One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is teaching reading. I have used the same reading program with all my children so far and they are usually reading for fluency by the end of second grade. I don't think this indicates anything about my teaching skills or the reading program, just that it works for us and that particular time frame is when it all 'clicks' for my kids.
So far, they have all stalled at the same points too. We work on the letter sounds and we're cruising along, they know the sounds... then we get to blending the sounds to make words. There is probably a proper educational term for it, but I call it the blending stall. They can't make the leap from 'a' and 't' to 'am' or 'at'.
So we take a break from the reader and practice. We use letter tiles, 'at' words practice worksheets from Enchanted Learning, and writing short lists of word families. In writing the lists we use colored pencils to define the first letter sound of the word and the rhyming endings. Like this.
- at
- cat
- mat
- rat
- sat
- hat
- bat
After a break from the reader, anywhere from a week to a month, they get it and we move on. The next stall is with the introduction of the next short vowel sound but that is usually a quicker break.
Another common hump is 'b' and 'd' confusion. This self corrects by 3rd grade but I try to help it along with the little 'bed' image as a reminder.
My readers have had some frustrating days but mostly they enjoy reading lessons and it is a joyful day when they complete the series of readers and move on to chapter books. (Of course there is some overlap with that.) Book discussions happen frequently, loudly and spontaneously around here so each child is glad when they get to be 'in the loop'.