The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (Paperback)

~ (Author), Sara Buffington (Author) "By now your child knows how to talk, and you have read books to him..." (more)
Key Phrases: magnetic alphabet board, special letter pair, whole list yourself, The Consonant Rhyme, Review Lay, Shell Shack (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A plain-English guide to teaching phonics. Every parent can teach reading—no experts need apply!

Too many parents watch their children struggle with early reading skills—and don't know how to help. Phonics programs are too often complicated, overpriced, gimmicky, and filled with obscure educationalese. The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading cuts through the confusion, giving parents a simple, direct, scripted guide to teaching reading—from short vowels through supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This one book supplies parents with all the tools they need.

Over the years of her teaching career, Jessie Wise has seen good reading instruction fall prey to trendy philosophies and political infighting. Now she has teamed with dynamic coauthor Sara Buffington to supply parents with a clear, direct phonics program—a program that gives them the know-how and confidence to take matters into their own hands.

About the Author

Jessie Wise has decades of experience as a classroom teacher, elementary school principal, private tutor, and educational consultant. She is the co-author of the best-selling The Well-Trained Mind and the groundbreaking elementary grammar text First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. Sara Buffington is a teacher, writer, and children's book editor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972860312
• ISBN-13: 978-0972860314
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,527 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #12 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Parent Participation
  #24 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Homeschooling
  #25 in	Books > Reference > Words & Language > Reading Skills

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Results, March 10, 2006

By	My Paycheck Goes To Amazon - See all my reviews

I (homeschooling mom) was very skeptical when I first received the book: No pictures! Then we (my 6-year old twins and I) started. And we loved it! We are half way through the book, and both kids read fluently. In their free time they pick up other books or anything else readable that they can find.

The (231) daily lessons are very well structured, take about 10-15 minutes each, and provide excellent in-text directions for the teacher, so there is no preparation time. And I learned that because there are no pictures, the focus is on decoding the letters and applying the phonics rules without any distraction.

Optional activities/games are fun to choose from. I recommend getting the pre-printed index cards that go along with the lessons and games (directly from Peace Hill Press, about $5.00).

The book ends with "Reading a Really Long and Silly Word": supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Imagine your new reader to read that properly without problems, and YOU helped them to get there.

59 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars literary freedom, October 14, 2004

By	Devin (SW) - See all my reviews

This book not only begins with a straightforward, easy-to-understand method, but it keeps going where most expensive reading programs leave off.

It wholly maintains phonetics and encourages the student to sound through longer words without any integration of the whole language approach.

The result is children who can read more difficult passages fluently at a very young age thus giving them literary freedom.

108 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful but rigid, August 13, 2005

By	Elizabeth Bennett (Canada) - See all my reviews

I am a teacher and a Language Arts' specialist. Because I am home schooling my own child, I ordered Wise's book as I felt I wanted a book specific to phonics instruction (and I love The Well-Trained Mind). I didn't want my son to miss something important along the way (yes, even teachers feel insecure about their own kids).

Although it's helpful to think about different vowel sounds and consent blends/digraphs, I find that Wise's very structured lessons are too limiting for us. Maybe it's my kid, but he is much more interested in learning to read in context than through the lessons (The Bob Books are a big hit, as are the I Can Read books). In fact, he even says the "boring" word when I pull out the book. Uh Oh. We do little bits throughout the day and I only focus on those areas where I can see he needs more support (as he taught himself to read at the age of 4). We do try to get as silly as possible as there is great potential for making up extremely goofy rhymes thanks to the helpful lists of word families.

A note of caution: Wise favours the terms "little a" and "big A", which can be confusing for children (upper case and lower case, although more technical, are more accurate descriptors than size). In addition, describing vowel sounds as "short" and "long" is also confusing for a child as you can draw out the "short" a in "cat" to be as long as the "long" a in "take". Unfortunately, these are the conventional terms used to differentiate vowel sounds; however, we choose to describe them differently at our house.

For the insecure or inexperienced "teacher", this book will help you understand the important phonetic concepts to cover with your child. *Your* child may enjoy the lessons and you may have peace of mind that you are being thorough. I do urge you to keep in mind that most early readers are children who are frequently read to and that not all children are ready to read at a very young age. Certainly, not all children need rigid phonics instruction to learn to read (although knowledge of phonics is important but it can be taught in the context of reading aloud with your child).

And feel free to deviate and make things a bit more fun (contrary to what Wise states, learning to read can be entertaining).