Favorite Resource - Phonics Pathways

Over the years, I grew to prefer resources rather than curriculum.  To me curriculum is grade based scope and sequence worksheets/books (with maybe some reading and some activities tacked on) that are designed to provide mostly busy work over the course of a school year in a particular subject.  Nine times out of ten curriculum fell flat for us.  We would only do something for a few weeks before it sort of fell by the wayside.  There was something so strained and artificial and deadening about that kind of forced learning for us.  We just didn't jive with it.  It always, always became a disciplinary issue of me forcing a kid to do so much (kind of like saying eat three bites of your veggie and then you can leave the table) which was the kiss of death in terms of actual learning (or learning to eat vegetables!).  It's just the wrong way to go about this sort of thing.  How do you get a kid to eat vegetables?  You let them pick out the veggie from the grocery store or you visit a farmer's market.  Or you grow them yourself.  Or you let them cook the veggie.  Or you provide a smorgasbord of varieties over the course of time so they can explore and decide which veggies they like.  And their taste will change over the years.  That's how kids learn too.  Or at least mine did.

So I liked resources that were NOT tied to grade level.  I liked resources that spanned ages and were easy to use as references and guides any time we wanted to learn a particular thing or review something.

I do think high school is different, when kids are studying something systematically and in depth and you need those credit hours.  Math, science, and maybe some other subjects may benefit from a more systematic comprehensive approach.  But until then, nope, just not the best way to learn.  Not efficient, not pleasant, not productive.

My absolute favorite resource for learning phonics and spelling is Phonics Pathways.  I first learned about this a couple of years into our homeschooling journey when I read Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Trained Mind.  I remember, initially, throwing that book across the room when I got to the part when she (and her mother who authored it with her) state that learning to read is easy.  My kids were not learning to read.  It was absolute hell for them!!!!  Turns out they were dyslexic and had eye problems. Their eyes didn't track, weren't flexible in changing focus (which is why catching a ball seemed so hard) and their eyes fatigued very easily. We had to do vision therapy for a number of the kids to get them reading.

But still, the book suggested for phonics in The Well Trained Mind was Phonics Pathways.  It happened to be at our local Barnes and Noble.  I picked it up and it became a treasured resource.    It is one volume and it's all the reading and spelling you need from K-12 actually.  So it does cover high school as well!

I used it to either strengthen or teach phonics in one on one short lessons on the couch with whichever child needed lessons at the time.  I also used it as a resource in my fridge schooling.  I would retype a spelling rule or pattern from the book, post it on my fridge or kitchen wall and use it as a reference as we did copy work.  The best thing would be when a kid was copying something and he or she would look up, notice the spelling rule and say, with a note of recognition in their voice, 'hey, this word here follows that rule!!!'  Connections!  The best way to cement learning in your mind!  These homemade spelling posters became such a fixture of our home school that my youngest dd would remind me when I hadn't changed out the spelling rule!

For little kids, I coupled introducing basic phonics with the Bob Books.  We did that for a while.  Then I would gradually move into Pathway Readers using At Last!  A Reading Method for Every Child by Mary Pecci.  I'll post about that another time.

As for spelling: copy work, posting spelling rules/patterns from Phonics Pathways, lots of reading (seeing the words over and over again), spellcheck and the act of writing all contributed to my kids slowly but surely learning to spell.  My kids vary in their spelling prowess from average to very good.  I went from being super concerned about spelling with my oldest to forgetting to even notice with my youngest (who happens to be the best speller of the bunch!).