My elementary age son can read, but at a low grade level and he is several grade levels behind. I am overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. What do you recommend?
You should start with the Syllables Spell Success lessons. They require some help from you, but are very easy and simple to use. You should have the one page consonant and vowel sound chart handy when you do the lessons. The most important thing to emphasize is sounding out the words from left to right. You can guide him to the sounds on the chart at first, eventually it becomes a self teaching tool. Many of our students who are more than a few grade levels behind also benefit from watching our phonics lessons. These phonics lessons are just watch and learn. They complement the syllables lessons and will reinforce the phonics being learned in the more hands on syllables lessons. Our Lessons Page explains more about which lesson you should choose.
If he likes games, he can also play the phonics concentration game for reinforcement. It takes a lot of repetition for most remedial students to become fluent readers. This game is a fun way to get in extra repetition. See our phonics games page for more ideas.
I am an adult with limited reading skills. I use technology to help, but I would like to improve my reading. What do you suggest?
You should start with our Phonics Lessons. They are watch and learn, so they are very easy for an adult to use on their own. These lessons teach phonics to the 12th grade level. For reinforcement after you finish, you can watch our Spelling Lessons. Then, you can either re-watch the Phonics Lesson again or try our Syllables Spell Success lessons. They work better with someone to help, they are more hands on, but they can be tackled after watching the Phonics Lessons. They are complementary and will reinforce the things taught in the Phonics Lessons—the material is similar but they are taught in a different way. Adults and older students generally need a lot of repetition and can benefit from repeating the lessons.
When should you start to teach a child phonics?
The sooner the better. Studies have shown that children who learn to read early do better in school and in life than those who do not. A child as young as 18 months to 2 years old can learn the names and sounds of the letters in the alphabet. If your child can say "a sheep says baa," they can say "the o says ah." At 3 or 4 years of age, a child can learn to spell simple words and then to sound out words that they have spelled. If they can't write all the letters well yet, use magnetic letters and a cookie sheet to spell out simple words. At 4 or 5 years of age, a child can begin with a structured phonics program. See our beginning readers page for more.
Help! My child has completed the Syllables Spell Success lessons, and they helped with her reading. It decreased how much she guesses, too, but she still guesses when reading. What can I do?
Daily nonsense words help. For younger students or students that prefer games, play our phonics concentration game daily, it makes both real and nonsense words. For older students or young students that prefer a quick “get er done” format, use the extra nonsense word lists in the teacher PDF from our syllables page. The extra nonsense words are in the appendix. Just 25 nonsense words a day can make a big difference, and it only takes a minute to do!! For our worst guessers, usually older children or children who have been in schools that do speed drills with sight words, you may have to limit outside reading for a month while also doing daily nonsense words. This is easiest during longer school breaks or the over summer. If you want to fix the problem during the school year, read all of the students’ homework to them and limit outside reading to word lists and nonsense words. This is a painful process, but it will pay off in more accurate reading over the long run.
