Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

I have now purchased two copies of Teach Your Child .... The first I purchased 7 years ago to teach my daughter. The second I purchased a year ago to teach my now 4 1/2 year old boy.

The negatives associated with the book are minimal - yes, there are a few typos and the lessons are rather bland. But on the whole the books is beautifully layed out, with easy progression and ample repetition.

I cover 2 lessons a night with my boy. The first lesson is a review of last night's new lesson. The second lesson is the next lesson in sequence. We spend about 30 minutes reading.

My boy is on lesson 70 now and he is quite excited about his new ability to read words! He sounds out words on billboards or on the back of the cereal box and seems to get a big kick out of the process. Reading is opening up a new world for him and I know he enjoys it.

As for my daughter, she entered school knowing how to read because of this book. I don't think the teacher believed me when I said she could read but I figured the teacher would find out soon enough. She did and adapted appropriately.

Yes, being ahead of the game may have lead to some slow days at school for my daughter, but I'd FAR RATHER her to be ahead than behind! And you should feel this way, too!

Truly, I believe that teaching reading to your child is one of the best acts of love you can ever give. This book accomplishes everything I had hoped for.

After the lessons are over, you still need to find some easy readers for your child. There are few books around that are just right, but be persistent. Spend another six months with your child with easy readers and you'll find that your child will take off on his or her own after that.

The overall time it took me to teach my daughter using the book was about six months. I expect the same with my boy. With my daughter, we went through the 100 lessons and then went back again through 60-100 to reinforce the earlier work.

I think you can (and probably must) modify the lessons to suit your situation.

Good luck!

This book starts painfully slowly, but my advice is "hold on." At first, I couldn't stand the agonizingly plodding pace. And it wasn't just impatient me. My three year old didn't see the point of saying the list of words as slowly. But we gave it a chance anyway, after all the good Amazon reviews and marketing hype on the book itself. By a quarter of the way through, we began to look forward to reading time. One small addition I made to the scripted course was to invite in stuffed animal guest teachers (see suggestion 1 below). It worked like a charm.

I love the way the parent's part is scripted. The script turns anyone who can read into a patient, supportive master teacher! I love the way all sorts of short activities make up each lesson - very balanced. Best of all is the way this book's lessons touch all the bases. They connect letter sounds with words with stories with writing and finally, with reading comprehension, the point of the whole exercise. I really appreciate the short stories and the picture from the story with discussion questions. Now that I've talked to some teachers, this balanced, comprehensive approach is a perfect way to start a child reading. It doesn't lack any aspect that they will use later, or emphasize one to the exclusion of the others.

I didn't expect the writing, but I am very happy that it's in there. I bought the book for my three year old, but I am putting my 5 year old through it too, because it is so complete and methodical.

When I first saw the phonetic alphabet, I thought it was a little strange. But my child has no trouble recognizing the joined "sh" symbol as an "s" and an "h." And the "sh" is a single sound in his mind, as are "s" and "h." The notation caused us no problem at all, and I only mention it because another reviewer found it problematic. We did not. Likewise, I wasn't disturbed by short e not being mentioned sooner. Who cares? The order presented was gradual, and as logical as any other.(Although it led to a lot of stories about ants.)

I would also offer a few suggestions:

1. If your child loves his or her stuffed animals (or Power Rangers, etc.), then you can use them to be "guest teachers." When I started with this book, I hadn't yet come up with this diversionary tactic, and sometimes working through a lesson was harder than it needed to be. With a beanie baby teaching, my three year old is far more interested in the lessons. My boy picks which animals will help each night, and then he listens intently to them. They help sound out words, rhyme, and watch him write. They are much more interesting than old Daddy, as they are allowed to have excessive personality! When it is time to find certain words in the story, my son doesn't like to just point to the requested word. He prefers to race the beanie-baby guest teacher to the words. (The beanie baby invariably loses.) When it is time to write letters, the beanie baby counts them in Spanish. And so on.

2. Check out some of the "We Both Read" books to supplement toward the end of this book. The "We Both Read" series has a complicated left page for the adult, and a simple right page for the child. You take turns reading, and continue the "reading together" experience beyond the 100 easy lessons.

So after a slow and frustrating start, which in retrospect was absolutely necessary, we both look forward to our daily reading time. We brought in the beanie babies to inject the missing element of fun. I know Matthew will have a solid foundation in all the parts of written communication, and Matthew likes the fact that his favorite stuffed animals are teaching him to read.

Five stars. Awaiting "Human Relationships in 100 Easy Lessons."

I'm so impressed with how this book was put together. The lessons are fool proof for the parent, as they are written with detailed directions. New sounds are gradually worked into previously mastered tasks so that the child is never given more than he/she can handle (this does wonders for my daughter's reading confidence). Before you know it, your child is reading three and four paragraphs, and the process of getting there wasn't painful at all!

One note: I have read other reviews from parents using this book with 3 and 4 year olds. Certainly, if your preschooler shows an interest in reading, this book is an excellent choice. But NOTHING will work unless your child is READY to learn, not even "100 Lessons." Reading readiness happens at different ages (like every other milestone in childhood), and we as parents must respect our children's personal timetables (difficult to do sometimes, I know). Hey, remember when WE were in kindergarten? We spent our days playing, painting, napping (do they even nap anymore these days). Reading came along in first grade, and many of us may not have been ready to learn until then.

That said, buy the book and use it when your particular family is ready ~ ENJOY! :o)

I taught Kindergarten for three years before staying home with our first child. I wish that I had this book when teaching those eager five-year-olds! I am confident that all of my students would have been reading at a second grade level by the end of their Kindergarten year. I have been teaching our 3 1/2-year-old daughter how to read using this book and I am very impressed with the results. From teaching experience I can tell you that there isn't much better than this on the market. It is fun, easy for anyone to teach, and most of all, it works! Don't listen to those advocates of whole language reading--this curriculum uses phonics and teaches comprehension also, which is equally as important. This book will be all you need to turn your child into a successful reader. So, if your child is at a place where alphabet recognition and beginning phonics are boring, get this book! It is worth much more to me that the it costs to buy, and we will be using it to teach all of our children to read.

I had to write this after reading the rave reviews from parents of 3 year olds who taught their kids to read in 12 min. a night in less than 3 months. Don't buy this book if that is what you expect.

Don't get me wrong this is a GREAT book. I highly recommend it. But, it is NOT EASY (at least not for every child).

My nearly 5 begged "Please, please teach me to read Mommy". After about 20 lessons of this book she begged "Please, please I don't want to read". So we put it aside for a few months. When she asked to start again we started over at lesson 1 and went more slowly. We reviewed the previous lesson, did a new lesson, read a "Bob Book",played letter bingo. Some days we didn't do a new lesson - we just read a "Bob book" or reviewed an old lesson. YOU HAVE TO GO AT YOUR KIDS PACE. TAKE YOUR CUES FROM YOUR CHILD.

We're on lesson 94. I don't know if she reads at a 2nd grade level and I don't care. She is reading and excited about reading - and that's what it's all about.