Reading after (The Reading Lesson)

[Jessica30]

My 5 year old is doing very well in The Reading Lesson and I see that they only do emergent readers for next year in Beyond? I am worried he will either get lazy sounding out words or he should be using a phonics program too? Has anyone added a phonics program to the readers? Or did you use a different program after The Reading Lesson instead of jumping right into the readers? Thanks!

[StephanieU]

I dint think they will get lazy with the emerging Readers. They are "real" books that increase in difficulty. They aren't like Bob books or other simple books. The first books after the Bible are I Can Read Level 2. The last few books are chapter books with names that take a little work to sound out. We found that it was a great way for my daughter to progress in her reading with enjoyable books. She note is a voracious reader, able to read the history, science, and storytime books in Bigger in her own (although I still read them to her).

[bethelmommy]

My oldest jumped right into the ER's after TRL and never needed anything else. My second child really struggled with spelling and I knew her grasp of phonics wasn't as strong (she kind of just learned to read whole words really early) so I eventually added some Explode The Code workbooks. She actually did just fine with actual reading, but the extra phonics practice helped her spelling tremendously. My third child is doing really well with reading phonetically and seems to be a natural speller, so he will likely be fine with the ER's without any supplementation. My recommendation is to follow the natural progression of the program as Carrie has planned. If you notice a problem, then reevaluate and adjust

[MelInKansas]

I agree, going straight into the Emerging Readers should be fine if your child is reading well in The Reading Lesson. We are almost there too! However if you feel your child is a bit young or the progression of books gets too challenging too quickly for him/her then you can always add in the extra books in the ERs. Each unit has another book and I used those with my 2nd daughter to stretch it out a little bit. She wouldn't have been ready to move ahead, and reading was very frustrating for her. The extra books aren't paced and don't have discussion questions so we would just read for 10 minutes and then discuss it each day.

Reading real books will develop that love of reading, it's worked with 2 of my kids so far!