I am a Mom of 6 and I’m preparing to start teaching my younger ones to read. DD15, DD12 are already excellent and avid readers. DS9 is getting quicker/more fluent using phonics method. DS(5yrs2mo) knows a few letters… I think I’ll tackle his reading soon with the same phonics approach. But I’d like to teach DS(3yrs2mo) and DS(11mo) with a Doman type method. Also in December we are expecting another little blessing, so in about a year or less I will want to start him/her with reading also. For DS3, he will need to progress through the steps quicker and get to phrases/sentences/books asap. DS(11mo) doesn’t have nearly the vocabulary base (the older knows what a dandelion is; I don’t think the little one even knows what flower means), so maybe the little one would benefit from having pictures shown with the words? The little one will need to stay with words and phrases longer. Probably the little one needs bigger print size, but how big is necessary to start with for him? I plan to use only 8-1/2 X 11 paper (cardstock) because I’d like to print the words and it’s easier to store. I have the YBCR DVDs, but I am not too keen to use them with the baby… especially not as his primary method.
Well, has anyone been successful starting with 2 or 3 different aged children at the same time? How did you keep track of each child’s program? If I tackle it in a very organized way and stay ahead of the game in planning and material preparation, then I am becoming less worried about the amount of time needed to teach, but efficiency in my method is still very important because I also have the older 4 to homeschool. The plus side is that I’m not employed and am blessed to be able to stay home with my children all day, everyday. Also we have a very affordable supply of printer ink, so I don’t mind printing out lots of flashcards if that would be best for individual print size or keeping their cards separate or printing out pictures to go with the word cards. On the minus side, I cannot afford to buy LR at this time.
You do have your hands full! Sounds like you are doing a good job. If I were you I would keep the size of the cards the same for both your children - despite what Doman suggests about size of the words, I started my daughter at 12 months on words that were 6cm high - a letter like “e” was just 2cm high and “h” landed up being 4cm - basically I just drew four lines each 2cm apart to write a word on) - the cards were 10cm x 14,5cm big. This has worked fine for me and been more than big enough.
I did not show my daughter pictures all the time, but tried to teach her words she understood at first and things I could show her in real life. There were times when I did use little reader if I needed a picture. In the end they are going to learn “is” and “and” and there is nothing you can show them for that - they still learn it. Today for the first time my 21 month old daughter read the word “and” aloud - up til now she has only ever read nouns and verbs aloud - so they take it in whether they understand the word or not. Nonetheless if you can show pictures with the words it does help as it keeps their interest.
While you need to move faster to phrases and sentences for your older child, you actually need to move slower through the individual words than with the 11 month old, so it will be a bit of a balancing act - you could also try to get the three year old to teach the 11 month old once the 3 year old is slightly more confident as he will be reading aloud from early on.
Good luck - it will be quite a challenge, but a lot of fun too.
Thank you, Tanakit, for your good suggestions. I wonder if I should make the single (step 1) word cards always the same font size (about 3 inches total height) and in red, regardless of whether it’s to be used right away or when we are already on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th steps with the boys (because you are still teaching new words when you are up to any one of the steps, right?) I just figure that then, if I am progressing slower through the steps and starting at a younger age with the little miracle in my belly, then I can still use any of the single word cards that I’ve made. Does this make sense? Would it bother a 3 or 4 year old, who is used to reading much smaller and black letters, to still be getting all his new words giant and red?
I tried the suggested 6" x 22" posterboard word cards a couple of years ago (life happens and our dive into Doman was a very short-lived one) and I found that size incredibly cumbersome. But I am thinking of following someone’s suggestion to me of sticking with posterboard. I have a laminator and could laminate all my word cards, (even baby #7 might not be the last baby we’ll use these on 
) but still the cost is much much higher, and the laminator will only take 8-1/2"x11"… at 2 cards per sheet cut lengthwise that’s $.36 per word card… posterboard cut 6"x22" would be $.16 per word card, and posterboard cut 5-1/2"x14" (8 to a board) would be $.08 per word card. So that’s quite a difference. I am thinking of doing the 5-1/2"x14"… it’ll be less cumbersome and more affordable. Does anyone think that won’t be big enough? Maybe for Step 3 phrases and Step 4 sentences I could do 2 lines lengthwise on 8-1/2"x11" cardstock… is it terribly important that the phrases and sentences be on one line only?
Well, time and money are precious and I only want to do this once and make materials that will be good for whatever age I start with, so I seek good advice before I get started.
I made single words on card that is 10cm x 14,5cm (approximately 4" x 6") which is much smaller than you are suggesting. I used only these single words and continue to make sentences by putting the single words together - I do not make separate sentence cards as this is just too much work. To bring the font size down I would get a normal piece of paper and write the words my daughetr requested (from about the time she was 18 months) on the paper in varying sizes - sometimes pretty small and sometimes even taking up the entire page. She’s learnt that it doesn’t matter how big the words are, they mean the same thing.
I do also write sentences for her on a chalk board now as I can change the font as much as I like on there and she also likes to scribble on there herself.
Good luck with all your children.