Not sure if I should post this here or start another thread, but I was hoping for different sort of advice. I taught my 3 yo the sounds of the letters a while back, and now she can decode simple phonetic words and read simple readers, but I have no idea where to start on all the non-phonetic stuff, like combinations of letters, combinations of vowels, or how the vowel sound changes with words that end in E, and all that stuff.
If anyone can recommend any resources, books, programs, etc., would be great!
English is complicated. My boys' school uses Jolly Phonics, which puts the "silent E" discussion at a later point than in the US, and starts with the common combos "ai" "ee" "igh" "oa" "ue". It's great for slightly older kids, because it immediately gives you tools to write any word phonetically.
Hooked on Phonics, which we got secondhand and only used for the reading books, does the basic alphabet, followed by blends (tr/bl/nd/lk and limited digraphs ch/sh/th), and saves long vowels for very late in the program, which means that it takes a long time to get to real books.
My favorite resource for moving kids from simple, short vowels to real books is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. All about Reading is also going to do the same, as is Logic of English, but Teach Your Child is by far the cheapest and simplest. I also can't say how quickly AAR or LoE get your child to real books. TYCTR took both boys about six months to finish, including breaks and pacing, and they went from simple sound-outs to reading Elephant and Piggie books and other easy readers. After that, they just read books to improve decoding skills and vocabulary. TYCTR seems to be a love-it or hate-it program, but I think it's a great method.
Of course, reading out loud could get you there as well. Kids pick up patterns and learn words as you point them. My older boy learned to read in his weaker language solely from being read to; he had no instruction in phonemes in this language.
