Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read [Paperback]

Carmen McGuinness (Author), Geoffrey McGuinness (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 1999

HELP YOUR CHILD UNLOCK THE SOUND-PICTURE CODE

Reading is the single most important skill for any child to develop. And the key to learning how to read effectively is recognizing the sounds that letters and words represent. With the help of the revolutionary system known as Phono-Graphix™, you and your child can discover the sound-picture code that is the foundation of the written English language.

An effective and easy-to-understand approach, Phono-Graphix enables you to teach your child to read in one-tenth the time of phonics with a 100 percent success rate. In just eleven weeks, you can bring your kindergartner to first-grade-level reading -- even learning-disabled children can reach grade level or higher in just twelve weeks.

Reading Reflex provides you with:

* Simple diagnostic tests to determine your child's reading level, and a Literacy Growth Chart so you'll know what goals to establish

* Detailed instructions and illustrations to help your child develop strong, consistent reading skills and to correct ineffective reading strategies such as part-word reading and memorizing

* Fun and easy-to-follow exercises, hands-on materials, worksheets, stories, and games that you and your child can do together

* Enjoyable lessons that are carefully constructed to meet the interests and capabilities of children of all ages

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you believe Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness, our children are in grave danger of becoming illiterates--and the McGuinnesses are the only ones who can save them. Reading Reflex is an exhaustive how-to guide for the reading instruction method they've developed called Phono-Graphix. Phonics and whole language take a beating here, with the authors accusing both methods of failing generations of would-be readers. Their approach, unabashedly touted as far superior, stresses the 43 sounds of the English language, treating letters as symbols of these sounds. Phono-Graphix teaches children to separate each phoneme in a word so that the phonemes can later be blended back in the right order. If this sounds familiar it's because the same method was heralded in 1997 in the well-publicized book Why Our Children Can't Read, by psychologist Diane McGuinness (Geoffrey's mother).

Parents may find the first long chapter on the history and process of learning how to read a bit tedious and technical. But since each chapter--and the method--builds on these thoughts, it's a must to read the book from cover to cover. Harder still is accepting the McGuinnesses' claim that Phono-Graphix has a 100 percent success rate. Much of the research cited in their book seems to have been conducted by the authors themselves, with no indication of comparison groups or follow-up studies. Still, numerous schools throughout the country and in England have adopted the method. And the McGuinnesses' tone of alarm may ring true for some parents frustrated with their children's struggles to read. Phono-Graphix represents a new alternative where none existed before. Future analysis by outside evaluators will show whether it deserves the confidence its creators possess. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

Review

Nancy Loyd managing editor, Florida Primary Educator Reading Reflex gives parents everything they need to teach the young child who is ready to learn or the older child who is struggling.

Daily Telegraph (London) A sparklingly clear guide to teaching reading...Reading Reflex is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to teach reading at home or in the classroom.

Steve Truch director of The Reading Foundation The authors have done parents everywhere a great service. This book contains a well-researched and logical system of teaching children to read. It will go a long way in helping to meet the literacy challenge of the 21st century.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (August 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684853671
• ISBN-13: 978-0684853673
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A few bugs, but...the best!, December 14, 1999

By 

Faye (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read (Paperback)

I have several small problems with the program myself, however it's the best thing I've seen so far and I'll keep using it. I recommend it highly as an inexpensive, effective, and quick program. I found found it extremely successful with my own children and my tutoring clients. The results I've seen are much like what Carmen and Geoff report. I like their spelling program too, BTW.

I must agree with Tony that have never met more unimaginative and uninteresting stories in my life. Not all, just a few. However...the stories in the Parent Support books are actually interesting, mildly imaginative and very much what the children relate to. Maybe in further editions of Reading Reflex, they'll change their stories. We can hope. At the same time, practice in the sounds is what is important and it is assumed that you are reading other "real" books too.

There are a few other things about the program I don't appreciate. I don't like the way they break up the words like all, tall and wall (since they've already stated that a plain a can say 'a' as in father and two l's can say that sound. (hmm... hard to explain in type) and the 'th' thing (it makes two separate sounds) bothered me too. I just taught them as 2 separate sounds with the same sound picture. Similar things have already been taught, so it isn't a big jump.

