Reading

What we are using to teach Seychelle to read

This is a photo of Seychelle when she had just started reading. She started with the Bob Books and hasn't stopped reading since.

We are predominantly using Hooked on Phonics to teach Seychelle to read.



Seychelle and I started using this when she was about 4.5 years old. I wasn't keen to "officially" start teaching her read until she was at least 5 years old, but Seychelle was showing signs of being ready to learn.  She already knew all her alphabet sounds and was starting to try and read words on her own by sounding out the letters.  I had tried teaching her earlier in the year with a book called 'Reading Made Easy' by Valerie Bendt but at that time Seychelle was not ready. (She was not able at that time to sound out consonant-vowel-consonant words.) 

What actually started the ball rolling was a wonderful set of DVDs by Leapfrog.  Seychelle is a visual learner and learns well from watching DVDs. The combination of the Leapfrog DVDs and Seychelle being a visual learner was a match made in heaven.  After watching the first Leapfrog DVD (The Letter Factory) she went from no ability whatsoever to read to overnight success with reading 3 letter consonant-vowel-consonant words. Thank you Leapfrog! The next DVD in the set (Talking Words Factory) was another huge success for us. The third (Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory) was a nice finish.



We started Hooked on Phonics - Level K immediately after these DVDs.  She liked loved each lesson and would beg for more. Each lesson comes with a short 2-3 minute DVD that introduces the words. For visual learners, like Seychelle, this was fabulous.


Alongside the Hooked on Phonics lessons (which we were doing daily), we started the Bob Books.
She is reading those as we progress through the Hooked on Phonics levels K and then 1st Grade.