Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons: Revised and Updated Second Edition

Thanks to this book, my son is the at the top of his class when it comes to reading. He blew the teacher away at his reading assessment. She said that once he blew through a late-2nd-grade book, and only slightly struggled through a 3rd grade book she simply stopped the test and assigned him to the advanced reading for 1st grade. I am one proud mommy! But please don't think I am boasting about my kid. He' smart, but he's not a prodigy. I am raving about this book!!! It's absolutely incredible.For those who think it's tedious or too technical, that may be. But even though many lessons, especially the early ones, are super easy, and the steps feel like overkill, it's about HOW the brain processes and builds on information. You are building a foundation for how the brain processes reading, and it happens without you even noticing. I'm not just amazed with what my son can read, but HOW he reads. He knows how to work out a new word and he almost always gets it right. This book hasn't just taught him to read, but how to think about words. It's something I never thought about, and I am so grateful. These are skills that will carry on throughout his educational career and help him not just succeed, but excel. He enjoys reading because he knows how to do it and doesn't rely on words he has memorized. I know I'm not explaining this well. Perhaps someone can comment and help elaborate.TL;DR Your kid will learn to LOVE reading because the mystery is solved. Get this book. Power through it. You won't regret it. I recommend starting as soon as your kid turns 4.UPDATE: I just had a parent teacher conference with my son's First Grade teacher, and she was telling us how well he's doing not just with reading, but sounding out words, putting word parts together, and reading comprehension. I know that she and my son's Kindergarten teacher taught him a lot, but I also KNOW that he got the solid foundation for those skills from this book. I want to jump in and tell every teacher about it! But sadly they never seem to care much. I think they think I'm over-exaggerating and believe that they are the ones that taught my son to read so well. Well my 4 1/2 year old is now going through it and he's already reading at an end-of-Kindergarten level (and we're on lesson 32). I'm also starting with my 3 1/2 year old and she's sounding things out on her own after only 6 lessons. These are three kids with very different personalities and very different learning styles. I strongly believe that this book can work for anyone. I do change up some of the wording a bit to suit each kid's different style, but that comes easily now that I know the book so well. I hope that this review helps others to make the choice to buy and USE this book. :)UPDATE #2:I just want to add one more little tidbit. My middle child is left handed and he is showing a strong tendency to write in mirror writing (backwards lettering and from right to left). This book has been helpful in teaching him to write correctly. When he writes on his own accord I don't correct him as I have no problem with him learning mirror writing as well, but when it comes to "school time" he has to do it the conventional way, which I tell him he needs to learn for Kindergarten. He would probably get this from any reading course, but I like how this book has the child follow the sounds/words with their finger and trace them too before writing. They really do cover everything and I can see how this book would be helpful for any child having difficulty, no matter how unique it may be. :) With the way it is laid out you are able to emphasize what you need to customize lessons if needed.UPDATE #3As if my review wasn't already too long! But my kids are now in 1st, 2nd and 4th grade and I just have to say that HOW this book teaches your child to read truly sticks with them. They are still all excellent readers for their grade level. Now that my oldest is in 4th (he's the first kid I wrote about at the beginning of this review) the other kids are starting to catch up. He's reading at an end-of-fourth-grade reading level.My favorite aspect of this book is how they treat letters as blending sounds from the very beginning as greatly helped. In school they learn first the sounds, then they learn to blend. By the time they get to blending the kid thinks they have it all figured out and then they have to learn all over again! Blending should always be a part of letter learning. In this book, they are not "letters," they are always "sounds". Such a small differences that is invaluable! To this day whenever my kids are stuck we go back to the sounds and they can figure it out. Even when they start talking about the letters I say, "No, what is the SOUND?" It always helps the word "click". In this way they can sound out almost any word aside from all the lovely rule-breaking words we have in our language!

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."