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

This book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, has been absolutely amazing. It’s super easy to read, well-structured, and very easy to teach, even if you don’t have any teaching experience. The lessons are clear, short, and laid out in a way that makes it simple to follow step by step. My child stayed engaged, and I could see real progress quickly. The instructions tell you exactly what to say and do, which takes all the guesswork out of teaching reading at home. It truly builds confidence for both the parent and the child. The price was very reasonable for the value you get, especially compared to tutoring or other programs. This is a practical, effective tool that delivers real results. If you’re looking for an easy-to-follow, affordable, and proven reading program, this book is a fantastic choice. I’m very happy with this purchase and would definitely recommend it to other parents.

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 #3 As 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."

This review will be continuously updated as we progress through the 100 lessons. I will make a new update every 20 lessons. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Son's Age: 5 1/2 Ability to read at start: Knew ABCs and most of the phonics. Had never read words on his own. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As the parent (or instructor), please take time to truly read the introductory pages. They go over why this method works and how long it took them to achieve success with all the children they tested this book's method on. It took years of revisions of the method until they reached the one used in this book. It gives very specific instructions on how to teach, the tone to use, how to correct mistakes, pronunciation, etc. Success hinges on the parent's ability to teach correctly. If we don't put in the effort, it will fail. PERIOD. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (2/16/18) Lessons 1-20: Let me start by being perfectly honest with you. The first 5 lessons were tortuous for both me and my 5 year old son. He does not like to sit still, he does not like to repeat things over and over again, and it was extremely confusing for both him and myself as we began this book. I was still getting used to the teaching aspect, and he was getting used to the sitting still and repeating sounds over and over and over again. I nearly gave up after the first 5 days. You may want to as well. PERSEVERE! We pushed on, and I adjusted my attitude from one of impatience to one of encouragement. I put excitement in my voice. I offered incentive (more on that later) for completing a week's worth of lessons. We kept at it. Around Lesson 8, something changed in my son. He caught on. A switch flipped in his little mind and he began putting the pieces together about slowly sounding out the letters without pausing...and noticing how he was suddenly READING A WORD! He was stunned. I was stunned. The method works, everyone. It is monotonous and repetitive, but it works. Sounding out the words without pauses between each letter is brilliant. The dot method used in this book is brilliant. He uses his fingers to move to each new dot and sound and it keeps his mind on track. This book has no frills. It looks boring and nothing like we'd think to buy for a small child. There are no colors or brilliant pictures. But it keeps their minds focused on the words and letters. This book is very quick. You can knock out lessons in 10-15 minutes once you've gotten the hang of them. We do them in carline as we wait to pick up his older sister from school. We're on Lesson 20, currently. My son has gone from not being able to read ANY words, to reading MANY words (2-4 letters) with ease. I've added on BOB Books after each lesson, and they are the perfect addition to these lessons. He has BLAZED through 2 boxes of BOB Books, and has begun picking them up and reading them on his own. I AM STUNNED. IT WORKS. Don't give up in the beginning because it is hard and frustrating, but I PROMISE, if you're doing your job and find a way to keep your child engaged (ENCOURAGE ENCOURAGE ENCOURAGE!)...they'll soon be so proud of what they can do! Updates on further lessons and progress to come! --------------------------------\ UPDATE 3/11/18 We are now up to Lesson 47. There have been many days where my son is doing so well and enjoying his progress so much that we do an additional lesson that day. I must say that this is truly shaping up to be the best book I could have ever bought for my son. I am stunned at the progress he is making! He knows the sounds well and can say them quickly without thinking. He is remembering old words and is able to quickly sound out new words due to his knowledge of the letter sounds. The orography used in the book is ingenious for helping little ones remember the different sounds some letters make. The lessons are all basically the same, but as the child progresses, they start to teach newer techniques such as "READING THE FAST WAY". Admittedly, we stumbled at first. It's a tricky thing to teach a young child to sound it out IN THEIR HEADS, and when the know the word, just say it fast. It took one or two days of frustration before he caught on....and now it's no problem! If you think about it, that's reading. We say the words in our head. This book just adds the step of having them say it out loud, too! Something I had thought about is addressed in the book as well. Some words are always said differently than how we sound them out. Words such as 'SAID' 'TO' 'OF'. The book teaches the child to sound it out first (as they always should)...but to then explain that it's a funny word that is spoken differently. There's honestly no other way to teach this to a child other than some words in the English language are just weird, lol! I'm impressed and very encouraged at my 5 year old's progress. New update around lesson 70!

