Customer Reviews

The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons

5 star:		(132)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I have taught three children to read trying various methods at different stages in their development.

After researching & almost one thousand dollars on reading programs I finally settled on "Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons" for my two year old son. My research has led me to several conclusions, among which are:

* Different types of reading programs may work better at different stages in your child's development. For example, "How to Teach Your Baby to Read" by Glenn & Janet Doman, works best for children under two.
* If your child is approximately 4 years or older and DOES NOT HAVE ANY LETTER RECOGNITION, then a program like "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" may work best.
* Hooked on phonics may work well for children over the age of six who already have some reading skills, but are having problems.
* Bob First (Scholastic) books are good for kids 4 and up. Younger kids may have problems with the Bob First books because the print is too small.
* Do NOT teach the alphabet to kids under 3 years old. They will learn to read more easily if instead, starting with lower case letters, you first teach the sounds a letter makes. They can easily pick up the names of the letters once they are well into their reading program.

The first lesson in the 20 Easy Lessons book starts by introducing your child to the sounds made by five of the most commonly used letters in the 500 most commonly used words of the English language. Whereas the book recommends spending up to 5 minutes on one page, I only spent about 15 seconds per session and two sessions per day, for a total of 30 seconds per day. Just long enough to point out the letters and say the sounds. The first couple of times (I introduce any new concept) I do not ask my child to repeat anything. The next couple of sessions, I asked my child to repeat after me while I pointed to the letters. After another couple of sessions, your child will be saying the letter sounds as you point to the letters. After a few days, we were going through half a page a day, and repeating each page two or three times. After a month of this, you will be able to cover one page at a time (instead of half pages).

Every so often, the book has a worksheet that may not be developmentally appropriate for your child (e.g., matching letter sounds to a picture of an animal that starts with the same sound). Skip these worksheets if your child is too young.

My child is on lesson 7 and can easily read sentences like "Pam got a fish in the pet shop. The cat wants the fish, but the cat can not swim." He is able to read words that he doesn't know by sounding them out.

I few more tips to consider.
* Do not teach your child if either of you are in a bad mood, hungry, or distracted in any way.
* Get rid of all distractions during a lesson (e.g., T.V., radio, ringing phones, talking people, etc.)
* Teach your child every day, including weekends.
* Make the lessons short. Start with 10 to 15 seconds per session. At 2 years 8 months old, my son's sessions are now about 1 minute long, once or twice per day.
* If your child is reluctant, try the following. "Would you like to go outside and play after your reading lesson?" or "Lets play with the Play-Dough after our reading lesson".
* Sometimes you can use hand puppets to help with the reading lesson.
* I have a Rubbermaid container that I call the Treasure Chest. It is filled with many little toys I purchased at the 99 cent store. Sometimes I use this by saying, "Let's have a reading lesson and then you can pick a treasure from the treasure chest."
* Do not force your child. If he or she doesn't want to do the reading lesson, take a day off and try a different tactic the following day.
* Read books to your child on a regular basis.
* When out and about, point out words to your child that he or she already knows.
* If your child makes a reading mistake during a session, do not say "No" or "That's not correct". Sometimes you can just let it slide. Other times you can help them by telling them the answer.
* Try not to pressure your child to show off his or her reading skills to other people.

I have many more ideas and opinions, but not enough space.

I think that kids 2 years to 5 years old will get the most benefit out of this book.

Hello. I am a second grade teacher and I would like to share my experience with this reading program, The Reading Lesson. The Reading Lesson is an excellent way to supplement any primary grade reading program. It carefully covers all necessary phonics, thus guiding the beginning student in phenomic awareness and reinforcing the letter-sound relationships to remedial readers. Because it is easy for first and second graders to use and they enjoy it (The children in my class love this program) they can work on it independently, I use it during center time. I like the way the program uses a finger to help the student "read through" the words. I do this in my guided reading groups so the reinforcement in a computer program is very helpful. Even if there are no computers in your classroom the workbooks are well thought out, organized by sounds, and the letters are big. Another great part about this program is that it contains almost all of the sight words we teach in the primary grades, so even students who know sounds can use it to practice their sight words. Basically, I am very pleased with this product and it has added a lot to my reading program. I have seen big improvments in my student's reading and know The Reading Program is the reason for some of this success.

My grandson Luke, age 6, started to learn how to read this past year in kindergarten. I wanted to help him increase his skills over the summer and found "The Reading Lesson" on the internet. There were 2 chapters to download to see if you would like the book. I tried them out on Luke and he loved them. We are now on Chapter 5 and Luke's skills have skyrocketed! We also got the companion CD. I use this as his reward for finishing a chapter. The CD reinforces what you learn in the book. It is very pleasing to a child, with easy to understand word exercises and games. One of Luke's favorites is the fishing boat game on the CD. This book is an excellent tool for very early readers or a great companion for beginning school readers. If your child is ready to read, this book is a must! It has everything you need to help your child learn to read. I also think this book would be excellent for teaching adults to read. Can't say enough about the book. GREAT!

I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to give their child a head start in reading. I purchased the book along with the CD-ROM for my 5 yr. old daughter. She enjoys the reading lesson so much that she reminds me daily, "it's time for the reading lesson". Before purchasing the reading lesson I downloaded the first two lessons (free) from thereadinglesson.com website and my daughter was thrilled that she knew how to read. Prior to the reading lesson my daughter had trouble remembering words and letter sounds. But just after a few lessons she would remember words and sounds easily. We read 3-4 pages a day for maybe 15 minutes. It's been about a month and a half and my daughter is now on lesson eight and reading (words in lesson eight) with minimal help. She also just had her interview for kindergarten and her teacher was amazed at how much she knew. Each lesson begins with brief instructions and tips on reading. I would suggest purchasing the book along with the CD-ROM (not only because it's fun) but the child would learn the correct way to sound out letters. The program is so simple with amazing results!

