Rating: 
Summary: Nice and easy and very cute
Review: I am teaching my son to read with this book. The book has twenty lessons each about 20 pages. We are on lesson seven and he is showing real progress now. This book is all a good reading program should be. You can open it on any page and you know exactly what to do. It is reasonably priced for the quality, which is very high indeed.What is so different about this book is that is not a "how can I teach my kid to read" book. Instead it is really a course with lessons that are goal-oriented. At the same time, it is not boring for the child. The pages are beautiful to look at and the drawings on every page are very cute. My son likes to color the pictures. We do about 3to 4 pages a day and that can take about 20 minutes. Sometimes the going is slow but everything is clearly expalined in a few words at the start of the lesson without making it too complicated or rigid. Little symbols under the letters and combinations such as "sh", "th" and "ea" help him to remember the sounds which are taught at the begining of the lesson. The book covers phonics and sightwords. Each lesson has key words that child need to know. The stories are just 4 to 6 lines which is just exactly right for a six year old. All in all, I am glad I found this lovely book. It one of those rare books that is actually better than it seems from its description. Dr. Levin and his wife have done a good job and I am sure you will feel the same way.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome, my youngest reader is 2.5 years old
Review: The Reading lesson has turned out to be one of the most effective learning lessons I have ever used. I run a preschool-preK and this program has proven to be successful and enjoyable. My youngest reader is 2.5 years old, and yes, they can read. I recommend this program and book to every parent who wishes to give the gift of reading to their child. Its simple and easy.. and your child will love it. All my kids wait for Giggle Bunny every day.
Great awesome product,..worth every dime and more !!!
Rennu Dhillon, Founder Genius Kids/Fremont, Safari Kid/Newark
[...]
Rating:
Summary: let the reading begin
Review: I bought this book for my daughter who is 4 and a half because she has shown an interest in learning to read. Teaching her to read has definitly not been "easy". I have actually not been this strung out teaching her something since toilet training. But just like potting training, seeing my daughter read is extremely rewarding so I am going to keep on preservering even though sometimes I feel like giving up. I would say my daughter was a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 when it came to being motivated to read. Based on that and the reviews on this site I decided to order the reading lesson. I also tried the first two lessons on their website for free and both my daughter and I found them to be easy and enjoyable. Let me tell you, it is right at chapter three, the one they don't provide, that things get hard. On the first day we did a lesson my daughter did all of chapter one in one sitting. I thought that at that rate I would easily have her reading fluently by kindergarten. Now we are at chapter 5 and it is literally a struggle to get her through two pages a sitting. I have to bribe her with gummi bears and other asssorted goodies to get her through. She can do the work but it is slow and requires a level of concentration she has never had to exhibit before. I do think this is a good program but I just want everyone to know that your child will not learn to read in 20 easy lessons. The book is 20 long chapters and it will take many, many lessons and a strong committment on the part of the parent for your child to learn to read. I think it would be nice to have had a few more work sheets in the book to break up the lessons a little more. I try to maintain my daughters interest by having her draw pictures next to the words she reads. You can also have your child color the pictures in. On the plus side the stories are as intresting as three and four letter word stories can be. My daughter actually likes to read the little stories when we get into them to see what happens next. The chapters are filled with lots of little animals which she enjoys immensly. This is the only reading program I have tried and it is working but slowly. One other point I would like to make is the book does not come with a cd rom. I was a little confused about this until I got the book. The cd rom is an additional $30 and I am seriously considering getting it to see if I can jump start the reading process a bit. My daughter loves the computer so this route my appeal a bit more to her than just the book. I am going to stick with the book through the summer until the start of kindergarten. It will be intresting to see if it clicks at some point and maybe goes a bit smoother. At this point she has seen the word "the" it seems a hundred times and she still tries to sound it out. At the end of every chapter is a list of sight words you are supposed to go over with your child until they have them memorized. Even though my daughter can sound out all the words in chapter 5 we are still on the previous chapters sight words. Lastly one other thing I did do was supplement the reading lesson with the bob books. They are enjoyable and also complemet the reading lesson well.
Rating:
Summary: A super reading program
Review: We are using this program with our four year old and I think it is much better than any thing I saw. We tried couple of other books, particulalry the 100 lessons book. We found that book too confusing. This books has lessons that very easy for a young child. The lessons are simple, teach a few sounds at a time, and then child reads small stories. Each lesson builds on previous lesson. The lessons teach both phonics and sight words. The pages are really uncluttered and clean and our son colored the pictures after he got done. There are also a video and CD-ROM, that are also wonderful. I just can not recommend it highly enough for teaching kids to read at home. This is a really nice program well worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: EXCELLENT learn-to-read book!
Review: I love this book! After trying, then donating to the library, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, I found this book and it is great. Your child will be able to read a simple two-word sentence AND a simple story by the end of the first lesson. Although the lessons can be lengthy and should have been split up into more lessons, you can use your own discretion at how much time you want to spend on it (we usually just did 2-3 pages at a time). Why 4 stars instead of 5? Writing practice should have been included in this book. Yes I know they have a whole separate CD-ROM for that but the writing sheets should have been included in the book. There were a lot of "draw a line to the letter that the picture starts with" that could have been deleted and handwriting practice could have been incorporated in. Do not let that keep you from buying this book though! The handwriting practice sheets are very easy to make with your computer at home, it just takes a little planning ahead.
