Teach Your Child to Read

I was trying to teach my child to read. Getting it wrong, frustrating both myself & my daughter - so I searched online to see what was good. I read so many reviews of this book, that it convinced me. I just wanted to add now, I am at lesson 42 today with my daughter. She can read 5 sentences at this stage, almost half of it already without sounding out & reading fast. It's great! It's phonics with a meticulous teaching process! & it works perfectly!!

Tonight my daughter (age 3 yrs 8 months) read her own bedtime stories - proper little tales, not just "cat sat on a mat". She has done about 80 of the 100 lessons, no more than 20 minutes a day and about 5 times a week. She's very bright but due to having an October birthday, won't start formal schooling for another year and I knew that she would be very frustrated without some intellectual challenges. She asked to learn to read and I had no idea how to teach her - how you you explain "read" and "red" and "read" and "reed" and so on?

This book tells you - it is VERY proscriptive, you must say the words exactly as they tell you, even down to how to praise your child (but I slipped from that a little as we went on and grew in confidence). Other reviewers have criticised the strange symbols and the use of little letters etc, and I wondered how she would move from this strange almost-code to proper writing, but she just did. I can't explain how, but her mind coped with it with no problem at all.

To start with, I found the programme daunting - pages of explanation before you get into it, and I worried I would set my daughter back by putting her off reading entirely. This was not the case at all.


Good points:
+ it really works
+ you start to see results very soon
+ the child gets a great sense of achievement
+ the authors really know what they are talking about, even if you don't believe it at first - for example more than one lesson back to back is inadvisable, even if your child finished the first lesson eager for more.

Bad points:
- it is American, so one has to translate "sidewalk" and "mom" etc
- there are far too many typing errors, missing the pronunciation marks off letters etc, we had to go through the book putting them in with black pen.
- some of their pronunciation is bizarre: "for" to be pronounced rhyming with "mower" for example?! Is it the American accent, or is it just sloppy editing? We just ignored this after a while.


For me it loses 2 stars for the sloppy editing, but as the programme still works so effectively, I've given it a bonus star to make up for taking off 2 - the programme is almost perfect, the publishers need to sharpen up their act!

I will use it again for my son.



PS (added later) she's now nearly 4 and on stage 2 of the reading scheme - her class mate have not started it yet!

i bought this to teach my 3 and a half yr old daughter to read and i am amazed by her progress with it. we have to make it fun and turn it into a game and by doing that it keeps her keen and engaged. sitting down and doing a lesson too formally with her just didn't work, so by breaking up the lesson and swinging her round or throwing her on the sofa when she did a good word, she finds it fun and wants to do it. we also used sticker charts and she got a prize for every ten lessons. There is a writing section in each lesson but we just skipped them completely as she just doesn't have the motor skills yet.
my daughter starts school in 2 months and i'm confident she'll be a competent reader by then.
Buy it!!!

I bought this book as I have bright twin boys who were showing an interest in words and reading. I began the book when they were 3.5 as instructed by the author. We went through about the first 20 lessons. It was hard going and although I have no doubts that the method is carefully planned and would work if the child is engaged with the format. My boys found it too boring and we gave up. I have had much better success with the online teaching of clicknkids.

After reading all the reviews I thought I'd give this book a go. It didn't disappoint. My son finished his reception year still not being able to read a word so I felt it was time I had a go at teaching him myself. 5 months on and we're coming to the end of the book and my son, soon to be 6 can read so well it's amazing. It's also helped with his speech because he's had to learn the sounds the letters make and he was determined to get it right. You have to be quite dedicated and we try to do it every day doesn't always happen but we try. It's not always been easy, lack of enthusiasm, time and energy but we've stuck at it. The book is brilliant in it's approach and really, really does work, I can't stress that enough. I am a rubbish teacher but because the book tells you exactly what to say it's made the whole process so much easier. My son loves the fact he can read a story to me from the book. I'm so glad I bought this book.