Rating: 
Summary: I finally found it.
Review: Hi -- I'm a homeschool mom and I'm so glad I found this reading program! I've been struggling through other reading/phonics programs with my kindergartner and only getting more frustrated. "THE READING LESSON" series is so much more user friendly! I knew after reading the intro letter and instructions that this was the program for us! Now instead of frustration, my daughter and I are excited about the progress we are making. Thank you for putting us on the right road! Many thanks.
Rating:
Summary: The Reading Lesson
Review: My daughter and I finished the book after 7 long months. She is now five years old and reading the books that her second grade friends are reading. At least 6 days a week for 10 minutes a day we worked on the lessons in the book. Most of the time it was not easy and I had to bribe her with pennies. One penny for every 4 words or sentence she read. As a teacher I can tell you that it is harder to teach your own child than someone elses. This book has been hard work but well worth the effort. If you find it hard to teach your own child find a friend or relative that is willing to work with your child. That person may have a child the same age. Maybe you could teach each others children. How ever you go about learning the 20 lessons it is worth the effort. Teaching my own child to read has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had as a parent and a teacher.
Rating:
Summary: Just plain great book!
Review: I am now teaching my fourth child to read. I used the "100 Lesson" book with the first one, the "Phonics Pathways" with the second one and "the Reading Lesson" with last two. If you are reading this to try to decide on which book to purchase, this one - The Reading Lesson - in my opinion is right on the mark for younger children. The lessons are teeny-tiny and easy for younger child. The CD-ROM really helps because it is so wonderfully entertaining for the child but very goal-oriented.Phonics Pathways book should be used only for an older child or one who had difficulties learning to read. It is just too much for a young child. It uses a lot of rhyming pharases and that in my opinion in not the best way to learn to read. Words in reading do not often rhyme. Rhyming also encouraes guessing. The pages of Phonics Pathways are jam packed with words and "stuff". On one page I counted over 200 words! All of these words new to the child. No wonder my son hated looking at this book. Definitely not for a younger child. The 100 Lessons book is good BUT this book - The Reading Lesson - is better. One of the complaints I had with "100 Lessons" book is that when you look at a page, it is 80% instructions for the parent and only just a few words for the child to read, except when reading stories when there is too much on the page for the child to read. The "100 Lessons" book lacks balance in my opinion. I noticed that one of the reviewers said that they liked the "100 Lesson" book, however this reviewer from what she says never saw the this book, only the web site. How can you give a book 3 stars after just seeing the website! Strange!!! I think if you see how the Reading Lesson book is arranged, you won't want to buy the 100 Lessons book. (I bought the book at Borders never having read any of these reviews!) This book is a gem. Easy to use, and a pleasure and hands down best of the lot of books designed to teach children to read.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Program for Beginners
Review: As an ESL teacher, I highly recommend "The Reading Lesson" for both parents and ESL teachers. Before using this book, I have taught my primary school students how to pronounce all the English sounds, and they can pronounce them all and remember all the symbols which represent the English sounds. But phonic teaching was not included. Now I teach them with this book to help them combine consonants and vowels and learn the basics. And this book is quite a good start for them. Words are big. Cute illustrations for each lesson. Easy to understand. Moreover, there are many exercises students can do. "The Reading Lesson" is designed for children ages 4 to 8. Excellent for beginners. Although the book is not perfect, it is already very good. Actually, no program is perfect. All we have to do is to give students something else when it is necessary. Something I do not like is that pages fall off the book easily. Except for this drawback, everything is good.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Works
Review: If you are reading reviews and looking at books about teaching your child to read -
YOU NEED TO BUY THIS BOOK
This book was the final elusive tool I needed to teach my four year old to read. It works.
With this book in my possession, I now know that my 8 month old will without question be able to read at age three.
Here's how:
1. She is now watching "Smart Video- vol 3, the alphabet. It taught my son all the capital letters by age 18 months. This time I will teach the letter sounds as well.
