Curriculum This Year: Phonics

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Hi again! I'm back with another curriculum post. Today I'll be talking about my choice for phonics. I chose to use what my husband's school is using for phonics because eventually the boys will probably be going there. 

We are using "Spell to Write and Read" which is not the easiest to follow, but I can already see how great it is going to be for my boys. It incorporates phonics, cursive, reading, and spelling to help children master reading. We just finished our third week of homeschool and I'm still trying to learn exactly how to use this curriculum, but this is what we've done so far.

The boys have been learning how to write cursive letters. This is an example of how they teach "clock" letters (a, c, d, g, o). These pictures were from their first cursive lesson. They both really enjoyed using the reusable erase pockets with the clock to write these letters. 

My oldest (almost 7) was able to easily transition to a clipboard and primary writing paper the next day.

Another way I've had them practice is by using Boogie Boards. For my youngest I draw lines for him and sometimes dotted letters if it is too tricky for him. Fo my oldest, he is able to form the letters without help. I use a whiteboard to model all of the cursive letters. 

Another component to the curriculum is the phonogram cards. These cards come on cardstock paper and after cutting and laminating, I know they will hold up for many years. We have spent most of the last 3 weeks just reviewing the phonograms as I tried to figure out where to go next. My oldest knows many of the sounds already, but some phonograms with multiple sounds confuse him. The beauty of this curriculum is that children are always reviewing the sounds!

This week I had the boys start their Primary Learning Logs. This log not only has a section for writing out the different patterns, but also a page for each new spelling list. This will be a great resource for the boys to continue to review previously learned sounds. 

This is an example of the Consonants & Vowels page in the resource section. This is from my oldest who is almost 7.

This is the Multi-Letter Phonogram page (not finished yet). This is from my youngest who is 5.

As you can see from the above photos, my youngest still needs a lot of guidance. I wrote all the words in gold for him to trace. Next week I will start teaching phonics separately so they can each work on their own pace. I will still review some phonograms with both of them, but my oldest will start his first spelling list and my youngest will just be practicing cursive. My youngest could move to the first list, but I really don't want to overwhelm him with cursive and spelling at the same time. He can read short vowel CVC words and some digraphs already so we will go a little slower until his handwriting improves. 

If you want to learn more about this program I suggest you check out their website. I didn't go over all of the components of the program, but you can click on the images to check them out on Amazon.