I really wanted to give this closer to 3.5 stars. The concept truly does work and my Kindergartener is reading as well as my 1st grader who didn't use it. There are just some things in it that I really don't like. Pros: The method works really well. It solved the biggest problem I had which was teaching them to put letters together rather than just sounding out. Its scripted. Not everyone likes this but I do! It doesn't take the whole school year to do 100 lessons. My daughter enjoys it. Cons: My biggest is one of the stories the student reads. It is about two fishes. The little fish sits on the fat fish and says "that fat fish is mom." I think that is encouraging kids to think in a derogatory way about their moms! We will be skipping this story in the future. I'm not super excited about several of the other stories. There is a certain lack of charity and good example. Some of the pictures have women in swim suits. Not something that needs to be in a kids school book. The concept of an "ed" ending is not introduced yet they are given words with it to read. There are a few other concepts like this that have to be explained. I get a little hung up on teaching the student to sound it out as "sssssaaaaiiiid" and then tell them its "said." It confuses the issue! We are on Lesson 90 and they just had here read a sentence that speaks of deers. Why teach them something totally wrong that will have to be unlearned later? My daughter already knows that when you are talking about multiple deer, you don't add an "s". Now she is totally confused! Bottom line: I will probably use it again but I'm going to edit it and do some of my own along side. If someone wanted to write a different book with the same method, I would totally be interested!

This book is incredible because it is short, sweet and to the point! We don’t do the writing portion of the lesson so we are usually done in under 10 minutes. 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week, and you’ll watch your kids start to read in front of your eyes! We started with my son right before he went into kindergarten. We made it to about lesson 26, then one day he picked up a Green Eggs and Ham and read the whole thing out loud to us from start to finish. It was his first book to read and it blew me away. He didn’t really need the book after that and has continued to progress with reading and is reading well above his grade level (he’s in first grade now). I started this with my daughter this year about a month before she turned 5 and about to enter her last year of preschool. She knew all of her sounds already and she asked me if she could start learning to read. After 4 months of consistent lessons, she is now on lesson 63 and is reading so well! Now SHE is reading Green Eggs and Ham and and is giggling more now that she’s saying the funny parts and not somebody else. The lessons are so quick and easy that we do them sitting in the car waiting to pick my son up from school. We will finish the book with her probably in another 2 months, and when she goes to kindergarten in the fall she will be reading at an advanced level. Two more big take away a from this book. The first is that my daughter has some speech issues where certain sounds are hard for her to pronounce. G, f, c, v, l, r, ch, th, sh, st are the hardest ones for her to say clearly, and this book helps her slow down and say each sound correctly. In the lessons you have to point to each sound and say them slowly for three seconds before blending it with the next sound. Her speech therapist has seen huge improvements with her and I think this book helped with that. Lastly, this book was first written in 1969 and the illustrations are very old school (mom is in heels and an apron, dad wears a tie lol). A lot of the stories are about animals, but I noticed that when there are stories with people in them that there is some great racial diversity. Kids relate better to reading if they can relate to what they see, and this book was written so that all children can be happy readers. This, on top of the fact that it helped me teach my two children to read, makes me very happy to recommend this book to others.

