Recommend your favorite Reading program/curric....

[ivkins]

Dd will be 6 in Nov. So far we have tried Reading Made Easy and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. She can not get into either, nor can I. What else is out there that is more fun maybe? What has worked for you?

[tankgirl73]

Have you tried progressivephonics.com? It's free (read online or print out the books), the stories are cute and silly and fun. The progression of sounds taught makes sense. And since the child just reads a few words in each book (the child reads the big red words and the parent reads the rest), you get a more complex story than something like the BOB books (which I also do love) even when the kid is only reading "am" and "Sam".

[jenfl]

A second for Progressive Phonics. My LO is still really young and just starting out, but she's getting a kick out of the stories.

[AAK]

Ha, we've used everything! Just kidding--kinda. . . here is the rundown:

Explode the Code--nice but they get monotonous. I have had to adapt them a bit because we use them in conjunction with other stuff.

Beyond the Code--I really like these, but they are more of a "comprehension" skills builder and a fluency helper rather than learning to decode. We do them orally.

ABeCeDarian--This is our current "main thing". It teaches one sound at a time and goes through each way to write that sound. I expand on it to get more movement involved. My dd learns better with movement.

I See Sam readers--we use these for reading practice. They literally move as fast as a snail. They work great with ABeCeDarian because they don't rely on sight words to make a story. Everything is decodable. They introduce one long vowel right away (the use of 'ee' to make the long e sound) and I guess one sight word if you count the word "I". But then, they gently introduce other sounds along the way. Nice help for parents on inside cover that tells which sounds are new in each book and how they are written.

We use All About Spelling for spelling. However, I also ordered their readers which we LOVE. The stories are cute, and decodable.

Can you tell I am dealing with dyslexia? We need explicit introduction to sounds, etc. Decodable readers are a must with us. We may switch to the Barton reading program that is specifically for dyslexics but I have been draggin my feet.

We have used Reading Eggs in the past. Ok, but not for us.

Also, we loved the games that the book "Reading Reflex" introduced us too. The book is for the mom--you can usually get it at the library. Then, you can decide if/when/how to implement their ideas. It is a phono graphix approach. ABeCeDarian is also a phono-graphix approach. That is why I choose it--it was helping a lot and as we got to the "advanced" code I wanted things 'ready to go'.

Amy

[dubatatamama]

My DS loves Explode the Code and we have tried the free trial of readingeggs.com and that was *OK*. He enjoyed it alright, but it was extremely annoying to me. We have also enjoyed Bob books and the "Open Court" readers.

[elizawill]

we've used a modge podge of things, so i'm not sure if it was really one single thing, but rather a mix of everything constantly reinforcing one another. for my daughter, we've used explode the code (books 1-7), which we used alongside other programs from K-2 - so i feel ETC helped reinforce concepts, but i wouldn't have used it as a stand alone. headsprout.com is excellent, but we didn't finish it (my dd began to hate it). readingeggs was a lot of fun for my little girl, but it didn't teach anything new (we had it for free when it first came out, so we used it to reinforce concepts since it was of no cost at the time). for beginning readers, we loved bob books, followed by "i can read books", followed by dick & jane, and then moved onto the ambleside beginner readers (treadwell books, which are free). in our final stages she used hooked on phonics grade 2 & followed it with HOP master reader. now she can read anything. ETA....oh! i forgot, my daughter also used time 4 learning for a tidbit in first grade. i felt their reading program was fairly comprehensive & she really enjoyed it. we only used it for a short time though, as i couldn't justify the cost with all of the curriculum i already owned.

with my son, we used HOP grade K last year. now he is using learning to read by christian light education. a lot of it is review so far, but i absolutely love this program & so does he! it is a 1/2 year program, so when he's through with it by christmas, we'll switch back to HOP grade 1 to reinforce it all. next year, we'll probably use grade 2 HOP, followed by master reader in 3rd grade. for extra readers, we'll just use the same ones my daughter used.

for both kids, we have used the leapfrog dvd's to introduce letter sounds and basic CVC words (leapfrog letter factory & leapfrog talking word factory).

hth. hope it makes sense too.

