Phonics for 5 yo?

[tempus vernum]

I am just needy today. ;)

What are your favorites for the beginner?

DD knows the majority of her letters and sounds - we have been very casual to this point. We started on 100 EZ lessons and it is not working for us.

We have been using starfall's website but anything online is not that great for us because of our slow connections leads to boredom and frustration.

[JessicaTX]

My little ones love the leapfrog lettery factory video. I credit that with teaching them their letters and sounds. We also have more of the videos in that series, because my two year old loves them, lol. I bought the leapfrog fridge phonics as well, I believe that helped cement the letters and sounds.

I used 100ez lessons with my 6 year old starting when she was five, and she really didn't do well on it, after much frustration on both our parts, we put it away. I'd keep pulling it out every few months to see if she was ready, but she wasn't. A couple weeks ago I pulled it out again, and now she is flying through the lessons with no problems. Since she's doing it my 4 and 2 year old want to do it too. So my four year old is somewhere in the teens on the lessons, and my two year old is on lesson 3, lol. I just stick with what I know she knows and she loves having school time too =) I have several different learn to read books, and my kids enjoy playing on the starfall site and using studydog as well.

The best advice I can give is not to push. I was trying to get through a lesson a day when my 6 year old was small, and even if she started out okay we would invariably end up with tears. I should have recognized to stop when frustration started, it's taken a lot to build her back up to the point that she thinks she CAN do it.


Oh, and about your slow connection, Studydog is downloaded to your computer, so while loading time would probably take eons, playtime would be much faster =)

[hearttender4]

I liked using Explode the Code, and would try to supplement it with extra practice reading and writing words with one specific blend or digraph that we were working on. And I had a page of the sounds written that we would review often with things like "oy, oi, ow, ou, all," etc.