Others say...

"Good reference tool, but lots of problems"
After completing 89 lessons in this book, my daughter and I are calling it quits. We've worked on it on and off for over a year (she's 5 now), and for the sake of preserving a love of reading, have decided to shelve it. This book has been helpful in a number of ways; it is great for giving a parent the sense that they can indeed teach their own children, that reading is easy, and laying out a path for doing so. I have found it useful as a reference book, i.e. to show me what to introduce, remind me what the actual "rules" are, and give me direction for our lessons. However, there have been some significant problems.

1) The layout of the pages is daunting for a child. There are lots of words, no pictures, nothing to visually set apart the words that the child reads except that they're a bit larger. It seems overwhelming and very un-child-friendly.

2) The practice stories often make no sense, and fail to capture my daughter's interest at all. An example from today: "The black snake did wish that he had a snack of mice. The snake did scan the grass to prey on mice. The grey mice sat on the rock and ate nuts. The snake came to the rock. Hey! The mice fled. They hid in holes. The snake will have no snack this day." Awkward wording, nothing particularly interesting about that, no pictures. The optional follow-up activity is to illustrate this story and label the items.

3) The practice sentences are way too long, and overwhelm new readers. For example, the child has just been introduced to the "fl" blend (lesson 50), and reads the sentence, "Ducks in flocks flit and flap on the flat pond." This sentence is too long, has onomotopeic words with which they may not be familiar (flit), and makes them use the new rule 4 times!! Very frustrating for a child struggling to learn a new rule. This was one of 6 new blends introduced in this one lesson.

4) Exceptions are often introduced before rules. For example, today we learned that the vowel pair "ea" can sometimes make the long-a sound, as in great, break, steak. Okay, so my daughter goes to read "please", and says, "place". Of course! She's never been taught that "ea" USUALLY says the long-E sound. The old "when two vowels go walking" would have been helpful to learn first, not later. Also, today she learned that "ey" can say the long-A sound. So "smiley" is smilay until a later lesson... you get the picture. This has come up more than once.

5) Very rigid rules, introduced in a logical, but not necessarily helpful, order. Much more actual reading could be possible much sooner if they'd go ahead and introduce some of the more helpful rules out of sequence.

6) It would be helpful to introduce a number of sight words much earlier. Kids learn sight words very quickly, and a few of them up front can make many more books accessible.

If your child is VERY motivated to learn to read, I do think that this book will work. My 3-year-old son has this drive, and the first few lessons (we skip the letter-learning part) have taught him the basics of CVC words. But he would learn that just as easily if I just stuck some magnets on a board. My daughter is very global in her thinking, and is more interested in the content of stories than in mastering reading technique, and this book sends her running for cover. Honestly, I dread it, too. Fortunately she is now at the point where she can read basic easy readers, so we're going to drop this book, use it as a reference tool only, and continue with McGuffey Readers, Bob books, and everything on the library's easy reader shelf. For my other 3 kiddos, I'll be investigating other options.


"Begin Teaching Your Child Early"
Parents must be part of the education of their children early on if children are going to learn to read and enjoy it.This book gives some great tips on exactly that. Also a must-have for parents are two lovely pieces of children's literature which children really enjoy. The 10-page scripted guide allows parents to start teaching reading skills early on:Life's Little Lessons: An Inch-By-Inch Tale of Success
and The Big Squeal: A Wild, True, and Twisted Tail.

"Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading"
So far, my kids are learning and reviewing the letter sounds and are enjoying the lessons. The rhymes are helpful. It is basic and easy to teach, and foundational for reading.

"Just Beginning, you need this book. "
We are just beginning learning the sounds of letters, and what great focus this book gives you as the teacher. It guides you throughout the studies and combines the lessons for review. I have been pleasantly surprised about how thorough this book is.

"Excellent curriculum, just make sure your child doesn't have a learnng disability "
This is an excellent text. However, if your child has DYSLEXIA, which I did not know how to recognize, it will never be enough. I used it with my son for a summer after kindergarten, and saw great progress. I had begun using it as I was dissatisfied with his teachers argument that "boys just develop slower". We were able to make great progress and he was doing most of the Bob Books by the end of summer. I did, however, not feel he was "blending" the sounds as he read. AFter that summer, I left it to the school to do the rest, I felt he had a good foundation. Fast forward 3 years later, he was just diagnosed as dyslexic. Needless to say, we are on to something else. I just wanted to let people know, if this doesn't help your child learn to read, and become an EXCELLENT reader, you should test for a disability, and don't take the SCHOOL's assesment as necessarily accurate. What this book does not do, which dylexic's desperately need, is intense phonemic awareness BEFORE intense phonics will really take hold. I reccommend "Road to the Code" in conjunction with this book to ensure you have all your bases covered. This book is an excellent text, but I wish there was more discussion of phonemic awareness, what it is, and WHY it MUST come before phonics, especially if you want to "catch" a learning disability early on. By the way, I have been using this text with my non-dyslexic kindergartner, and he is the most advanced reader in his class. He does not think the lessons are boring or repetitive. You have to be able to adapt the script as you go, as you see your child "getting it" or not. I would again, urge phonemic awareness in ADDITION to this text.