Rating:
Summary: let the reading begin
Review: I bought this book for my daughter who is 4 and a half because she has shown an interest in learning to read. Teaching her to read has definitly not been "easy". I have actually not been this strung out teaching her something since toilet training. But just like potting training, seeing my daughter read is extremely rewarding so I am going to keep on preservering even though sometimes I feel like giving up. I would say my daughter was a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 when it came to being motivated to read. Based on that and the reviews on this site I decided to order the reading lesson. I also tried the first two lessons on their website for free and both my daughter and I found them to be easy and enjoyable. Let me tell you, it is right at chapter three, the one they don't provide, that things get hard. On the first day we did a lesson my daughter did all of chapter one in one sitting. I thought that at that rate I would easily have her reading fluently by kindergarten. Now we are at chapter 5 and it is literally a struggle to get her through two pages a sitting. I have to bribe her with gummi bears and other asssorted goodies to get her through. She can do the work but it is slow and requires a level of concentration she has never had to exhibit before. I do think this is a good program but I just want everyone to know that your child will not learn to read in 20 easy lessons. The book is 20 long chapters and it will take many, many lessons and a strong committment on the part of the parent for your child to learn to read. I think it would be nice to have had a few more work sheets in the book to break up the lessons a little more. I try to maintain my daughters interest by having her draw pictures next to the words she reads. You can also have your child color the pictures in. On the plus side the stories are as intresting as three and four letter word stories can be. My daughter actually likes to read the little stories when we get into them to see what happens next. The chapters are filled with lots of little animals which she enjoys immensly. This is the only reading program I have tried and it is working but slowly. One other point I would like to make is the book does not come with a cd rom. I was a little confused about this until I got the book. The cd rom is an additional $30 and I am seriously considering getting it to see if I can jump start the reading process a bit. My daughter loves the computer so this route my appeal a bit more to her than just the book. I am going to stick with the book through the summer until the start of kindergarten. It will be intresting to see if it clicks at some point and maybe goes a bit smoother. At this point she has seen the word "the" it seems a hundred times and she still tries to sound it out. At the end of every chapter is a list of sight words you are supposed to go over with your child until they have them memorized. Even though my daughter can sound out all the words in chapter 5 we are still on the previous chapters sight words. Lastly one other thing I did do was supplement the reading lesson with the bob books. They are enjoyable and also complemet the reading lesson well.
Rating:
Summary: busy mom/reluctant daughter
Review: As a veteran children's librarian of 15+ years I have ordered many books on reading instruction. As a mother I have checked out most of them, including this one. Now I want my own copy. Many reading instruction programs either overwhelm, require additional material, photocopying, workbooks, etc. This program is all-inclusive. It requires no extra games or gimmics and NO prior preparation on the part of the adult. Hooray! As for the child, it is clear, well paced, and promotes confidence. My youngest(now 6)is very active, very bright and very uninterested in reading. (We don't watch t.v. and do read hundreds of picture books each year--so live in a very literate environment). I don't feel that children should be rushed into reading, so rearranged my full-time work schedule to teach her at home this year--and thus take reading at HER pace. (She was tutored one-on-one for a half hour four days each week over the summer.) Having sat in on those sessions and replicated many of the "fun" activities at home I can say that if she had been instructed with THIS program she would not have needed the tutoring. Happily, I can report that she is learning to read thanks to THIS book. And I can see that transition from this book to all the "easy readers" will be a snap. In fact, she may just skip the "easies" and move right into chapter books.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding! Simple for the parent and the child
Review: I am home-schooling my 4 year old. This book is excellent. I found it after trying many other ones that I didn't find to be consistent or simple, but effective enough for a young child. My daughter is reading all the words from the lessons we've covered and so happy that she can read words from other books. even my 10 year old picks up "The reading lesson" and can teach her, so anyone can do it. I also have a baby who's almost 2, he stands next to us and loves to repeat the letter sound with his sister, I will surely start this method with him very soon.
Rating:
Summary: Comment by author
Review: The comment made by the writer do not apply to The Reading Lesson and are probably meant for some other book. In fact, we teach just one sound per letter and do not introduce "several different sounds for one letter... before getting down to words." Quite the opposite, the emphasis in The Reading Lesson is always on reading words as soon as possible. Words are taught starting with the very first lesson and all lessons have word families in them. Judging by the comments, I doubt that the "teacher from California" has actually seen the Reading Lesson.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for everyone
Review: I bought this book because it was so highly recommended. Sorry, I didn't like it. I didn't like the way that several different sounds for one letter had to be learned before getting down to words. I find the word family way easier, where, for example, you teach "at" then "cat," "hat" "bat" and so on before saying the letter "a" can make other sounds.
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