Michael Levin MDThe Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons (1) (The Reading Lesson series)

The Reading Lesson is the single best program for teaching children to read I have found to date and I have seen many. I first came accross it while trying to find materials to help my daughter learn to read. My daughter is extremely smart. She is also dyslexic and the way reading is taught in early elementary just did not work for her. As a teacher, I have learned about different ways of teaching, learning and ways to differentiate instruction and I could not understand why no one knew how to work with a child whose brain processed information differently as is the case with people who have dyslexia. I spoke with several colleagues who are SPED teachers and specialists in our school district and was informed that there was no training given to them in how to work with children who had specific reading disabilities such as dyslexia. I decided to find a way. After looking and trying a wide variety of programs, I found the Reading Lesson.It worked. Not only was it simple enough for anyone to use, but the program is built on solid phonics and whole language principles give the best results in the shortest amount of time. The pages are simple and have plenty of white space. This helps simplify reading for children who are unable to see spaces between words and who see letters out of order or inverted. They use phonetic markings but not excessively, and slowly wean the children off of them as the book progresses. Sounds are introduced slowly and in a way that not only makes sense but allows them to begin reading simple sentences from the first lesson. This provides the children with a feeling of success that you simply cannot get any other way. The program also includes a large number of Dolche sight words. The mixture of phonics and whole language is key to achieving fluency and comprehension. It also allows children to move at their own pace, which is extremely important.Years after teaching my daughter to read, I came accross a student who somehow reached third grade without learning how to read despite having had to repeat grades before. The student's self esteem had been severely affected to the point where there was serious danger of psychological damage due to depression. Although I was not the child's reading teacher at the time, I decided to give the program a try. I was not sure which concepts the child had managed to learn through the years and what was missing, so we started the book from lesson one. We worked every day before school for 30 to 45 minutes using the Reading Lesson as our primer and supplementing with other reading material to practice reading from books, as well as the free materials found on the Starfall website. While I was working with the student to re-build the foundation of phonics and sight words found in the Reading Lesson, the reading teacher worked on third grade skills regarding reading analysis using texts appropriate for the student's reading level. In a month the student had made significant progress and had gone from not knowing letters and sounds (pre primer) to beginning to read first grade level texts. The change was also apparent in that the student was participating in class, talking to classmates more and seemed much happier on a daily basis. The student also went from writing complete gibberish when asked to answer questions on paper, to beginning to write actual words with invented spelling based on the phonics the student was learning in the program. The change in the short amount of time was simply amazing. The student continued to progress. While it took time for the student to progress, the foundation provided by the Reading Lesson was key in essentially rescuing a child who had fallen through the cracks and was headed for a very bad future.The Reading Lesson is effective, simple to use, and cost effective. You do not need to be a teacher to use this nor have any specialized knowledge in reading instruction. All you really need is this book to teach your child to read, although the company offers companion programs which are also good (their website has a lot of useful resources). There are also plenty of other resources out there that can be used to complement the Reading Lesson in order to maximize and enrich the learning experience. If you want to help get your child started in reading, or if you have a child who is struggling with reading (particularly decoding words), you may want to give this book a try. It really does work.

The media could not be loaded. This reading program is very intuitive, well laid out and straightforward. After listening to the podcast Sold and Story and looking into research on the Science of Reading, I decided to try to teach my daughter how to read phonetically BEFORE starting Kindergarten.I checked out the book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" from my local library. While it was very informative, the heavy scripting was overwhelming and the pages looked too busy to appeal to my child. After watching a YouTube review comparing 100 easy lessons to The Reading Lesson, I decided to purchase this book. Great decision!My daughter just turned 5 and we are enjoying this book. She loves coloring the pictures after reading the pages. We also put a sticker on each completed page. I will say that my daughter already knew all 26 basic alphabet letter sounds and how to blend CVC words BEFORE starting this program. I highly recommend that first otherwise, this program may move too fast for your kid and cause frustration. They are reading short sentences by the end of lesson 1!As of this initial review we are on lesson 13, so over half way through. Here are some additional tips that I have so far:Supplement with Bob books for additional reading practice. They are inexpensive on Amazon and can be checked out at most libraries.Get some magnetic letter tiles and a small white board. It will help you get through the pages with no pictures. I write one sentence on the white board at a time so it's not overwhelming for my child to look at. The small white board is also an inexpensive way to have your little one practice their handwriting. Have them copy one or two sentences from the lesson. The magnetic tiles are great for pages with word families. Dictate (sound out) the word and have the child spell it with the magnetic letters.The reading lesson introduces the MOST common letter sounds combinations first, this helps get your kid reading real books faster. After lesson 11, I added in the revised Mcguffey primer for additional reading practice and we were both pleasantly surprised that she could decode most of the words in the Mcguffey primer lessons because of what she had already learned from the reading lesson. As of lesson 13 she can also read Green Eggs and Ham and other easy reader Dr. Suess books. You can find the Mcguffey primer for free online and Dr. Suess books can be checked out at your local library. She was very excited to be able to read REAL books!Reward systems:I printed off the lesson progress chart from their website and out it on ourrefrigerator. My daughter enjoys putting a sticker on the chart after completing each lesson. I also implemented prizes for completing lessons 5, 10 etc.We will likely take a break after lesson 15 and just focus on Bob books and reading real books. This book takes kids to a 2nd grade reading level and my kid just turned 5 so there's no rush.

Excellent and complete to learn to read for begginners. I used it for my kids and also for my kindergarteners in class. Simple and step by step.