My view is that phonics is the "grammar" of reading (in the trivium sense) and thus, necessary. The poetic draws the learner, but one must have the tools.
But I have to note that I never went more than halfway through 100 Easy Lessons with my children who used it. It's not that good, but it has one key element not found elsewhere as far as I know, and that is the "say it fast" (as I remember -- is that how they teach it?) instruction for putting the sounds together to make a word. For most children, that doesn't come easily and there's a terrible hump between sounding out each sound and putting them together in a word.
100 Easy Lessons offers a way to get over that hump. That's its utility. Once that one element is mastered, the child can be freed from all those lessons.
Otherwise, it's annoying because the "stories" are inane and the orthography is counterproductive, since it's not found anywhere else. It's an ugly book and way too long!
Mrs. Lawler, it is an honor to have you here! I have not read your Summa's yet, but they are on my list and I look forward to reading them sooner than later. Thank you for sharing your perspective, it certainly lines up with how my mom taught me and my siblings to read as well. I find that the little exercises provided at the beginning of 100 Easy Lessons are coming in handy even as I am taking the poetic approach to reading lessons with my third child. The ideas of "sounding it out" and "saying it fast" are so helpful and sneak into my vocabulary as I instruct her.
I’m currently teaching my seventh child to read. I’ve used 100 Easy Lessons for them all as well as tons of read alouds and reader books they like. I think it is all good! I have a couple kids I’ve gone back with explicit phonics instruction to help with certain struggles each was experiencing. The really tough thing that no one wants to hear is that… each human is so different. Sorry to burst bubbles but the idea of a single reading instruction method working best for everyone is just not realistic. And therein lies the beauty of homeschooling. You can adjust and tinker and perfect each child’s approach to falling in love with reading. The only “one thing that everyone should do” - is to realize that the goal is falling in love with reading. Period. Not reading by 5 or 8 or progressing at some predetermined pace or sequence. It is to fall in love with reading.
Reading this article is so timely—I had this exact same lightbulb go off only two days ago. We are in a somewhat unique situation in that my 8 year old boy is dyslexic so phonics are necessary, but we have been sloggggging through what you perfectly described as the “twaddly, multi-year” curriculum. It felt like it would be forever before he could ENJOY reading.
Well, I remembered that the Free and Treadwell readers came highly recommended..so I pulled them off our shelves and had him read me The Little Red Hen. We’ve read (Paul Galdone’s!) version many times so he’s very familiar with the story and it’s repetitive. He sat down and fluently read the entire store. Every word. This is a kid that will sound out CVC words still at times. Fluency has been a huge obstacle and yet here he is flying through this story.
After he was done I asked him why he thought and he said “Yeah, see mom that’s a good story…my other stories (from curriculum) are really boring”. The next morning he voluntarily grabbed the Free and Treadwell readers and was reading the next story. Which…as a mom of a dyslexic…I can tell you has almost never happened before.
My view is that phonics is the "grammar" of reading (in the trivium sense) and thus, necessary. The poetic draws the learner, but one must have the tools.
But I have to note that I never went more than halfway through 100 Easy Lessons with my children who used it. It's not that good, but it has one key element not found elsewhere as far as I know, and that is the "say it fast" (as I remember -- is that how they teach it?) instruction for putting the sounds together to make a word. For most children, that doesn't come easily and there's a terrible hump between sounding out each sound and putting them together in a word.
100 Easy Lessons offers a way to get over that hump. That's its utility. Once that one element is mastered, the child can be freed from all those lessons.
Otherwise, it's annoying because the "stories" are inane and the orthography is counterproductive, since it's not found anywhere else. It's an ugly book and way too long!
Mrs. Lawler, it is an honor to have you here! I have not read your Summa's yet, but they are on my list and I look forward to reading them sooner than later. Thank you for sharing your perspective, it certainly lines up with how my mom taught me and my siblings to read as well. I find that the little exercises provided at the beginning of 100 Easy Lessons are coming in handy even as I am taking the poetic approach to reading lessons with my third child. The ideas of "sounding it out" and "saying it fast" are so helpful and sneak into my vocabulary as I instruct her.
I’m currently teaching my seventh child to read. I’ve used 100 Easy Lessons for them all as well as tons of read alouds and reader books they like. I think it is all good! I have a couple kids I’ve gone back with explicit phonics instruction to help with certain struggles each was experiencing. The really tough thing that no one wants to hear is that… each human is so different. Sorry to burst bubbles but the idea of a single reading instruction method working best for everyone is just not realistic. And therein lies the beauty of homeschooling. You can adjust and tinker and perfect each child’s approach to falling in love with reading. The only “one thing that everyone should do” - is to realize that the goal is falling in love with reading. Period. Not reading by 5 or 8 or progressing at some predetermined pace or sequence. It is to fall in love with reading.
Reading this article is so timely—I had this exact same lightbulb go off only two days ago. We are in a somewhat unique situation in that my 8 year old boy is dyslexic so phonics are necessary, but we have been sloggggging through what you perfectly described as the “twaddly, multi-year” curriculum. It felt like it would be forever before he could ENJOY reading.
Well, I remembered that the Free and Treadwell readers came highly recommended..so I pulled them off our shelves and had him read me The Little Red Hen. We’ve read (Paul Galdone’s!) version many times so he’s very familiar with the story and it’s repetitive. He sat down and fluently read the entire store. Every word. This is a kid that will sound out CVC words still at times. Fluency has been a huge obstacle and yet here he is flying through this story.
After he was done I asked him why he thought and he said “Yeah, see mom that’s a good story…my other stories (from curriculum) are really boring”. The next morning he voluntarily grabbed the Free and Treadwell readers and was reading the next story. Which…as a mom of a dyslexic…I can tell you has almost never happened before.