I am using The Reading Lesson with Caleb 7.10yrs. & Brent 6.9yrs and just started Ethan 5.6yrs with it.

I was originally going to use Phonics Pathway with the rest of my brood ;) but wanted something more simpler for my younger ones to start with. The Reading Lesson is recommended by Carrie the author of Heart of Dakota curriculum and I'm glad I bought it.

I started using it with Brent at the end of May because this Fall he will start using MFW 1st Grade and I wanted him to read some what fluently. I have heard over and over, plus have seen how MFW 1st Grade introduces the long sounds pretty quickly.

Then in July I switched Caleb from Phonics Pathways to The Reading Lesson. Every time I would pull out Phonics Pathway I could tell Caleb was dreading the lesson. In PP the author says not to continue on until the child can read & spell all the words on the page they are working on. Caleb after a week on the same page still couldn't say all the words without sounding some out. After a week we would move on anyway because it was really boring for him. Plus he is still reading at mid K level because he would get stuck on a page for a week and there for he was not learning any new phonic rules and moving forward.

Once we switched to TRL he was much happier. I started him on lesson 6. He does four pages a day which I think really helps him to see that he can read. He is moving through it at a good pace and reading lots of words now. What I like about TRL is there are 20 lessons. Each lesson is tweny pages. By lesson 1-14 they are reading sentences 'a cot' 'a cat'. By lesson 4 the are already reading short paragraphs (3 or 4 short sentences) . Here are the lessons in order;

1. c, o, s, a, t
2. m. d. r
3. g, e, th
4. n, i, f
5. u, b, h
6. e, ee, ea, l, p
7. a, sh, w
8. i, st
9. ar, k
10. er, ir, ur
11. y, oo
12. a, ai, ay, wh
13. o, oa, ow
14. ch, j, u
15. v, y
16. x, z
17. qu, ing
18. ou, ow, th
19. ew, igh
20. c, g, ph

The lessons don't boggle the beginner reader with a lot of phonics rules. I think this is a plus because when they are first starting out especially the younger ages, phonic rules can sometimes overwhelm the child. The first half of the lessons are all done in lowercase letters and a good size font. Easy for the child. They are learning some sight words along the way and notice that vowel digraphs are mixed in. This has really helped Caleb.

There are cute illustrations through out the book and I let my dc color them or add more detail to them.

Once completed your child should be reading at a begining grade 2 level. You can then continue his phonics with:

• Phonics Pathway (don't start at the begining though)
• Rod & Staff Phoincs 1 or 2 depending on the age of your child
• Books from Heart of Dakota "Emerging Readers"

I am going to use with Caleb R&S Phonics 2 along with the emerging readers.

 Email me at Homeschooling6[At]hotmail[Dot]com.