Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Results AND Not A Gimmick!
Review: I highly recommend this book for any parent who wishes to give their child the gift of reading. This is not for the parent who prefers to get a packaged gimmick that involves games and flashcards. It does require parents to make a 20-minute daily commitment to their child that will literally change their child's life. This book provides very detailed, easy to follow step-by-step instructions for parents to follow. The only way a parent/child "team" could become mislead or confused is if a parent does not follow the instructions. The author even scripts exactly what and how a parent should word the lessons. In addition, the author anticipates mistakes that a child will likely make and scripts when and how a parent should respond. If you follow the 100 lessons step by step, your child WILL read and you WILL be amazed at the results.

Rating:
Summary: Don't give up!
Review: As others have said, this book is great! We're using it with our 4 year old son. We're on lesson 36 and things are going great. Back on lesson 20 or so he discovered he could read words in "real" books by decoding them the way "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" teaches!:) I try to make learning fun, we laugh at the stories and make up rhymes and games to go with the lessons. In the beginning, I too was wishing there were video or audio tapes. I was a little nervous.:) As we progressed, I started wishing for more helpful hints and game ideas, so I scoured the web for other users and imagine my delight when I found the author's website! They have all the things I just mentioned and more. Seeing the excitement on your little one's face as they read and "get it" is incredible.

Rating:
Summary: Great results with one challenge
Review: I taught my two boys to read with this program. The reading results were outstanding. In first grade, they both were reading on a 2nd to 3rd grade level or above. The only challenge I found later was that though this program teaches phonics (combined letter sounds, and multiple sounds for single vowels), it does not teach all the spelling rules. For instance, you teach that a silent e at the end of a word makes the vowel before it long, but there is never any mention in what e does in a word like "have" or "able." The e in "have" for those of you who don't know prevents the word from ending in v (no English words end in v), and in the word "able," it serves as the vowel for the second syllable "ble" (all syllables must have a vowel). The a in "able" is long because when a vowel ends the syllable as it does here being the only letter (one vowel can make up a syllable) it makes the long sound. My boys had trouble with spelling although they were good readers because they were not taught these rules along with the phonetic sounds. I am now using the Spaulding method which incorporates spelling with phonetics with my 6 year old daughter and she is not only reading well, but she understands the nuances of spelling. The Spaulding's book, "The Writing Road to Reading," (it may be under a new title) is put out by the Riggs Institute. I went back and taught these rules to my boys and they are now doing fine, but I believe I hampered them by not teaching them up front along with the phonetic sounds. (Wanda Sanseri, an expert on the Spaulding method, has a set of materials "Teaching REading at Home and School" in which she organizes the "The WRiting Road to Reading" in easily taught steps.)

Rating:
Summary: We were bored to tears and had to stop :(
Review: I started this with my daughter and things started out great! She was getting the concept fine, but the further we got into it, the less enjoyable the lessons became. They became dry and repetitive in the method used to learn and it did not keep either of our interest. I made a decision to stop and try something else. I switched to Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt and that made all the difference in the world!! My daughter now LOVES her reading lessons and she is doing wonderfully!

Rating:
Summary: Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons
Review: The book is good, but it would be easier to use if there was a video tape or casette tape to go with it. I have a child who is almost 8 yrs. old, is in 1st grade. He doesn't decode letters or numbers at all. I believe the book would help him tremendously, but know that a video tape or cassette tape along with the book would benefit him greatly.

Rating:
Summary: I recommend this book whole-heartedly!
Review: I am so very pleased with my son's rapid accomplishment! When we started this "school year" in mid-August our main goal for the year was for him to learn to read - his books, his magazines (Highlights, National Geographic for kids, Zoobooks...).

I've always read to him everyday and he has always been interested in books and stories so I figured I had set up a good situation. At around 4 1/2 he was "reading" store signs, road signs...you know, by sight recognizing something he saw all the time. I'm thinkin', again we're headed in the right direction. By the time he reached age 5 I was trying to teach him to read books that he loved and I thought were "level appropriate" and he did ok, but I felt I just wasn't doing something right. I felt something was missing - and I realized I was trying to teach him to read the same way I was taught (which did NOT instill a love for reading!)- without a good foundation that lead up to understanding what those letters, gathered together to form words could do and mean.

So I stepped back and went into phonics more, blend sounds, long and short vowels...even went into grammar a bit - what verbs and nouns are and what they do for sentences...punctuation-why it's a period and not a question mark or vice versa. Why and where I would read something with dramatic emphasis and what gave me the clue to do that, when reading a story to him. (I really wanted him to love reading...I hated it as a kid, and I didn't want that to happen to him!)

At that point the "school year" was going to start and I knew I had finally laid a good foundation to build on...but I was worried I would skip something terribly important and ruin all the hard work and effort both of us had put into it. Honestly, I was extremely intimidated by the idea of teaching someone to do something that I take for granted..."how do you teach someone something you do everyday, and don't even give a thought to?" was continually running thru my head. So I read message boards and listserv messages and scoured everything everywhere on how to do this...I wanted to know what others had used and how well it worked for them. I kept seeing "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox and Elaine Bruner.

I asked questions about it and found that this was the "method" that sounded right for us...ok, for me! It made me feel more confident in myself as the one teaching! :-) These people took flight on this method because of the study years ago "Why Johnny Can't Read"...and then 25 years later..."Why Johnny Still Can't Read" and a method called Distar (which is a real no bells and whistles, straight forward method of teaching reading).

With all that straight-out practicality and statistical study behind it...it was a perfect match for me as the "teacher". I bought the book and when it came I felt like a kid at Christmas time! I was excited to actually read the intro and learn how to go with it!

