Rating: 
Summary: this reading teacher's experience
Review: READING TEACHERS BEWARE: The author calls blends 'clusters' and rules 'tendencies', but it is nothing more than the same old Phonics with several new layers of rules added in. I've been working with a boy being taught with the author's own program called Allographs. He is in worse shape now than when he started, despite the fact that he can recite the author's charts in the book by rote. The author says that dyslexia is caused by poor instruction and says that her method is the answer, but for this young man it has been a seven month waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: If you have to believe everything a book says, don't read it
Review: That, in essence, is what Mencius had advised. It is also what frequently popped into my mind as I read the book.Some books are written to inform, while others are written for very commercial reasons. Having read Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz, I could appreciate the contrasting styles adopted by the authors. One attempted to be objective and scientific, while offering hopes for parents who are agonising over their kids who can't read; another sought self-promotion by thrashing others and making outrageous claims based on skimpy research, hoping to make offers to parents who are agonising over their kids who can't read. A two-star book is not necessarily badly written or worth less a read than a five-star book. In fact, it may prompt you to think harder and read between the lines. Reading two books writing on a similar topic especially helps. If you are into reading difficulties, read Overcoming Dyslexia first.
Rating: 
Summary: Why our children can't read and what we can do about it
Review: The author is brilliant- the description of how written languages came to be is fasinating! how to teach reading struck such an strong internal congruency with me. however- i'm still processing her thoughts about the utter lack of a biological basis for dyslexia (?) She is, though, right on the money when talking about teachers- after watching 6 teachers in early grades (for two children) it now is clear to me that only 2 of them had anything approaching a rudimentary understanding of how the code works- how can they possibly teach it? It has nothing to do with anybody trying to be mean- the poor teachers are just ignoramuses (however, the conspiracy theorists among us might suppose this speaks to some nefarious social engineering). I guess the only thing negative that could be said is that this book ccould be considered a giant advertisemnt for the author's daughter's reading clinics- but if they work- hey- what the heck! Also she rants and raves about Lindamood-Bell methodologies- and seeing first hand how this worked with me son- I say, good on her! spread the word and don't stop for breath!
Rating:
Summary: 'same old same old'
Review: The only thing new here is the author's name. This book pitches the 'same old same old' from a new kid on the block. The one star I'm giving this book is for the forward by Steven Pinker. The rest of this book is unfocused and the argument is inconsistent. The stories of students are stiff. It's obvious this author doesn't know many children. This makes the reader question the integrity of the research presented.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for any parent or teacher.
Review: The Reading Wars have heated up; however, this time the twoopponents are not whole word and phonics; it is "the proper wayto teach our writing code (phoneme awareness programs)" and all of the others. Diane McGuinness, using the scientific approach -- not pseudoscience -- has made an exhaustive study of, many writing systems, and has extracted the proper manner to teach our reading code. She critiques many different reading programs and their so-called research: Whole word is disastrous; whereas, phonics is not complete. As required by the scientific method, she has set up the proper experimental designs and conducted research to validate her approach. All of her findings are statistically significant. Dyslexic and ADD children have been taught how to read using her approach -- Diane's work questions the legitimacy of these educational "symptoms." Easy to read. Chock full of goodies. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a must read for anybody with children
Review: The reviewer in the first review listed asserts that Dr. McGuinness "may have overstated her case" in that there is "only one way to teach [reading]". What Dr. Mcguinness actually says is that there is a BEST way to teach reading. The distinction is important, since even Dr. McGuinness acknowledges that a (slim) majority of children taught by whole language will actually succeed in learning to read. But a slim majority is something to be more ashamed than proud of. Her discussion of the history of writing systems and their relationship to the spoken language is lucid and compelling. Her follow through on the research related to the acquisition of reading is equally brilliant. I have started tracking down the references listed in her bibliography, and if anything, she has for reasons of space limitations given us an inadequate picture of the colossal amount of research in support of her position. I cannot believe that any thinking person who follows the trails of her bibliography will fail to be outraged at the pseudoscientific, intellectually bankrupt nonsense that is being foisted on our children under the label of whole language (or should that be "hole langwij"?). Using her ideas and the methods outlined in her other publications as well as those of her son and his wife, my own oldest child--age 5-- is well on her way to being an independent reader. I can't recommend this enough.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent & accurate account of why our chn carn't read
Review: This book is well worth reading. It gives an accurate insight of why our children carn't read. The phonological difficulties associated with reading and spelling problems can be remediated using sound-to-letter mapping, such as that described in the book. The Allographs programme, written by Dianne McGuinness and mentioned in her book, is an excellent resource to use to teach children to read and spell by sound-to-letter mapping and has been recently researched. Secondary school students increased 12-24 months in twleve, one hour lessons. It works, it's worth a try.
Rating: 
Summary: Common Sense
Review: This book really opened my eyes. All of the studies just seem like common sense to me. I just never thought of it in this way. The book was a little hard to muttle through at some points, but well worth the effort. My children are now using Reading Reflex thanks Dianne.
Rating:
Summary: A one-eyed book but with good vision in the remaining eye!
Review: This is a strange book: it's `true believer' rhetoric is irritating to put it mildly. When it steps outside the area of competence of its author (strategies for the practice of teaching reading) it is usually plain silly. Ignore the chapters on `Not so universal education' and `Is anyone in the schools listening'. McGuiness's `sociology of education' is puerile. But the rest of the book gives a very good presentation of what appears to be one sensible approach to the teaching of reading. Even here, however, if one stuck to the presription without additionally stressing the need to teach reading for comprehension and reading in context, my guess is the result would be disaster. I am not surprised that Pinker gives it such an enthusiastic foreward: his work tends to be one-eyed as well, but with acute vision in the remaining eye.
Rating:
Summary: This book helped me find the right help
Review: Within the covers of this book is a gem of a concept. Children learning to read often need to break the language down into identifiable sounds and rhythums. Some of us are more visual learners, others are more auditory or tactile sensitive. The concepts in this book discuss an incorporation of the senses into understanding the phonemic building blocks of the English language. For implementing these astonishing methods of learning to read - I most higly recommend: "Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read" by Carmen McGuinness. The "Reading Reflex" method is exceptionally well laid out and is self-contained; includes everything you need to begin to teach a child to learn to read form the bottom up. If you are interested in understanding the concepts read "Why Our Children Can't Read and What We Can Do About It" but if you want to just get right down to business with your child simply get the "Reading Reflex" book, skip the explanations as to "why" and "why not" and just get started.
| 