2. Starting around a year or so, she will have plastic letters and numbers for the refrigerator (larger size only-large enough to not fit through a toilet paper roll -to avoid chocking) Also there will be foam one foot carpet squares with removable letters and anything else with letters that is handy.
3. At age 2 she will begin to watch the Leapfrog videos - The Letter Factory first and The Word Factory second. This is a fun way for kids to learn the sounds of letters and how they work together. (the Reading Program also has a letter sounds video. It is more technically complete but much less fun) Also a must, for less than $20 is Leap Frog's Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set. This is a toy in which you put each letter in a holder, one at a time to trigger a song about the letter. "every letter has a sound. The G says ga."
5. With the letter sounds learned, it will be time for the Reading Lesson. With that step she will learn to read. Going through the book with my son has been slow and requires patience. But because he knew his letter sounds he has methodically pronounced in each chapter, first single letter sounds, double letter sounds, and then three letter words, four letter words, sets of two words, and then short sentences. We are on chapter 7 and he reads multiple words quickly enough to realize, those are not words, those are thoughts (sentences). He will then say "I can read". And he can.
Hints and tips:
* No bribes. It might make them read sooner, but it is not really a habit you want to start. We will usually plan to read and then play trains. My only bribe is telling the child how much you love to hear them read.
* Smart Video's 1 & 2 are even more valuable to development that the alphabet one. They would be the first two things I would buy for any child.
* One or two pages at a time is fine. Whatever the child's pace.
* If your child is older, it is not too late to start this program.
* Of course you will have to help them sound out some of the words. How many depends on how old they are and on how well they know their letter sounds.
* There are many reading books out there designed to move an beginning reader to the next level. That will be next.
* Several people ask if we go back and review previous chapters. NO. The book builds on itself and the review needed is built in.
* The reason the book is divided into 20 lessons, not 50 or 100 sittings is that each chapter introduces three new letters or sounds. It is a very logical division of learning and my child looks forward to when we are about to get to three new sounds.
Rating:
Summary: This book works!
Review: My daughter showed an early interest in reading, and although I knew how to teach her the sounds of letters and simple words, I wasn's sure how best to present the rest of the information, such as punctuation, words that don't follow the rules, etc. This book presented everything in a great way... and has them reading "stories" (by themselves!) immediately. Yes, as one reviewer pointed out, they start out simplisticly, but where else should they start? My daughter was excited that she was actually reading by herself, and wanted to continue in the book. We go in phases with it, and you certainly can't finish it in a week or so, but it does work, beautifully. My daughter was reading books on her own while she was still in preschool, and it has given her a huge start in kindergarten, both in ability and confidence. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: TERRIBLE!!! dumbed-down, insult to children's intelligence
Review: ZERO STARS!!!! Please, please, PLEASE do not buy this book!!! It is AWFUL! It is so degrading to children's learning abilities. (If you're looking for a program for the learning disabled, please try the Ball-Stick-Bird program by Renee Fuller - read about the stories and the method at the website ballstickbird.com.) Please do not support the Reading Lesson and it's author's by wasting your money on it! Children are too valuable to be given the impression that they are so inept at any learning ability that we must stoop to this type of nonsense in order to "teach them to read." Here is an example of two sentences the book teaches (with no capitalization): sat at. tom sad. Here is an example of a story: tom sad. dad mad at tom. (What a happy story to read by the way!) Yes, children could be "taught to read" using this book (but, according to other reviews, they must be bribed in order to do so). But, at what "dumbed-down" level of intelligence do we want our children's reading level to be? Please don't take pride in "teaching" children to read at their expense. Any child that would come away from this program of reading with any pride in their reading ability or any desire to read for enjoyment is virtually impossible for me to imagine.
One further gripe: the book's title is misrepresentative, the majority of the "Twenty" Lessons must each be broken down into several lessons. If there were ANY quality in the program, wouldn't it be able to stand on it's own without needing a sensationalized title to lie for it?
Rating:
Summary: The Reading Lesson
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.
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