I'm actually teaching my child to read!!!!!!!!!!!

[Shawna C.]

My son is in French Immersion (heading into grade 1) so hasn't started reading in English yet - and despite us reading to him almost every night since he was in utero (we are currently 3/4 of the way through our 3rd Harry Potter book) he has shown no interest in learning to sound out words, no matter how hard I try - I was a terrible impatient teacher as I had no idea what I was doing, and it was horrible for both of us so I didn't even bother anymore...

Then these homeschooling people we know told me how they taught their 5 year old to read - a book called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox and Elaine Bruner..I bought it off Chapters.ca, read the lengthy intro so I could really digest how to give the lessons (I was pretty intimidated), and finally, after my son bugged me for the 3rd time to teach him to read, we started the lessons...

We are now on lesson 12 and he is reading word after word...I am always calling my husband in to show him the latest word that our son is sounding out and reading...It's so cool - he loves it and often asked to do two lessons a day (so it's only been about a week now since we started)....

The other neat thing is that our 3 year old sits with us during every lesson, and tonight asked me to give her TWO lessons (I was exhausted after doing 3 lessons ) and she was amazing...

I highly recommend this book

[Harmony]

Wow, wow, wow. That is amazing.

Thanks for letting us know. I'm definately going to check out that book.

[five in a cruiser]

i am so getting that book, thanks

[Yvonne A]

I'm ordering it too. Was just about to, when my hubby said he had a $5 coupon in his work email, so he's going to order it for me. And the new Harry Potter!

[Anonymous Posts]

The library has it

[Anonymous Posts]

There's one on used vic.

http://www.usedvictoria.com/classified- ... -education

[Shawna C.]

OK, so I know I already raved about this book but it truly is amazing..We are on lesson 34 and I just listened to my little boy read "the fast way" as is described in the book...Sounding out words in his head and then reading them..he just read me a 3 sentence "story" the fast way - blew me away! A month and a half ago he couldn't even sound out words and now he's reading in his head!

[frasersmama]

Thanks for the update, I was wondering how it was going for you. I just got this book off ebay (for those who are interested, there were quite a few copies for sale on there), but haven't found the time to read through the intro etc. I am glad to hear such positive feedback. I can't wait to try it. I hope I'm not jumping the gun considering Fraser's age, but the into does say it is applicable to "bright" 3.5 year olds, so I would say she fits (of course I AM her mommy, it's my job to think she's bright). Keep posting on your progress.

[monikah]

I've been teaching my 6 year old daughter to read too. The book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" is really amazing. When we got to about lesson 40 or so, we started to find the stories a bit long so we switched over to the "Bob books". I would highly recommend this very popular series as well. The one thing about the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" is that they use special notation which makes things easier at the beginning, but then, if you think about it, that kind of notation isn't used anywhere else.

So we are reading through the Bob books now. We've also found a really fabulous learn-to-read site on the internet at http://www.starfall.com. My daughter just loves it. She can spend hours just doing the lessons by herself and has learned so much. We make up flash cards with 'memory words' as we call them like 'we', 'they', 'the' etc words that you can't just sound out and it's amazing how much faster it makes her reading to learn these words.

[Kc]

I just got this book out from the library to check it out, the I wasn't sure on some things after reading the parents part; like doe is matter if your child can't say certain sounds quite right yet like "th" and "ch"? Or if a child is having a hard time getting a lesson do you repeat it (it said something about not overcorrecting to keep a flow, but what if the child get's stuck on a word or sound?)? Maybe the book did address this already and I missed it, but there was so much to take in that maybe I keep overlooking it. Thanks

[monikah]

doe is matter if your child can't say certain sounds quite right yet like "th" and "ch"?

These sounds are usually introduced later so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Usually they start with words like 'mat' and 'sat'. etc. Since my child has some speech issues, I actually found teaching her to read useful. Like with 'th', we got to go over the proper way to pronounce it with the tongue between the teeth so it actually helped improve her speech.

The best thing is just to start using the book and see how it goes. Every child is different and you'll soon figure out how your child learns best. The best thing is just to make sure reading's enjoyable and don't worry about doing exactly what the book says. When we first started our reading book, I followed the instructions *exactly* and this ended up with a pace that was way too slow for my daughter.

I found that my daughter got bored with just going through the book so sometimes we started getting creative, making up flash cards, letting her have a '5 minute wiggle' during a session, doing 'super fast' reading drills, spelling, or 'guess that first letter of this word', that sort of thing.

[L2K]

Thanks for the tip. My DD is already learning to read her phonics books in English. She will be in FI next fall so I want to get a jumpstart on her English reading.

