Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Rating:
Summary: structured program
Review: This worked well for my five year old son who still had another 6 months to go before starting kindergarten. I felt he had the potential to learn reading basics but although I'm a teacher I wasn't sure how to approach this task with my own child. He didn't seem to be picking it up from my "whole language" approach. A homeschooling mom recommended this to me and I bought it immediately. It is a very scripted program (which goes against my grain and my training!) but I gave it a try. I have to say, the method has worked. I am halfway through the book and my son now knows most letter sounds and blends and can sound out words, it makes sense to him. It is far from "magic" however. It requires a sustained committment, and the child has to focus and concentrate at each session, but the lessons are short enough and there is enough repetition for him to experience success, which is motivating. I also don't follow every script exactly and have skipped the "sounds writing" part of the lessons. I'll go back to that part later. My main focus now is on phonetic awareness, and the book works for that.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Book-- my son looks forward to lessons!
Review: This book has aided me in one of the most rewarding experiences in parenting so far. I started teaching my 4 yr old to read without any guidance and found myself misleading him. This book helped me teach him clearly and covered many aspects of reading I hadn't anticipated such as reading comprehension and punctuation. We spend good quality time together and to keep it interesting I find myself coming up with creative ways of keeping it fun. This is probably the best buy I have ever made for my child. He is reading extremely well now and will be more than prepared for kindergarten.

Rating:
Summary: Worked for us!
Review: I used this book with my 4 year old son, and he's reading very well now. For the first 8 or 10 lessons, I found I had to work pretty hard to keep his interest, but once he was able to read words and stories, he wanted to do 2 or 3 lessons at a time. Based on the results of the book, he's been moved into a reading class with older kids at his school (his school has both a pre-school and elementary grades). I'm planning on trying the book with my 3 year old daughter this summer.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended by this reading specialist
Review: I'm a children's reading specialist and author ("Teaching Kids To Read for Dummies"). I'm adding my review to the pile to let parents know that professionals love this book too. Use Engelmann's clear, good-sense manual to give your child a solid start with sounding-out. Check out other guides for word lists, games and ideas for keeping her engaged and, of course, gather best reading series, like Bob Books and Reading Rainbow Readers. Oh, and congratulate yourself on having done things right!

Rating:
Summary: Very good comprehensive program
Review: I have rarely bought an instructional program and been so pleased with the results. My son and I began the program on his 5th birthday. While my son had expressed interest in the building blocks of reading--recognizing words and attempting to connect sounds to letters, I can't say that he was enthusiastic about it. After the first few lessons with this book, though, he was asking me for his reading lesson. It has also been a great way to bond and have special one-on-one time with him. Two big thumbs up!

We have just finished the 25th lesson, and he can read very basic books i.e. books like the BOB series. We took it a little slower in the beginning as he warmed up to the format and expectations, but by the 15th lesson, he was sounding out words and reading sentences like a pro. The system really helped reinforce the process of sounding out words instead of just memorizing. (This was a challenge when I was working with my daughter before I had this system.)

Another big plus is the inclusion of a small comprehension section from lesson 13 on, an area which many beginning reading books omit. This is critical because my son is learning from the beginning that the point of reading is not just sounding out words but understanding what they mean. A picture helps him validate that he understands what he read and is very appropriate for his age.

A couple of things that would complete the program are an actual recording or audio component and a how-to speech guide to show parents the key tongue and mouth positions for sounds that are difficult for kids 4-6. The pronunciation guide would ensure that parents understand what the sounds are supposed to be alone. The speech guide would be provide parents with corrective action techniques to help a child who may have been mispronuncing sounds all along.

This is a great investment.

Rating:
Summary: Great If It Matches Your Child's Learning Style
Review: I have three children all of whom learned to read through different methods. My oldest made the leap from letter sounds to reading on his own without us being aware of the fact until it sneaked up on us. Today this child is a good reader but spelling suffers from a lack of early phonics based instruction. My middle child has a disorder called Hyperlexia (early fascination with letters, innate ability to decode language, and precocious reading). He started reading without instruction at age 2 1/2 and this definitely wouldn't have been suitable for him as by 3 1/2 he could read nearly any words he encountered.

