day 4 of sound reading

I thought Id post my impressions so far

My son is 11 and going into 6th in the fall. We have had tutoring(mixed methods in one gal-excellent)and tried phonographix last summer(didnt get to multis)

We have the teen program-workbook, teachers guide, and CD. The recommendation is to do it 3-4/week, NOT daily and use the CD as more of a reward than to teach

What sold me was the ‘changing the brain’ hype. My son has a strong decoding background and tests well on decoding tests, but simply refuses to employ it. Im hoping for it to become so automatic, he doesnt get to choose

The lessons are laid out fairly straighforward. There is a variety which appeals to him-no writing yet, but I know there will be some.We get through pretty quickly(<30 min) The means to an end readers are so far VERY easy but we are following directions to not skip ANYTHING-we are working a bit ahead in the readers and with the blocks which he begs for!!! But Im not skipping

What I like:

variety
blocks
specific directions to move forward even if he doesnt get any one
exercise as they are going for the whole program, not specifics
5 min warmup each session flashcarding a small # of sounds(se, ng)
fast pace of the cd

Dont like:

many little errors in the materials-tell you to pull 5 letters for wordbuilding
but use 6-poor proofreading on their part
needs more nonsense words(my son put out four blocks for ‘ant’ and said
a-uh-n-t(we need to work past that visualizing and nonsense would help)
needs more block activities(these kids are all likely hands on)

I have no regrets about going with the teen version. Id say 4th grade up could use it as it starts with the very basics anyway.(they say 6th)

I will keep posting for anyone interested(price is reasonable)