Gulp - help from other home edders pls

OK, so after about 2 years of phonics and not getting very far about 9 months ago we switched to sight words and - I thought 0 we were doing much much better and the boys (aged 5 and 7) were able to read more and more.

Today I wanted to see if there were any gaps as I've been using the pre-primer list, primer and first lists and I know our toddler has sometimes run off with a flashcard so I wanted to check which words we needed to work on a bit more.

I gave the boys a sheet with the preprimer words on it, we made a window card so all they saw was 4 words at a time. the idea was that if they could read the word unassisted they coloured it in. Then we'd be able to see which words needed more attention.

To my shock and horror, they missed even basic words. They look at the word 'and' and tell me it said 'where'

OK, I thought, let's do this differently. I said one of the words and asked them to find it. Not much more success.

The thing is, as we've done a lot of phonics previously they should at least be guessing words phonetically...


I'm panicking a bit here. All the lessons we've been doing, all using a variety of methods (games, worksheets, online activities kinetic, sensory etc...)...have we been wasting our time??

Right now I'm so frustrated with them and they know it and I know getting angry at them about this is so wrong but I'm so so panicking annoyed frustrated!!!

Help!!

(copied and pasted from another board where I'm asking the same thing - sorry but I'm desperately worried now!!)

I dont HE, but I have heard great things about reading eggs

I m not a home edder either but have a 5 year old who seems to be making good progress with her reading after struggling when we ve tried before.
She's learnt phonics and also some sight words but sometimes she ll get stuck on words like 'and' and 'it' when she s read the word ' wanted' in the sentence before!
Have you had a break from looking at words/ reading? I think sometimes they just get busy learning other things or more complicated words they forget the basics and instead of using the skills they ve learnt the just take a guess. We just emcourage her to go back to basics and sound it out.

Hope that helps!

we home educate and are big fans of reading eggs. my 3.5 year old started off knowing his alphabet and no words and has gone in a matter of months to blending sounds and can recognise many basic words now and definitely has a love of spelling because of reading eggs i think. He loves it and we use it as a "treat" for good behaviour. i got a half price subscription for £18 a year, absolute bargain

thanks for the replies.
I value the input from non-home-edders as it's always valuable to listen perspectives from different standpoints.

We did about 18 months of Reading Eggs and I decided to stop bc I saw no progress happening.

I might be wrong about all this though as I know knowledge can lay dormant for a long time before all coming together.

It's just scary at times when nothing seems to be happening!
I've thought about this morning and I now realise that my reaction may stem from know-it-all-mother-in-law-ex-teacher who saw our sight word flashcards and said that that's what she used to teach 4 year olds and that our kids were behind especially our eldest who is 7.
I guess deep down I soooo want to prove her wrong. but that's no reason for me to take it out on my kids who mostly genuinely love learning and even ask to do it.

It's tricky when you ve got ' helpful' relatives.
I ve often heard the ' you could all read and write before you started school' and felt the pressure from older siblings but my dd just wasn t interested when I tried and I didn t want to push it.
I tried reading eggs too as I d heard good things but again dd didn t take to it and I think she needs more processing time than it allows and she couldn't tell me what the words were after. As everything it suits some but not others.
I m sure they are learning just fine. How are they at reading those words in the context of a book/ story?
Xxx

I think the timing today wasn't right although I don't know why...
They do point out words for themselves and can read sile comic strip preprimer stories (very basic ones)
I guess I just have to lay off
Easier said than done, I guess I didn't realise how much the relatives have been stressing me about it all.

I go into India's class and help with reading a few times a month. There is one little boy there who, for various reasons, needs extra help. The last time I read with him it was like reading with a completely different child. He had gone from knowing each phonic sound to blending them and saying the word. It had just all clicked into place for him, just like it will for your boys too. Have faith that they will find their own time to do it and just continue to support their interests.

As for the MIL, maybe her memory isn't what it used to be .

Sight words are a part of a good phonics programme- some words can't be sounded out.
It does take some children longer to get it and they need lots of repetition of segmenting and blending sounds and using those skills in context.

Which phonics programme were you using?