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

I bought this to do with my 6 year old daughter. She had very good knowledge of her phoneics but was really struggling to blend the words together. We have just finished reading lesson 21 and her reading level has improved dramatically!! She has gone from not being able to read or blend at all to now being able to read and blend and having confidence to do so. It has also been a great help for me as a parent. It tells me exactly what to do giving you a form of script to follow. Highly recommend!!

Bought used but as good as new. Had the same book for my eldest and this book is the best to start with reading

Our daughter was starting to read quite a few words by herself, so I decided to get us a book to help us approach learning to read with a bit of 'structure''. (My daughter is under 5, and we homeschool; structure is something we don't use much!) We are loving this book. So far we have done 16 of the 100 lessons and it is amazing to see how her whole approach to reading has 'come together'. The lessons are really simple, and you, as 'teacher' are told exactly what to say to your child at each point in the lesson, which works surprisingly well. The book uses the phonics method, with an ingenious slightly-modified alphabet that originally put me off - for about two minutes. At the end of each lesson there is a simple exercise in writing the sounds you have learned, so it also teaches writing, and from about lesson 14 onwards, there are little comprehension exercises. It's all taken at a really slow pace, but the results are amazing! A lesson takes between 10 and 20 minutes. My daughter loves having her 'grown up' lessons but they do not overstretch her attention span. I would recommend this book to anyone. One tip, before you start the book, have on hand an exercise book with the pages lined for children's writing practise. This is great as a record of your child's progress, can be used as a book mark and adds to the sense of achievement she will feel as her lessons progress. Joolz

I used this book with my daughter when she was 4 to 5. It did work but I had to encourage her a lot to do this because she just found this book boring. In the end we never completed this. That said, my daughter is someone who dislikes structured teaching and this book offers a structured curriculum. She's 7 now and reads at a 9 or 10 year old level, and she taught herself to read eventually at about 5 to 6 years old without this book. That is not to say this is a bad book, just that it does not suit every child. EDIT : Well after 2 more kids, I've changed my mind. I've been home educating my kids for the last 4 years and I have used this book successfully to teach both my 2 younger kids to read. Okay so maybe this book doesn't work for my eldest, but I will give the book 4 stars out of 5 for teaching 2 of my 3 kids to read. It is a bit dry in delivery though, and it did become a bit of a drag doing this with my middle child towards the last 10 lessons or so. But my youngest, for some reason, really loved ALL of the stories in the book, so doing it with him was a joy even up till the end. And because he took to it so well, I bought all of the 20 odd recommended story books for him listed at the end of this book, to be used after he has completed the course, and now he has finished about 15 of them and going on to do the last 5 or 6. If you are going to be doing this, I have to warn you that the reading level required to read the last 3 books really does jump up a bit considerably. Especially the Look Out! Washington D.C. book... It is like a full-on paperback chapter book with lots of words. I'm not sure how my son is going to cope with that. He is a good reader but that book seems to me like a book even 9 or 10 year olds would read, and my son is only 6. But he has coped well with all of the first 15 or so books on the recommended reading list in this book so we'll see how he does at the last book. I wouldn't mind putting it aside for a while if he hates it.

I bought this book 6 months ago to start teaching our then 3.5 yr old daughter. We felt she was ready to at least start learning phonics (she started talking at 18 months old) as she was showing an increased interest in 'reading' and 'writing' (although she's certainly not a 'gifted child'!). I have to say I didn't really believe that the book would "do what it said on the tin", but I am delighted to say it can! We are now on Lesson 70 (of 100), and I am amazed at what our daughter can now read at just 4 years old! The book recommends that you do a lesson each day. We don't always do that, as some days we don't have time, but I would certainly advise not leaving more than 1 or 2 days between 'lesson days' and definitely make time in the morning rather than the afternoon. However, you must read exactly what is on the page, as I've tried 'adapting' it to what I thought fitted my child best and I ended up going back a few lessons and reading it verbatim. The only extras I do put in are a lot more praise. The book is recommended for "bright 3.5-yr-olds, and average 4 and 5 yr olds". I wouldn't suggest any earlier, as your child will need to write each letter they learn, and so they need to have developed their fine motor skills sufficiently. However, even if you only manage 20 or so lessons before your child starts school, it will help them no end, as it is exactly the system used in schools. Finally, I was once told by someone trained in education that there are always 'natural readers' who are able to be told how a word sounds and remember it. That's all well and good until they try to read a word they haven't seen before! This book teaches how to read words properly by learning 'phonics' and blending them in a way in which we speak ourselves. Therefore, your child will eventually be able to pick up a book and read it, and attempt a word that they have not seen before themselves! Imagine their absolute joy when they achieve that on their own... I cannot recommend this book any higher...it's extremely good.