I am teaching my son to read with this book. The book has twenty lessons each about 20 pages. We are on lesson seven and he is showing real progress now. This book is all a good reading program should be. You can open it on any page and you know exactly what to do. It is reasonably priced for the quality, which is very high indeed.

What is so different about this book is that is not a "how can I teach my kid to read" book. Instead it is really a course with lessons that are goal-oriented. At the same time, it is not boring for the child. The pages are beautiful to look at and the drawings on every page are very cute. My son likes to color the pictures. We do about 3to 4 pages a day and that can take about 20 minutes. Sometimes the going is slow but everything is clearly expalined in a few words at the start of the lesson without making it too complicated or rigid. Little symbols under the letters and combinations such as "sh", "th" and "ea" help him to remember the sounds which are taught at the begining of the lesson.

The book covers phonics and sightwords. Each lesson has key words that child need to know. The stories are just 4 to 6 lines which is just exactly right for a six year old.

All in all, I am glad I found this lovely book. It one of those rare books that is actually better than it seems from its description. Dr. Levin and his wife have done a good job and I am sure you will feel the same way.

I am now teaching my fourth child to read. I used the "100 Lesson" book with the first one, the "Phonics Pathways" with the second one and "the Reading Lesson" with last two. If you are reading this to try to decide on which book to purchase, this one - The Reading Lesson - in my opinion is right on the mark for younger children. The lessons are teeny-tiny and easy for younger child. The CD-ROM really helps because it is so wonderfully entertaining for the child but very goal-oriented.

Phonics Pathways book should be used only for an older child or one who had difficulties learning to read. It is just too much for a young child. It uses a lot of rhyming pharases and that in my opinion in not the best way to learn to read. Words in reading do not often rhyme. Rhyming also encouraes guessing. The pages of Phonics Pathways are jam packed with words and "stuff". On one page I counted over 200 words! All of these words new to the child. No wonder my son hated looking at this book. Definitely not for a younger child.

The 100 Lessons book is good BUT this book - The Reading Lesson - is better. One of the complaints I had with "100 Lessons" book is that when you look at a page, it is 80% instructions for the parent and only just a few words for the child to read, except when reading stories when there is too much on the page for the child to read. The "100 Lessons" book lacks balance in my opinion. I noticed that one of the reviewers said that they liked the "100 Lesson" book, however this reviewer from what she says never saw the this book, only the web site. How can you give a book 3 stars after just seeing the website! Strange!!! I think if you see how the Reading Lesson book is arranged, you won't want to buy the 100 Lessons book. (I bought the book at Borders never having read any of these reviews!)

This book is a gem. Easy to use, and a pleasure and hands down best of the lot of books designed to teach children to read.

I purchased this book in order to teach my four year old to read. He has a VERY short attention span and each page can be reviewed and mastered in under ten minutes. We do just one page per day and he retains the material very well. The lessons are very easy to do with your child and my son was able to read after completing the first lesson. It is important that your kid know the alphabet and have some character recognition.

I have been looking for a book that would help me teach my 4 1/2 year old daughter how to read. I'm glad I bought it because this book is it! I am very pleased with the book. The pictures are cute which helps my daughter who is quite a visual learner. My daughter was so happy because she was able to read from lesson 1.

I ordered the book from the website and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Reading Lesson CD rom was included, free. My daughter really likes the CD rom. She gets so excited when it's time to do her reading lesson. We do 1 a day and her favorite part is getting the gold trophy at the end of each lesson. She's even able to totally go through each lesson at her own pace since she's in control of the mouse. I sit with her so that I can hear her reading the words. Even my 3 year old son, who is speech delayed, was interested in the lesson. He pronounced the letter sounds.

Overall, I am very pleased with the Reading Lesson. It is probably the best investment I have made because my daughter is so thrilled at the fact that she can actually read other books as well.

This is simply an excellent reading program.

I'm truly impressed with this reading program because it gets the child reading right away. Having been a teacher for many years and having taught many different age groups and abilities, I must say that this program is truly something every child would benefit from.

The Langtons have taken the time to understand the child. Most children simply do not want to take weeks to learn the sounds of letters or months to learn to write them. They want to read! They want to read now! This program lets them do just that.

My five-year-old daughter has been enjoying this program immensely. Each day, she brings me the reading book and asks to do another lesson! How many programs do that?

I recommend this reading program to anyone who wants to make reading fun and easily obtainable.

The Reading Lesson offers parents a structured phonic teaching method based on modern reading theory with an innovative guided reading approach to helping their sons and daughters learn to read with ease and interest. By following the instructions and employing the resources offered by this thoroughly "user friendly", do-it-yourself reading program just ten minutes a day, children will learn to read new letters and words and develop the skills to enjoy short stories. The stories are simple, fun, and will inculcate a love of reading as they offer practice for reading skill applications. Every lesson is enhanced with pictures to color, matching exercises, puzzles, and other reading activities. An accompanying CD-ROM makes The Reading Lesson a truly interactive resource eminently suitable for home schooling, as well as parentally supervised supplementation to public or private school reading instruction curriculums.