After having used a phonics system with it's own readers that were developed to work in sequence with skills learned for my older children, I am trying a different approach with my youngest child.

I have a stack of real books but also have the first set of Bob Books for some reading practice on a more basic level. I am tempted to purchase more readers that work with our phonics system but I feel we could well without. My daughter enjoys having me read the books to her at this time. She goes through them searching for letters and sounds that she knows. I don't think she would have the same level of enthusiasm for basal readers.

Do you use basal readers or books with reading levels? Do you have a different method?

Just a question here did you try a version like hooked on phonic or are you doing straight letters with the kids??

Brandy,

I haven't homeschooled, but I taught my daughter to read at a third-grade level by the time she started kindergarten. At 4, she just naturally started being curious about letters and sounds. Since I had been an aide in a kindergarten class with heavy academic emphasis, I knew a method for teaching her. I think it was the A Beka program that the school I worked for used. A Beka was heavy phonics at the time (about 20 years ago, yikes!), but I am not familiar with it now.

After she learned capital and lower case letters, I taught her their sounds, but only short vowel sounds to start. Then we started combining the sounds in simple words ie. dog, bat, mat, can, etc. I also taught her some basic "sight words", that don't follow any rule per say ie. eight, was, etc. Then I started looking at the book store for easy readers, but I don't remember any titles in particular. After she had some confidence with those basic words, we moved on to long vowel sounds ie. fire, cane, base, etc. Then she was off and running! I taught her other letter sounds, like soft c ("center") and soft g ("giraffe") only when she'd see it in the word. I tried not to confuse her too much, just gradually let her discover those "tricky" rules as needed.If she encountered a word she couldn't sound out, she'd ask me. Once was all it took. (She is an exceptionally bright girl, I can't take credit for my method, she just naturally absorbed it.)

I am a big proponent of phonetic-based curriculum. At one school district my daughter attended, they had recently changed from a phonetc-based system to a more whole-language type curriculum. In about three years, their standardized test scores tanked! The administration started harping on the teachers, saying they weren't doing their jobs. But the teachers fought back to get a phonetic-system again, and the scores have been going back up.

cheapChic:

Just a question here did you try a version like hooked on phonic or are you doing straight letters with the kids??

I am using Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading from Peacehill Press. It's written to work with the classical method. I did give Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons a try but found their system for introducing letters and the excercises not at all to our liking.

Besides working through the lessons from the book, we have some cheap workbooks for letter related pages, we use letter magnets and read books together.

As a special educationt teacher, I use a variety of methods to teach kids to read, or to read better; most of my students are functioning 3-4 years behind grade level, or more, in middle school, which is why they are in my class.  Different kids are going to react differently, and therefore respond better to different forms of instruction.  I've used every type of instruction I can lay hands on in an effort to help my students improve their reading.

If your daughter enjoys searching for letters and sounds she knows, I would suggest getting a bunch of easily predictable books - the kind that follows a pattern and changes one word or sequence of words on each page, with a picture that helps determine the meaning of the changed word - rather like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, or the lower level Dr. Seuss books.  Read the books to her and with her, and encourage her to memorize the text; then have her show you the letters/sounds she knows, pick one she doesn't know, and then teach it to her.  This is a method that was originally codified in Australia, for struggling readers, but matches the learning style of a significant percentage of students - you can find books on it by looking for Reading Recovery.

slk2042:

I think it was the A Beka program that the school I worked for used

I was very impressed with Abeka. It was the first curriculum I used.

My oldest completed the Kindergarten level within a year and did ok with it. She did not do so well with the first grade material. She needed more repetition than the system offers. In two years time, my son still had not completed the Kindergarten materials. I had to find or make quite a bit of extra work for him and also tried a few hands on activities.  

I decided to try Bob Jones as it had some of the same principles of teaching but offered more repetition and had a slower pace. My daughter did ok with that as well but fought me on it because she didn't like the materials. My son did not do well with this one either.

I tried a few other things and gradually transitioned to a classical method. While I still use phonics for reading skills, we use more real books for reading than the basal readers. This worked best for my son and rather than use Abeka for the youngest, I am trying this approach to teach her to read.