I love this book. I started using it to teach my son to read when he was 3 and a half years old. In my eagerness, I probably started before he was ready because it was a bit of a struggle getting him to concentrate. So we put the lessons on hold for a while. Over the last year and a half, we've revisted the book several times. He's now in his second term of reception year and his reading is at an advanced level in comparison to his peers. Nowadays, he loves doing a couple of lessons whenever we have time before bed (I have a younger child who protests if her brother gets all the attention!) A couple of key changes we've made - I've dropped the writing part of the lessons. I think he found this section a little tedious and it played a role in his decreased concentration when we first started. This has turned out to be a bonus as his school teaches a cursive writing style from the very start of reception so if we'd persisted he'd have been exposed to, and confused by, two very different writing approaches. The other tip I can give is to be aware of the American style language used throughout the book, and adapt your words accordingly. One example is a 'full stop' which is referred to as a 'period' throughout. These are minor issues however. The book is fantastic and it enables any loving parent to give their child a firm foundation with regards to their education. The ground we've covered far surpasses the classroom teachings at my son's school, and it's been fun and a fantastic bonding experience. I've now bought this book a few times as gifts for friends.

Bought it reading the good reviews. Poor in illustrations, a simple reading exercise book, my son lost interest quickly, especially, in comparison to other, colourful, play-based reading books and real life play-based exercises, crafts, reading/writing challenges. We arre bilingual, learning to read in two different languages, so perhaps we need a different overall approach anyway. Looked/sounded good try but we don't use it.

I first bought this book in 2004 when I had a rising 4-year-old. She was a very keen little learner anyway, knowing all her letters and sounds. Using this book, she was reading independently by the time we got to Lesson 33. Three children later, they've all stopped before Lesson 60, reading independently. I don't think that's entirely up to my brilliant children <smile>. I think it's due in large part to this book. Why does this deserve to be the top book for teaching a child to read? Well, I've seen a lot of styles of reading education: Montessori, whole book, phonics, etc., as I am a homeschool teacher as well as a trained secondary school teacher. This book is the best because: it teaches letter sounds phonetically; it teaches how to write them from Lesson 1, choosing two letters at a time; it teaches blending better than any other method I've ever seen (it isn't kuh-a-tuh, but cat); and because it introduces "b" a long time before it introduces "d", there doesn't seem to be the confusion between those two letters that other methods struggle with. The best thing about it is, that as a parent, it's completely foolproof. You simply read what it tells you to read, in the way it tells you to read it, and honestly, bob's your uncle! There are three things that I think are important to remember, though: first, you as the parent have to be consistent in working through the book (c'mon, it's only 15 minutes at the most, so fitting it in as daily routine shouldn't be impossible); second, your child has to be ready and willing, so you might have to try to start it on several different occasions (note: you might have to whiz through the first ten lessons if you're child is anxious to start -- I had one who kept wanting to do Lesson 55 from the beginning, and though she wasn't actually capable of doing it, I realised she wanted to start a bit further ahead in the book than Lesson 1); and finally, read aloud as much as you can of other books so the child can see the joy and pleasure in the whole experience and not think of it as yet another chore centred around homework.

My 4 year old wanted to learn to read so I bought this thinking I'd be doing a couple lessons and putting it away until he was older. Turns out he loves it and won't let me forget to do it every day. He learned so fast and I'm so impressed with his reading ability already. We are just over half way through. He's also reading beyond the sounds that have been introduced and really seems to understand phonetic structure. Couple things to note. Yes it can be boring but its possible to make it fun. If you want this to be fun at all you need to read the introduction and make little challenges for your child. Some of the lessons have exercises that seem redundant and pointless but the farther in you get the more sense those inital exercises make. They aren't kidding when they say to not skip anything. Also this is a phonetic program, not a sight words program. Its designed to teach kids to read any words they come across, not just ones they recognize. That's what makes it so strong. I highly recommend this!

I did half of the book with twins in about half a year. Easy, low stress. 10-15m per kid. Before the first grade. Ehh, now they speak English amongst themselves. Advice - don’t overdo it 😅 Ah, and give them a sweat treat immediately after a lesson. That helps, in my experience 😁

We have personally become big fans of Siegfried Engelmann because of this book. Based on Direct Instruction system: meaning teaching in very small incremental steps. If you are not able to teach your child how to read through this book, then there can be 99.9% two reasons only... 1. Your child is too young, so you need to try after a couple of months, OR 2. You are not following the book instructions properly, so read again the instruction part and focus on what are you missing out.

A veces los niños que entienden inglés pero su lengua principal es otro idioma, tienen problemas para leer en el cole porque cuando leen utilizan los fonemas de su lengua principal, estos no encajan con lo que tienen aprendido del inglés en la cabeza. Ha sido una gran ayuda, paso por paso, y ahora lee y entiende sin problemas.

We're on lesson 29 and he's learned so much already! I'm impressed with how he tries to sound things out in daily life as well. I love the script and my son gets so excited when there's a new sound or when he reads something new. This book makes teaching phonics-based reading so simple. We are supplementing with BOB books. I'll update this review if my opinion changes as we continue to work through the book.