supplemental reading that she does independently to have fun on the computer when I'm busy
• Progressive Phonics has been neat, wish I had found this earlier
• We use All-About-Spelling program which has been amazing! It really has complemented our phonics reading program and my daughter is empowered to write down stories and letters to express her feelings and thoughts (even though I do not require nor expect this)
• We've got all the beginning readers - BOB books, Nora Gaydos, Beehive readers, but I don't require her to read these too much, I was hoping to get past a certain reading skill so she can jump right to interesting chapter books. She's starting to pick up books and sounding out the words, but I think she needs a few more months and then she'll have most the tools at her disposal to read the tougher stuff.

We did Five in a Row last spring, but I'd consider that a literature/science/art/social studies program, and you'd need to add the 3 R's in addition.

[Smithie]

Hooked on Phonics is what my kid adored. We also have to BOB books, and the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, but nothing else approached the joy of filling in the HOP sticker chart.

[skueppers]

We've been using a lot of the same things everyone else has mentioned, but I thought I'd comment anyway.

I've found it important to mix things up. My daughter used Reading Eggs for a while, then BOB books and Progressive Phonics, and now the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG). Each of these things worked for her at a particular stage of learning to read, and it was helpful to her to have somewhere else to go if she got stuck in one resource. For example, right now she's paused after the first few books of BOB books set 4, and has been for a couple of months. They got too hard. But she's making excellent progress in the OPG.

I know some kids probably do fine with one "program" from start to finish, but that wasn't the right approach for her. I do think that at this stage of learning to read, we're likely to be able to stick with the OPG for at least another six weeks before we reach a stopping place.

So my advice is to have several different resources available and not to expect linear progress. Be prepared to stop, wait, change gears, etc. We've been on this "learning to read" journey for almost a year, and she's just starting to get a glimmer of long vowels. We've just done "th" for the third time in different resources, and I think it's going to "stick" this time. The previous two times weren't a waste of time, as I'm sure the earlier exposure is helping her "get it" this time.

It's easy as parents to imagine that kids will learn things in a way that seems sequential and orderly to us, but the reality is messier than that.

[bbrandonsmom]

Thanks everyone. Some of those places I haven't heard of and will check them out. Does anyone focus on spelling the word as well though? We tend to play a spelling game in the car and make a silly song of it. Like we'll start with at, and then what are all the words we can spell with that, and then change 1 letter from say, Cat to Car and proceed from there. Ds has to spell by memory then and when he sees the word he is very happy because he knows what it says. We just started this the other day.
We picked up the Bob books from the library and ds is reading right through them. It makes him very happy to do so. He kept running to tell dh that he was reading the books.

[pigpokey]

Nope, we didn't start with spelling.

[Savoir Faire]

We are learning to read through the program Spell to Write and Read. I'm still in the starter phases of it....but it looks pretty good.

But, phonics don't/can't work for us, so we're having to use other ways to get to reading.

[dannic]

We don't do many workbook-type stuff, but both ds and dd (7 & 5) love Explode the Code!