I do especially like the way they print the very beginner stories with the sounds that are more than one letter bolded and squashed together (coded text). It sure helps beginners read more quickly and gives them practice in reading more than one letter at a time, and encouragement to continue. I didn't find the chapter on multi-syllable as clear as maybe it could be. It took me a while to understand it enough to explain it to the kids, but I agree that it is something totally skipped in other programs

Overall, I think Reading Reflex is an excellent program and I just make the changes I want when I'm doing it. I don't think there's a perfect program out there, but this one has an excellent approach, fantastic diagnostics and a few less 'bugs' than any I've seen.

I hope Carmen and Geoff would be open to hearing some constructive critisism from those who truly appreciate their work and I hope in a few years they would put out a new-improved book (Ultra-Reading Reflex!) with a few of these issues addressed.

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Success Story--Thanks to This Book, May 12, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read (Hardcover)

In early March, before I found "Reading Reflex" by chance on an amazon.com search, my 6-1/2-year old daughter's reading skills were barely on grade level according to her school records. She often struggled through attempts to read fairly simple but unfamiliar words, frequently inserting sounds that were not there or switching the letter sequences. Because sounding out words took such effort, she often resorted to a guessing strategy that, not surprisingly, failed her frequently. She was starting to become discouraged, and at times I wondered if formal testing and tutoring was needed.

In late April, seven weeks after we started the "Phono-Graphix" lessons in "Reading Reflex," a standardized test showed that my first-grader could now decode unfamiliar words at the level of a third grader. I knew from my own observations that she was doing very well, but this confirmation was stunning. Her leap in abilities came about because "Reading Reflex" gave me the background knowledge, evaluation materials, and activities to create a concentrated, highly successful "catch-up" program for her. My goal was to help her to get solidly on grade level, but this was successful beyond anything I could imagine.

For six weeks, my daughter and I worked together at about twice the pace suggested in the book. We did about three to four 40-60-minute lessons a week (instead of two lessons). Each lesson included about 20-30 minutes of Phono-Graphix activities followed by 20-30 minutes in which she read poems or a story aloud, during which I corrected her as needed using the quick, instructive techniques from the book. It is not necessary or probably desirable to work with most children at this rate, but my daughter needed to catch up and was willing, motivated, and doing beautifully--plus I was able to make the time for extra lesson planning--so we proceeded. Now we do a lesson only occasionally but try to read together daily to keep her skills up.

Although my daughter is a bright child with strong story analysis skills who loves books--and has had many thousands read to her--cracking the written code did not come easily to her (before Phono-Graphix). Last fall, when I became concerned about her struggles, I learned that this problem is common. According to information I got from a leading research agency, most children "pick up" reading regardless of how they are taught, but some 20%, regardless of how intelligent they are, need systematic, explicit instruction in decoding to fully develop as readers.

I tried a number of other approaches before finding "Reading Reflex." I assumed that "explicit instruction" in decoding was phonics instruction, so I tried some software programs, electronic phonics toys, and a popular mail-order program, with varying results--none of them remarkable.

When I finally found "Reading Reflex" in early March, it was clear, from its emphasis on "phonemic awareness" and the logical nature of our written code, that this was what I had been looking for all along. After spending five months and a few hundred dollars on less effective materials, I found that the recommendations from 20+ years of research were wrapped up in a single book aimed at parents. I could hardly believe it.

The introductory chapters of "Reading Reflex" de-mystified the reading process for me. It took about a week for some of the concepts to sink in, as this approach, though entirely logical (even brilliant), is very different from the traditional phonics approach I had been taught many years ago and was using to help my daughter. I needed to re-wire my thinking quite a bit.

Unlike phonics, with Phono-Graphix there are no memorization drills, no confusing "rules" (with their many exceptions), and no work on sounds unless within the context of a word. The skills development activities are brief, varied, and often use manipulatives (sliding letters on a dry-erase board or desk), so it was a heck of a lot more interesting for my daughter than, say, phonics flash cards.

My daughter grasped the concepts readily and her skills developed rapidly. As she became adept at isolating and manipulating sounds in words--two areas of initial weakness that I could identify using the tests in the book--her reading improved in leaps, as did her confidence level. Soon, instead of just asking me to read to her, she began to ask, "Can I read YOU a book?" And when she did, she no longer needed to rely on guessing strategies. She was gaining the skills and knowledge to carefully tackle just about every word she encountered.

