Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - how does it work?

[MissSJ]

Hi Everyone,
For those of you that use or are familiar with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons what is it based on? Is it a phonics program? Whole word? Combo? If combo is it heavier on one concept than the other?

Just curious, I'm not using this program. I decided against it because the pages seem so busy.

SJ

[Momma Aimee]

subbing

[elus0814]

It's phonics all the way. We used it for about 30 lessons and went to something else. It's really dry and boring. The parent must learn all their special symbols first and every single word is scripted. They even script responses to questions, as though your child is going to ask those exact questions and only those. My child never asked the 'right' questions and I was often lost as to how to respond since the five pages in the front of the book were not nearly enough to teach me everything I needed to know about their system. I also worried that they would have trouble reading without the special symbols, although later in the book the symbols are taken away. Overall I was not impressed. It was impossible to stick with and I often found myself having to redo lessons over and over again. FWIW, my child has done well without a 'program', just phonics workbooks, bob books, and reading aloud.

[momo7]

I loved this book! I taught my K level child with it. They have their own symbols to use to teach children to write some of the letter sounds but it was way to confusing even for me so I just threw that part out of the lessons. Other wise, it's really, really easy. Just make sure they know their alphabet before hand and that's really 99% of it. You can do as many or as few lessons as you want to. Some of the stories are goofy but my little girl didn't mind them so it worked out great. If the lessons seem scripted, you can change the dialog to anything that works for you. The great thing I found with this book is that I used it however it worked best with us and it really did work. That was the first thing she woke up everyday wanting to do. I really can't say enough good things about this book.

[MJB]

I used it for K homeschooling. It is 99% phonics with some sight words thrown in (was, said).

[limette]

What everyone said.

I didn't follow the script at all. Too much work...lol.

Dd1 did about 70 lessons before she got bored with it. Beforehand she knew all the letters and their sounds and this helped her put them together into words.

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by elus0814

It's really dry and boring.

yes, this sums it up perfectly based on our experience.

i just borrowed Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. not sure if I'll hate it too, but i'm trying to be open to it since it gets much better reviews.

[CParker]

Originally Posted by elus0814

It's really dry and boring. The parent must learn all their special symbols first and every single word is scripted. They even script responses to questions, as though your child is going to ask those exact questions and only those.

This is our experience too. We gave up after maybe lesson 10 or 15. I also didn't like the special symbols; I wasn't sure if this was going to be confusing for DD once she transitioned to "real" books.

I also didn't like how rigidly scripted the book was.

I did, however, like the way they suggest blending letter sounds, and my daughter found the little arrow/dot under the words helpful. Aside from that, we weren't thrilled with it.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE http://www.progressivephonics.com/ My daughter thinks most of the little stories are funny and she likes how we each take turns reading (adult reads the black words, child reads the red words). Because a grown-up reads a lot of the words the stories are more engaging than, say, BOB books (which my DD immediately disliked).

[caefi]

Well, we love it at our house. But, I should add that I have NEVER read the beginning of the book that tells you how to use it. That only made it seem so very difficult, it discouraged me and almost made me toss the book out.

After I got past the idea that I had to understand the "instructions" we moved on with the book. I still don't use it 100% as it's written. But, we do work through it lesson by lesson following the basic principles of it. My kids love that they learn to read "sentences" so early in the program. We have never used their writing prompts b/c my children have been ready to read before they were ready to write.

I've used this to teach 4 of my children to read already and am working with the next three through it now. The furthest we've ever made it is lesson 60, and that was b/c the kid wanted to keep reading the stories. Finally, I gave her permission to just read the stories through the end of the book and we stopped doing lessons. Though, I did skim through to teach them any of the sight words or sounds that they didn't already know.

It's mostly phonics with some sight words/sounds. They also teach that it's better for the child to NOT know the names of the letters prior to starting the program. Well, my children learned the names when they were TWO... and it didn't hinder them through the program at all.

Hope that helps. I know it's not right for every child, but I'm ever so grateful that it has been for each of mine and pray that it remains that way until I've taught the last one to read! (I don't want to learn a new program! lol)