Early on it was clear that my third child was going to need a more formal approach including phonics and this has been ideally suited to her learning style and needs. She has benefited from the repetition, has a great start to phonics based reading and spelling, and we laugh together at the corny stories. I am using this as a supplement to half day kindergarten and have opted to leave the writing component out so she will receive the same instruction on letter formation as her classmates. I also have modified the reading the story instructions by having her read first followed by us reading slowly together followed by my reading aloud alone at a typical pace while she follows along.

As with any reading approach, this one shouldn't be considered a complete package, but in addition to reading a wide variety of age-appropriate books can be a great method for the right parent-child combination.

Rating:
Summary: commit to the lessons, and this book really works
Review: This system really does work. It takes a family commitment, but if you focus on it, your child will really reap the rewards.

We bought this book when our daughter was 3 and expressed a lot of interest in reading (she used to pretend read to her dolls). We started at lesson 1 and made it to lesson 50 before it was clear that she wanted to stop.

So we stopped for 3 months. Then we picked it up again back at lesson 20. We made it all the way to lesson 80 when it started to get pretty difficult again (that's when they transition from the "funny letters" that tip your child off to whether a vowel sounds long or short to regular font). So we took a month long break and focused on reading stories to her. Then we got to lesson 100.

We used a calendar system where she got a sticker for every lesson she completed (this was a big motivator). And we decided to take a family vacation to Disneyland to celebrate her completing the book. This was great because everytime she told someone she was going to Disneyland, she was also able to tell them she earned it by finishing all her reading lessons.

She is now almost 6 years old. While the rest of her Kindergarten class is learning letters, our daughter is reading at a third/fourth grade level. We started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to her, and she finished up the entire Superfudge series on her own. She is now reading the Ramona the Pest series completely on her own.

She loves to read and does it for at least 1 hour per night because she wants to. We are really proud of her and we're proud of ourselves for focusing on reading and putting all the infrastructure in place to make sure she was able to complete everything (i.e. making sure we did reading lessons 5 times per week, creating the sticker calendar system, taking breaks but remembering to re-engage when the time was right).

Now our 5 year old knows that if she practices something and tries her best, she can accomplish it. And that's the best part of it all!

I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for learning to read
Review: I purchased this book for my 4 year old to help her learn her sounds before she started kindergarten. But to my surprise the book has already exceeded my expectations. It is working so well. We are half way through and she gets excited for when her lessons will be. When were starting she loved learning her new letters. I was so proud the first time were out around the town and she started recognizing letters then words that she had learned. I like the approach the book takes in introducing sounds not letter names to stop from confusing the children. It is very important that the parent completley read the introduction and remember the proper way to correct the child. If you follow the suggestions of the book your child will be reading just as the book promises.

Rating:
Summary: Good start to reading, but far from perfect
Review: I've been using this book for about 4 months with my 4 year old daughter and 5.5 year old son. I definitely like the way every lesson is scripted out, but once I felt comfortable with the format I improvised. I also like the way the letter sounds are introduced and practiced. However, we're over halfway through and have reached a level of tedium and stagnation, especially with my son who finds it difficult to sit still for "20" minutes. (After about lesson 30, it has been taking him 30-40!) We will probably put it away for awhile and do some other phonics/reading activities. There are more typos than I would like, b/c at this stage of learning kids get confused easily. I would also enjoy a bit more variety in our lessons-I want my kids to actually ENJOY learning to read. So, for us this book is a good solid start to phonics, but not the only resource we will use.

Rating:
Summary: How To Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons
Review: We started this book in kindergarten and are finishing it now. Once it seemed like hard work and he wasn't enjoying it (wasn't ready), I put the book away. This year he was ready and has effortlessly flown through the book (and never forgot that previous stuff either!). I LOVE this book! It requires only a LITTLE time every day; it teaches PHONICS; it teaches reading comprehension; it begins with words written in a way the child can understand it, and by the end of the book, converts to regular writing, so I am SO glad we didn't quit once his reading took off! We don't do the writing section (we use Getty & Dubay). I highly recommend this book: if your child is ready to read; you have an active boy that doesn't like to sit long; and you're a busy mom like me!