Short version of review: this method is powerful and it works. That makes it a sorely-needed, crucial tool these days, so I'm surprised this book isn't a lot more famous than it is. It should be: with parents willing to put in the time, this book could help a lot of kids bridge the gap many fall in to, trying to learn to read in the public school system. This is a better way in some regards as kids clearly benefit from the sustained adult interaction this book's method requires. My suggestion: make it a regular daily event, lasting just for the attention span of your child, and the results will amaze you. At first I was put off by the "100 Easy Lessons" title - why not Ten Easy Lessons? Or maybe even "Five Medium-Hard Lessons" if they get the job done? But no, even in our short-cut era you'll want to accept no substitutes: this book, written in the 1980's by a team of professional educators and by now refined and revised to a smooth, glossy polish, is based on the university-researched and tested "Distar" reading program (whatever that means - read about it in the book) which in practical terms gives you a complete professional training resource to teach your kid to read. As far as I can tell, the "Distar" system starts the kids out with a complete letter-based sound and phonics system so they can learn to 'decode' even new words from their constituent letters. I have been astonished again and again at my daughter's skill in sounding out and decoding words she's never seen before (she just turned five and is about to enter kindergarten), surprising herself and her happy dad when she realizes she's done it and exclaims the new word in gleeful triumph! Here is the big pitfall the book avoids: *you won't confuse your child.* Reading is a very complex skill to learn or teach, and parents tend to rush things, bumping their kids off a conceptual cliff, though with good intentions. Here all parental instructions printed in red type and the book literally tells you what to say. Thoroughly preparing the parent, the book's concise but crucial introduction has excellent practical instructions to the parent and, most importantly, tables that show you exactly how make all the phonics sounds correctly. Also included are tables showing how to teach your kid how to actually write letters (writing exercises are in each lesson), helping them learn to form letters easily and correctly (this is important too - kids are very creative at forming letters in bizarre ways and pick up bad habits quickly). So the bottom line here is that you don't have to take the time to become an effective teacher yourself (a huge task) - the book does it for you, laying out a fail-safe, carefully planned and graded path of instruction, introducing new sounds, words, and difficulties with obvious thought and care. This means your child accelerates smoothly, and you won't push her/him off that cliff by suddenly tossing in something that completely baffles the child. This is a big problem even with very smart kids - they rarely convey their puzzlement if they really don't understand something, while most likely you will keep going, not noticing the child has stopped, disconnected from the continuity of what they're learning. Putting reading skills together the first time means the whole task has to form a steadily-accumulating, coherent whole in their minds. When that process is working, kids learn very quickly and make big leaps on their own. Typology in this book is phonetically helpful also, as the little 'stories' presented are printed in a slightly modified alphabet which adds some basic pronunciation marks to help kids over 'silent' letters, complex sounds (th, ch, sh) and other little pitfalls. Also, short oddly-pronounced words (to, for, was) are carefully introduced as special cases. In doing this, the texts of the book's quirky and slightly amusing little stories can move quickly towards advanced reading skills, through their dozens of carefully-graded steps. The obvious problem with the phonics-based approach is that phonics are really a crutch: pretty soon you want your kid to stop sounding out words letter-by-letter and gain the ability to read whole words and groups of words at a time. The book has copious instructions for doing this, teaching kids to see and read the 'fast' way by the halfway mark, but I feel that extra repetition of lessons or sections of them is useful in getting the kid to literally 'switch gears' as they start to recognize groups of words at high speed. Again, if you approach it systematically, this will work well. I can't imagine a better or more thorough tool for accomplishing what this book promises to do. In the course of about six weeks this summer my daughter has easily mastered its first half and her pace accelerates every day. I'm a grateful dad - this is just what I was looking for. An easy call: five stars! (PS - an excellent preliminary resource in immersing your child in the basic phonetic sounds is the set of five Leap Frog DVD's, particularly the Talking Letter Factory, Talking Word Factory, and so on (one does math, but it's good too). These are nicely animated with music, and kids tend to get them completely absorbed into their brains in a big hurry, making the opening stages of this book's learn-to-read project much, much quicker and easier, with letters immediately understood as phonetic 'sounds' and not the names of the letters - a distinction I had to clarify for myself).

The book starts out excellent. The child learns to read and the lessons are easy. The book starts, though, by writing extra symbols on letters to specify the sound. At less 73, the book transitions from this method to regular symbols with times new Roman font. This is extremely difficult for the child. Rather than incorporating phonics and teaching the child to figure out why letters make different sounds in different words (e.g., a vowel followed by a letter followed by an e makes the long vowel sound), the book relies on having the child remember what different words sound like. That is, this book has many more words act as sight words — words that a child must remember by sight — than is necessary. At about lesson 78, I gave up on the instructions of the book and taught my daughter phonics instead. That went a lot better for her.