[MyLittleWonders]

For us, it would be Phonics Pathways and All About Spelling (yes, technically a spelling program, but we apply what we have learned all the time to reading/phonics/decoding). And as AAK mentioned, they are publishing readers and from what I have read, she is working on a reading program - All About Reading.

[dantesmama]

Once I started The Reading Lesson with my now-K'er, his reading just took off. It's clean, uncluttered, simple, and straightforward. We both hated 100 Easy Lessons, btw!
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[yllek]

We have used

* starfall.com
* Sing, Spell, Read, Write
* Phonics Pathways
* Progressive Phonics
* AAS (but not really for reading)
* ETC (totally not our thing - ds is NOT workbooky)

We now use the I See Sam series, and I these. The decodable stories are really delightful. Ds is reading Set 6 now, and he is genuinely enthusiastic about our reading practice time.

When we were doing more beginning phonics and less actual reading, we also incorporated many of the activities from http://www.fcrr.org/curriculum/SCAindex.shtm

into whatever we were doing. Ds loved doing these center activities to reinforce phonics instruction. If you are looking for fun, this is where I'd go. There are many, many good ideas for turning phonics into various games or interesting activities. Huge pdf files, but they are totally worth the download.

[425lisamarie]

We are using ETC ONLINE, because both my kids gets fed up pretty quick with worksheets, and this year they both have their own laptops so it's something they can sit and do for a short period of time on their own.

We loved the leapfrog dvd's, it got them singing the songs about the letter sounds. We play a lot of games which helps for numbers and letter recognition. When we started playing go fish with the cards that have the color and name for it, I would ask DD "what's the first letter of your color" because they would be i.e., indigo, instead of just blue.

I still keep magnetic letters on the white boards, we have 3. One big one for each kid and one for me instructing or whatever beacuse often they are VERY picky about people drawing on their own lol. DS is reading extremely well at 6, DD 4 is learning still. My son a lot of times works with her on the white board by putting one or two letters and then having her find another one to make a word, it's too cute.

Both my kids helps me write grocery lists, and I'll help spell out words which helps reading and writting. The more they write it reinforces reading as well. They love making cards for people, writting letters to grandma etc. Also I have 3 boxes of the flash cards for all the high frequency words that don't sound out right, and we started with 10 at a time and just looked at them every day for maybe a week. It really helps my kids to have things posted all over. I have cute little desk stations for them, and above I string up their "words for the week." I got this thing from ikea for maybe $5 that looks like a mini curtain rod with little dangly things with clips at the end. I clip the cards on to them and they have them in front of them just to glance at whenever. I also have these cheap picture ledges from ikea that were likle $10 a piece and there are 3 above their work corner They love spelling/writting tests on the white board. And just for fun I just take a picture of the white board instead of making them do it on paper cause they just lilke it that way, and I like to have organized documentation for everything LOL.

I notice the minute I whip out a worksheet I have maybe 10 more minutes and then DS is DONE for the day. Math is the only thing we always do sitting on paper. DD doesn't mind pages for everything so long as she can color on them.

[dotnetdiva]

Here's what we loved (and still are loving):

• Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading - extremely thorough and easy to use (finished this over the summer)
• Explode the Code workbooks - for review (still use)
• All-About-Spelling (levels 1-3, will start 4 later this year)
• Beyond the Code - just started, still seeing how we like it, so far it's working out well

We got a ReadingEggs.com subscription a few times but it was just fun and I don't think it even helped very much, but it is worth doing a free trial and see how it works out for your family.

[newcastlemama]

Starfall and Progessive Phoincs is what we are doing now...(my ds did not like 100 Easy Lessons either)

[Love_My_Babies]

We use Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. A friend is having great success with Headsprout.

[Quaniliaz]

I like Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books