As my daughter grew as a reader, I developed as her teacher. "Reading Reflex" taught me how to conduct the lessons and correct mistakes. I gained many additional, invaluable tips from the book's online bulletin board (www.readamerica.net), on which the authors and other representatives of their program converse with teachers, parents, and tutors. Online I was lucky to find a local certified Phono-Graphix trainer who offered a workshop for parents, which added to my teaching and lesson planning skills.

I have only two small criticisms of the book. One is that it does not provide an at-a-glance road map of the lessons which I, as a visual thinker, needed to avoid confusion. I easily remedied this by making an outline of the sequence of activities in the most complicated and important section (chapter 5). The other is that the few stories and illustrations are not appealing, although my daughter and I came to look upon them with humor. This was not a problem. I simply sought appropriate, engaging stories and poems from the library that reinforced the lessons (the book's web site had many suggestions).

I wish to extend my deep, heartfelt thanks to the developers of Phono-Graphix and authors of the "Reading Reflex," Carmen and Goeff McGuinness, and to the Phono-Graphix certified therapist who held the parent workshop, Kim Bacon. They empowered me to help my daughter in a fast and effective way, which has made all the difference

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book frustrates me!, May 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read (Paperback)

I am using this book to teach my children to read. We have had great success with my son so far, and I am just beginning with my daughter.

So why does it frustrate me?

The first part of the book, which explains the theory, makes a lot of sense to me. The pre-test is fine, and the first chapter was fun for my son to do. It was well-written and pretty easy to follow. I did NOT enjoy making copies of my pages, cutting up the small squares and trying to keep up with them. But I still was not frustrated.

It is in the section, Teaching the Advanced Code, that I think things really begin to break down. I think their theory still works. But the layout of this section, which is supposed to tell me how to teach the theory, is terrible. The authors have you flipping back and forth to find instructions on one page, word lists to use with those instructions on another page (much further away). And the sequence of the lessons is difficult to discern. (In a book that is telling you how to teach, it should be very clear what to do and when to do it.) This may be because of the typestyle and type size of the instructions. How can I explain this better?

For example, you are given instructions for a particular type of lesson-- generic lesson if you will. Following this are the word lists that you use for that lesson. But, you do not proceed in this order. You do the generic lesson with the first word list, then flip back to the second generic lesson, then perhaps to the word list following the first generic lesson, or perhaps a second set of lists following the generic lesson. Even this makes it sound more organized than it is, because it is not consistent from sound to sound. How do you know where to go next? In smaller, italized type outside the word list, are those instructions. So when you finish generic lesson one, using the proper word list, you look at the bottom of the word list to see where to go next. Do they include a page number to make it easier? No.

Others have talked about the stories and there is no argument there, either! They are not endearing, well-written, or even clear. Sometimes their ONLY value is the words that are used. And the drawings are no better.

In my copy of the book, two sounds are left off of the consonant chart: 'w' and 'th.' I noticed this as I tried to pin down everything we were going to be working on. I ordered the audio tape from ReadAmerica and compared the chart with the audio key.

Finally, I am annoyed that the authors did not include any type of recordkeeping help. With well over one hundred lessons (maybe it is closer to two hundred -- I'm not finished yet) to do with each child (and in the early stage especially, the repetition of lessons for mastery), to not include any recordkeeping help is a major flaw. In fact, I suspect that those who use this method -- especially the advanced code section -- do not try to follow what the books says. In other words, I don't think the authors tested the advanced code section of the book to see how well it worked, in terms of layout and clarity for the instructor. It almost appears that they ran out of time or steam halfway through the book. I have spent a fair amount of time creating my own recordkeeping chart that also lays out the sequence of lessons. This should have been done by the authors.

I am also intrigued by the spat between them and Dianne McGuinness. The authors go to great length to disassociate their method from her method, especially on their website. And it has been noted that the authors do "go on" a bit about how great this new system is. Ah well, marketing!

Given all that I have said, it is important to note that I still recommend this book to others. It is that strong in some ways. I can only hope that the authors will consider a revision for an even better product.