Rating: 
Summary: This book delivers!!
Review: I am using this book with my 5 year old twin boys. We are sailing along and the boys love it!! They feel so proud when they read the "stories". We cover the accompanying picture until after they have read the sentences. They get excited about taking my hand away from the picture after they have read about it. We homeschool and this book gives me all the confidence I was searching for in my endeavor to teach reading. Great book. It WORKS!!!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This book is so easy to use. It is especially good for the parents, like myself, that have little time to prepare creative lessons for our children, but truly want to take part in their learning process! My daughters love this book and find humor in the stories that they read from it. This is simply fantastic! I recomend it to all my friends with pre-schoolers and kindergarteners!
Rating:
Summary: This book has great potential!
Review: My son is now 6 1/2 and is reading at a 5th grade reading level.This book helped him learn to read at age 3 1/2. I believe that the method used in this book provided him with the basis for his current powerful decoding skills in reading. Whether your child is just beginning to learn to read or struggling with reading because he/she is being taught to read using primarily sight reading skills-- this book can help assist in the process!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Truly Effective Instruction!
Review: I am a special ed. teacher who uses the DI method with my LD kids. I bought this book to use with my own son. He learned to read fluently using this book. He is way ahead of his classmates. So much so, that he goes to a higher grade for reading instruction. Those who think that reading is taught by the whole lang. method have failed to produce any scientific studies to substantiate their claims of its superiority. The method employed in this book has proven itself time again for years. Just try it and you'll be amazed!
Rating:
Summary: We Taught Our Four Year Old How to Read
Review: We are half way through the book with my four year old daughter. I'm amazed at what she has learned. I whole-heartedly recommend this for any parent.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book and a must for a caring parent.
Review: I taught both my girls to read with this book. It put them well ahead of their classmates. You can see them change and their curiosity explode. I modified the program, depending on their interest level, just a little to keep them interested and it worked out fine. A small price to pay for such a wonderful gift.
Rating:
Summary: GO GET IT!!
Review: This book works! We taught our 6 year old to read when she was 4. Now she is in 1st grade and her reading skills are off the charts for a first grader. She has no problem reading the way her teacher is teaching the other students and enjoys helping and reading to her classmates.We are now on lesson 25 with our second child, she is 4 also and progressing well. She had a harder time getting started, but once she realized she could learn to read, each lesson has been easier to complete. This is the best method of teaching your child how to read. The SRA system of learning has been around for years and has been a poven method of teaching children. It's also a great way to spend some QUALITY time with your child.
Rating: 
Summary: This book short-changes the reading process.
Review: This book instructs you to use distorted print and contrived stories to teach your child to read phonetically. According to current research on reading acquisition, this method is not appropriate! Yes, children need to learn phonics. But do not short-change your children by using phonics-only driven text, such as this book recommends. Using phonics alone is like playing a game of baseball with only homerun potential. (Yes, McGuire can hit homeruns...but how valuable would he be to his team if that was all that he could do? Or, how successful would Pete Sampras be if all he could do is hit backhands?) Children need to learn phonics in the context of real reading. Use environmental print (store signs, street signs, labels, etc.) and beautifully illustrated, rhyming, repetitious children's books to expose young children to written language. Through the use of high-interest children's books, children will begin to understand phonics. In addition to phonics, they will begin to understand ALL of the clues used to decode print (sentence meaning, sentence structure, picture clues, parts of words and background knowledge. If you have questions about appropriate ways to help your children learn to read, ask a teacher, a reading specialist or send yiour questions to me via e-mail. (I work with educators and parents throughout the USA on the topics of parent involvement and family literacy.) Learning to read goes far beyond phonics, contrived stories and distorted print as this books recommends.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing results
Review: My daughter is four and she is now reading as a result of thisbook! She also started surfing the internet with mom and dad.
Rating: 
Summary: It Works, but It's Work!
Review: Overall, I find the method outlined in this book to be quite effective with my four-year-old boy. It is actually working, and for that, I am pleased. We are up to lesson 20 at this point. It really works, but sometimes it is an uphill battle. Unfortunately, the lessons, quite often, bore him at times because none of the reading exercises are intrinsicly interesting (although, the later excercises are better than the earlier ones). He therefore doesn't believe that the lessons are fun, and it becomes difficult to maintain his attention at times. When I don't have his full attention, his lessons are riddled with mistakes and it takes a long time to get through a lesson. However, when I do have his attention, he does great. I give this book a good rating because I believe the method outlined in the book is excellent, but I feel this book may be better geared to a child a little older than four years old. In future revisions, I would like to see some more elements in the lessons that capture a younger childs interest. Maybe sound or word games. Perhaps some very short but interesting stories that the parent can read to the child at some point in each lesson. Maybe some more pictures. There are many other things as well. It might even be possible to come up with a seperate program for very young children. I am sold on the Distar method. Keep up the good work. It gets four stars in my book, which means it is great, but there is still some room for improvement.
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