The lessons take all of 20 minutes per. Are very relaxed and understandable for both the student and "teacher". And they build on each other. And because of the relaxed nature and the building...it went very very smoothly. The book lays out opportunities to go thru the phonics stuff and punctuation stuff that I had done prior to buying the book, but I'm glad my son already was familiar...he's fidgety and I didn't have to worry so much that maybe he didn't "get it" on a particular day. I knew he knew it. I also made sure to include with each days lesson some writing (of the words learned up to that day) for spelling and handwriting purposes. And to make sure he *saw* what he was accomplishing, we read and read and read! He got to choose the book or story from one of his magazines and was able to see that what we were doing was working!

The book says that once done with the whole program, a child might well be on a second grade reading level (or a bit more)...and I can agree with that!! (Altho, that is working from a "fresh beginning reader" - I do believe this is also a great way of going back so to speak for a child that has already been introduced to reading and it just hasn't "clicked") Once they've mastered how to sound out and know letters and blends and words from what is in the book...they can figure out any word they want to! The book's stories are pretty silly...all kids should get a kick out of them, mine sure did! And they work on reading comprehension with a picture and questions at the end of each story, as well.

So with all that said - whew - I whole-heartedly recommend the book. I know some kids don't read as early as others and for many, I think, it's because there isn't enough one-on-one instruction time for them, particularly in public school settings. Others have a more difficult time for various little reasons that are usually discovered later than they could be because of the lack of one-on-one time. That's sad! I think part of why I am soooo enthralled with how this has worked for us is because I was "ready" for my son to take more time to learn to read, if that had been the way it turned out. I have always heard that boys take longer on average and I was kind of prepared for that.

Rating:
Summary: Wordy, inconsistent, confusing,
Review: In a few words, I found this book very inconsistent and confusing. Sight words are ignored completely. Too many funny symbols that could have been dealt with just one type. There is text that you are supposed to follow(the parent part) which is rather useless. I kept getting sidetracked by my daughter while trying to read it they way they suggest. Why all this regimentation? The pages are intimidating for a child. The stories in most cases are too long for child just starting out. There are better books out there. Look for them. I dont suggest this book, as you wont finish it.

Rating:
Summary: I am very impressed, wish I would of had this book sooner.
Review: I am a mother of 3 children. My eldest is 10, it took him until 3rd grade to get the hang of reading, although very bright, he struggled. My middle child, also a boy, is 7; he too is struggling with reading, he is in second grade. My daughter was in a kindergarten class that was teaching her to read, but we had to change schools and the class she went to did not use Reading Mastery. Very disappointed I asked around the school what I can do to help her keep going on where she is headed. I have volunteered for many years and got close to the teachers. They know I really care for my children's education, so the let me borrow this book. It is exactly what my daughter was using in her other kindergarten class and that she was on lesson 21, so that is where I picked up at. My daughter loves it, we do not give any special trinkets or promises, but she gets lots of encouragement and high fives. The key is to go overboard on the way to goes. She loves this program, she loves when she comes across a new word and can actually figure it out.

My 7 year old, is having difficulties reading, just like his brother did, so I started him in the same book, but seeing that he is in second grade, he has strong phonics, but the whole language thing and phonics have not blended together for him. So I started where my daughter continued at and then jumped a few lessons if he had no problem. He started having some difficulties at lesson 38 or so. In 2 days he has went up to lesson 43, he may not have learned much yet, but he is definately more confident and he loves the stores and finds the pictures appealing.

I think this program is great. It is awesome, I plan to give this to my friend who has a son 6 months younger than my daughter. Then pass it on down to another friend, who has 3 young upcoming readers.

I hope you all give this book a shot, if you do not like it, give it to your school and give an opportunity for another family that may not be able to afford the book (even though it is an excellent price) a chance at a wonderful reading program.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: My son started attending phonics lessons when he turned 3-1/2 years old. He coped well with the single sounds but when the class moved on to three-letter words, he just couldn't do it and he totally lost interest in learning to read. So when I first got this book, he simply refused to try it (note: this book is quite useless unless the child wants to learn). I was finally able to motivate him with some fun stickers that he sticks on the pages after he completes each task. He was a lot more receptive to the methods presented in the book. We progressed quite smoothly, repeated some of the later lessons which were harder. It has been five months and my son is just over 4 years old. Not only is he able to read, this capability has strongly boosted his self-esteem and he enjoys reading.

Rating:
Summary: A real life saver.
Review: I bought this book while my son was in first grade. The school he attended used phonics and whole language in an "integrated" approach. This sounded great at the outset... the best of both worlds. We quickly found, however, that this "integrated" approach meant a disorganized approach. After three quarters of first grade, my son still could not read basic words and ranked at the bottom of his class for reading. He was placed in a special reading group for children below grade level. Although my son received additional help, this special class was very hard on his self esteem and we eventually removed him from it and increased the time we spent tutoring him at home. We began using the book at the recommendation of a retired special education teacher. My son's reading progress was very slow at the beginning of the book and we became somewhat frustrated but continued on. After completing 70 lessons, things began to click. A foundation had been built. We completed the book and later bought several other books based on direct instruction methods. We have been enormously pleased with the results. My son was tested during the first quarter of second grade and placed in an advanced reading group of children reading at the third grade level. This progress occurred over six months!! If schools used this method it would markedly improve the literacy rate in the USA. Our 4 year old son is currently completing the book and now reads at a first grade level. Buy this book if your child is having difficulty with reading. For the price, it is a great investment!