We're already a quarter of the way through 1st grade Hooked on Phonics. The books are longer (and sometimes weirder) but Sweet Pea is still making rapid progress. Her favorite activity is spelling the words with letter cards- she doesn't have to slow down and concentrate on letter formation. Strangely she's also enjoying the flash cards. We're chugging through the dolch sights words and it's interesting to see how that opens up more reading opportunities.
Sweet Pea originally hoped that there was a reading magic bullet- some quick and effortless way to go from not reading to reading real books. Alas, we've discovered that it does take some work.
We're not spending a whole lot of time every day on her reading- between 10 to 30 minutes daily, and her stamina is the deciding factor. When she says that she wants to be done, we're done.