Early Reading Skills

Early this school year I switched my daughter to Explode the Code phonics.  Explode the Code is a series of phonics workbooks that take a child gently and progressively through phonics skills.  I have focused on phonics-based reading instruction rather than sight words.  At this point the only sight word we have covered is “the.”  It is a commonly occurring word that doesn’t fit in early phonics instruction.

In January I took a little video of my daughter completing a couple pages in the Explode the Code 1 workbook.  You will probably notice that I don’t correct handwriting at all here.  At this point, correcting handwriting will add a level of difficulty that will not help her phonics skills.  Handwriting is covered separately.

When we started with the Fun Tales book we would only read a page or two.  At the time of the video she was reading 4 pages, and a couple months later she was able to read the entire 8 page book.  We read through each book twice before moving on to the next book.