I’m teaching my little daughter (2.5 years old now) sind almost 1.5 years to read with the sight word method. Since a few weeks she also knows the alphabet, so I thought to start with the “phonics” program as described in DadDude’s essay (which by the way is a super super essay, I would reccomend it to everybody!) So I made a few Flesh-Cards (this is not so easy, because I don’t teach in english, so I had to make cards myself) and showed them to her.
Well, she is so familiar with reading sight-words, that she didn’t “get” this method. I introduced it like this i.e. ccccc…aaaaa…ttttt. Which she repeated exatly like me, but she couldn’t read it as whole word. And also she is getting very quickly frustrated by the words. So we stop. We have been doing this now for about 1 week with no success. I don’t know, what to do now, get back to sight-teaching-method only (we kept this also up) or triing? I don’t want her to be too frustrated…
My advice is to try http://watchknowreader.busedge.com/ and use “Sound It Out Slowly.” (Use Google Chrome or Firefox, because we’re in the middle of design work and it doesn’t look so good in IE at present.) Have your daughter say the word (not sound it out, say it) when prompted to do so. It shouldn’t be too hard, because just before being told to sound it out, the student hears the word sounded out slowly. It’s an easy-peasy step to get to the faster sounded-out version.
Try that several times, then switch to “Sound It Out Quickly” and then, when your daughter is very confident with a word set, “Let Me Sound It Out.”
I’ve been using the program Dad Dude is developing that he just spoke of with my son who turned two this week. We do the sound it out slowly and then test with either paper cards (I had printed them for my elder son) or the have me sound it out setting. Once he has a set mastered we move on to the next (We are doing the smaller 5 word subsets). He is doing great and has even started trying to sound out words he sees in everyday life. Especially if you are uncomfortable with your pronounciation of words it is a good tool. Other good things might be the Bob books, starfall website, or readingeggs.
When I started teaching my daughter to sound things out I did everything for her at first (she was also about 2.5 when I started) and expected nothing in return. So I’d say the entire thing: cccc…aaaaa…ttt says Cat. I did this for about 2-3 months with endless words before she started telling me the word when I sounded it out for her. It is only now at age four when I have started a more intensive phonics programme with her that I am expecting her to sound the words out herself and get the word after saying the sounds. Go slowly with your child - blending is quite a process and it often takes the child a chance to “click” before they can do it all by themselves.
I agree with Tanikit, the BIG step in learning phonics is “getting” the idea that sounds can be blended together to make a whole word, and that a whole word can be broken down into individual sounds. That’s the thing to work on when starting phonics. Once H had mastered this, it was all downhill (not necessarily easy, but not as hard as the first blended words).
We break words apart a good bit just in daily language. Not all the time, of course, that’d be annoying.
“let’s go to the bath tub, t, u, b, tub!” “who can find the c, a, t? Cat. Where’s the cat?” “let’s get into the c, ar, car”. Etc. I think doing that has really helped both my kids be interested in the sounds that make up words even when we aren’t looking at them.
Thank you so much for your replies and ideas. I like the Reading Bear very much and would love, if it was also available in other languages (e.g. for us in hungarian). So I’m thinking about making something similar myself in LR, talking slow, blending letters… I don’t know, if that’s possible, but I will try.
Also the integration in everyday life is a very good idea!
Just tried reading bear with the lads (4yrs & 2yrs) and they loved it! Thanks for letting us know about it!
BTW, I don’t know how much this will work with other children, but as a signing household, both the boys fingerspell (or attempt to) when they see words and do reading programmes like LR and reading bear. It is a fun way to pass the time and requires no toys (perfect for waiting places, distracting them when they are sick of riding the train etc). Fine motor skills and pre-literacy skills all in one - we love sign language!