Cheers,
Lara

[Shawna C.]

Just wanted to post an update to let you know that this book is (still) amazing - we are on lesson 66 (my little guy is in FI grade 1 so I don't want to overwhelm him with homework and his english reading lessons we do these lessons every few days now) He's reading so quickly and really enjoys it - he's always so proud of how much he accomplishes each lesson. We are also reading a couple of chapters each night of the Little House on the Prairies series and I get him to read chapter titles and sentences and it's amazing how well he's reading!

I should also mention that the lessons have really helped with "th" sounds - he used to say "brudder" and "mudder" and "free" instead of "three"...Now i remind him that it's a TH sounds and he says "th" instead of 'ffff"

Yay!

[Anonymous Posts]

In March of 2007 I lent my copy of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" to a mother whose child, then six years old and in first grade, had not begun reading, or was reading with the sort of stupid guessing games that Whole Language Teachers inflict on children, as though there were no sense, no rhyme or reason, to English spelling. The mom was being told that her son would have to repeat first grade. This terrified her, and even caused her to want to obtain brain scans of her son's head, as though there was something medically wrong with him, rather than there being something wrong with how he was being allegedly taught. The boy wanted to read quite badly, and took 100 Easy Lessons in huge gulps, three lessons a night, and finished it in a month. (This is not a recommendation: it is merely what happened.) The question then arose, what next? Those who are familiar with 100 Easy Lessons, know that it is the compressed parent-friendly version of Reading Mastery I and Reading Mastery II (RMI&II), intended for Kindergarten and First Grade. Those can be purchased at prohibitive prices from the Science Research Associates Division of McGraw-Hill, as they are intended for school use and priced accordingly. Instead, for a much lower price, there is the Engelmann-created CD-ROM set called Funnix i and Funnix 2 (excuse the pun, please), which can be obtained from http://Funnix.com, either together or separately. I raised the question of overlap on the Direct Instruction listsev. Instructions to joining this can be found at http://adihome.org under the category "support services." You do not need a member number to subscribe, although if you have such a number, they would like it. Owen Engelmann (one of Zig's sons) then wrote a nice note to the Direct Instruction listserv explaining how the overlap works as between the two CDs and as between 100 Easy Lessons and Funnix 2. You can reach me at shooz at the website (use the at symbol) ssasy.us, and I will happily email any who ask (within some limitation on time) a copy of what Owen wrote. I don't think that the Di discussion list maintains archives, or at least it didn't in the past. As users of 100 Easy Lessons, you should also be aware of two other web sites, http://nifdi.org, where Zig Engelmann can be found in person, and his fascinating (at least to me) personal web site, http://zigsite.com. He also has a new book about to be in print, which will be available at http://adihome.org, on the origins of Direct Instruction, and how the U.S. government spent half a billion dollars in 1970's money testing this curriculum against eight others, and how the extraordinary results, which have been shown again and again to be valid, were simply ignored, buried, and dismissed as irrelevant, because they contradicted the prevailing assumptions governing how teachers are supposed to teach, and how schools of education are supposed to prepare teachers. The troubles with the schools are, unfortunately, not limited to the U.S., not even to the English-speaking part of Canada. Whole Language and constructivism have been inflicted on Francophones living in Quebec, with equally disasterous results. The present U.S. administration is actually in favor of Direct Instruction, as then Governor Bush saw first-hand favorable experiences with DI in Houston, Texas, and was also well-advised on educational matters while serving as governor, by Douglas Carnine, one of Zig Engelmann's colleagues at the University of Oregon.

Yours, Shooz[b][/b][b][/b]

[FairyElf]

Just wanted to post an update to let you know that this book is (still) amazing - we are on lesson 66 (my little guy is in FI grade 1 so I don't want to overwhelm him with homework and his english reading lessons we do these lessons every few days now) He's reading so quickly and really enjoys it - he's always so proud of how much he accomplishes each lesson. We are also reading a couple of chapters each night of the Little House on the Prairies series and I get him to read chapter titles and sentences and it's amazing how well he's reading!

I should also mention that the lessons have really helped with "th" sounds - he used to say "brudder" and "mudder" and "free" instead of "three"...Now i remind him that it's a TH sounds and he says "th" instead of 'ffff"

Yay!

That sounds great! Im happy for your DS! I was wondering what age would you recommend this book to start with? My middle DS is going into kindy next year and I havent even started trying to teach him how to write his name! That'll be our project soon. Hes 4 1/2 years old and is quite bright verbally, very computer literate! I havent tried doing writing etc with him. He loves books as well!