hooked on phonics or something else?

DD is constantly wanting me to read to her, or asking about letters & trying to put them together. I think she's probably ready to start some kind of reading program. I've heard Hooked on Phonics is supposed to be great; anyone ever use it?

 

I HIGHLY recommend "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". It is also phonics based (and much cheaper! $22 for the book.) and based on DISTAR, which is used in many schools. I'm using it with my kids and it is working like magic! There is tons of repetition and a variety of ways the ideas are approached. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I'm going to copy some stuff I recently posted about it over in the homeschooling forum (sorry if it is a little disjointed):

 

How about a tag reader. My girls both have one and really enjoy them. You touch the words and it will say each as she touches it or if you press start it will read the whole page and then it has reading comp games and learning to read games in the back.

 

I haven't done anything formal at home, but they definitely followed some type of curriculum at preschool. The Word Whammer is a cool toy that doesn't cost much. I also have a set of BOB books that Lily's been into (she's close to reading).

 

FWIW---I would not be inclined pick up a formal program at this age.

Wait until Kinder age to do 'formal' work, even in the public schools a lot sit/read/write workbooks-type work does not show up until late K or 1st. K kids learn phonics, sight words, and how to write---but it is usually interactive and much more hands on than 1st/2nd grade. K often involves little personal books, take home books/activities, word play, and language/math games and group sharing/exploring learning styles.

Not that there is anything wrong about a formal program, but my personal feelings are that they will get enough pen/paper more formal teaching at school, most schools have a set curriculum 'brand' that they use for everyone. The schools in K & PreK simply can not do 1,000 books on dinosaurs or horses or whatever if a child asks for them---they can touch on it and individualize within the program they have in place (kids reading in groups at all different ability levels)- but they have to move forward at a set pace to get through the basics and/or tend to every single 20+ kids needs in a small amount of time--The teachers do a WONDERFUL job with the wide variety and differences in the students they have, but it is not the same as having total free reign to go in whatever direction and pace your child is now, at home you can totally individualize it and play around with what your DC are interested in. Preschool & Prek learning is naturally done in a more 'loose' exploratory and child-led format- it is low key, low stress, and non competitive.

What we did when my girls were begging to 'learn' to read, we made homeade books (This is - name of child-______. She likes________. She likes________.) They then helped me fill it in to personalize it and we glue pictures or drew them---simply printed out simple sentence and then used a paper brad to bind them or stapled them. We had a bazillion of them laying around the house, it really really did not take much time at all. As they got better at reading them, or even memorized them we added more type and/or made new ones.

We also printed a lot of 'easy' books off line. Free (except for the paper) and you can google themes. Often they are a PDF format. They vary from very simple one word one page to 3 grade + books. Reading AtoZ website has some great ones and they are MUCH more preschool 'fun' than the hooked on phonics books or BOB books.

Our library has a GREAT selection of easy readers as well- both from a formal program start to finish and just easy to read popular titles. My girls would pick out ones they were interested in (My Little Pony, Barbie, Biscuit, Frog N Toad,Tinkerbell, Princesses, etc) and we would read them together over and over again....sometimes we talked about the words, other times the story, but we explored the books alot - after a while I could not 'read' a word and they would do it for me and quickly, very quickly they picked up on a lot of words by sight. A bit of sounding out simple words and word play with magnets and they could sound out simple words.

We had a few HOP and BOB books laying around from my teaching days or the library, but they were not very popular. Dull story and bad pictures.

Both my girls are reading and it was totally in an informal format like this....for us it worked well. They learned words they liked first (names, favorite stuff, then colors, CVC words, a mix of sight words--love, like, the , I, go.) It was a nice blended child-lead approach---not all phonics and not all whole language, rather it was based on what they were 'into' and the time and expressed and interest in. We never did flashcards or anything that scripted.

We also did a lot of letter play with letter magnets. Lots of fun and they quickly learned that word families---- if you have ____at then you can add a c to make cat or a m to make mat or a p to say pat. Then we would act it out, it was a fun interactive physical way to play with words.


Do what feels right though, as long as you are working together *one of the best parts* and she is interested it can be a lot of fun! Try a program like HOP or something else if you feel that you want a 'script' or sequence- there is nothing wrong with those programs. They are just too much like what my girls were going to see in K/1st etc. for me to get all excited about for a 3 or 4 yr old that is asking to learn to read.

I agree with the PP suggestion of a TAG and Word Whammer, both are hits in our house.

 

We liked the Abeka preschool program. It's Christian curriculum, so you may or may not be interested. It's phonics based and a spiral program for math. My son was reading well by the end and did the K4 program at 3. He did K5 at 4. We homeschool and it was a really good program for the early elementary years.

 

I agree with KC. Just get them books and read with them. Let them pick out words. It is great if they are learning to read on their own, but pushing through a program at this age, can lead to burn out before they finish elementary age. There are plenty of workbooks you can buy at Target and Wal-mart which offer some basic skills, and I would do that before investing in a big program anyway.

 

huked on fonix werked fir me

I would listen to what Sharon and KC said. They're early education teachers (teechurs) and very knowledgable about children's brains and school.