Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Editorial Review
* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read?

* Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading?

* Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms?

* Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school?

* Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong?

SRAs DISTAR® is the most successful beginning reading program available to schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by the DISTAR® method outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read.

Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It's a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here -- no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions -- just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.

Customer Reviews

Believe it!

2008-09-06
Believe all the good reviews! I used this book with my three year old and it works. She was really struggling through the first dozen lessons and I started to doubt she was ready so I took a couple weeks off. When I started back up again I decided to go another route and do 2 lessons a day (one after breakfast, one after dinner) and that helped immensely. I know some reviewers say that slowing down helped their child but I found that doing 2 a day helped keep it all fresh in her head and build her confidence and interest quicker. The more lessons we got through and the more confidence she got the less she wiggled in her seat during the lessons. They took us 20 to 25 minutes per lesson but she was just 3 (and very active) so I wouldn't expect her to sit still better. I can't say enough good things about this program. This built up her confidence in everything and she is so proud of herself for being able to read!

Homeschooled

2008-08-30
This book was recommended to me by several friends and their recommendation was correct. This book enables you & your child for easy learning to read without the stress of "unknown skills" as a teacher. This is my first attempt to homeschool, and with this aid in learning to read, I know we are on the right track. The lessons are short enough for an attention span of an active 5 year old.

Worth the purchase!

2008-08-13
After seeing that this book had the most positive reviews, I took a chance and bought this for my 3.5 year old son.
Presently, we are at lesson 52 and my son can successfully read 5-sentence stories with CVC words and even 6 letter words such as kitten.
As a preschool teacher, I was a bit worried that I was not following DAP (developmentally appropriate practices) since teaching reading is recommended for about ages 4-5. I took my son's and teachers' cues instead and now think that I have made the right choice.
Before you start your child on this book, it would help if he has the basic knowledge of:
a. letters
b. letter sounds
c. starting to sight read some words

Each lesson is phonetic-based which is the best approach. There is also a writing exercise in each lesson (which I did not do with my son) since he needs a little more time for graphmotor control. A lesson can run to about 10-15 minutes and when I see my son starting to guess the words, I take this as a cue to repeat the lesson the next day. So far, he does not "dread" our lesson times and though at times, he gets fidgety (as is normal for most 3 year old boys) he is eager to learn. I am so proud of him and would recommend this book to mommies and daddies who need a platform for teaching reading at home. Good luck!

Perfect for my stubborn 4yr old son

2008-08-08
I bought this book for my stubborn 4yr old son after spending 6 months working on the alphabet which he was basically too stubborn to learn. I bought this book, read the extensive first few pages about how to use it and then started immediately. It starts a little slow the first 15 lessons, but my son, though resistent at first, quickly caught on. The day he read his first word I was so proud of him and surprised that he could do it, but he thought it was no big deal. The skill building kept my son intersted, but did not discourage him. At first, the lessons took about 20-30 minutes, but now we have passed lesson 50 and we get them done in about 10-15 minutes. My son regularly even asks if we can do another one. This book changed my son's life. He now stands in stores and sounds out the things around him, people will comment on how well he reads and I just thank God I found this book.

be patient!

2008-08-06
I got this book from the library first to start working with my 3 y/o. It really helped that the tasks were so short but I found that to incorporate it into her homeschooling program, we had to do the lessons multiple times. I would review the new sounds at each lesson and she would focus on those 2 sounds for the whole week. She likes to be read to and she pretends to read when she sees me or daddy with a book. She never asked me to teach her to read but she loves to make up stories with a book present so I thought I'd give it a shot. I am so patient with her and the lessons are so short and sweet, the repetition is not annoying or frustrating at all. We actually get lots of chances to make it fun. But I got tired of renewing it at the library and since our pace is so slow, I know its a good investment to have a copy in the house that we own.

Reading in No Time!!

2008-08-04
* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read?

* Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading?

* Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms?

* Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school?

* Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong?

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together, while giving your child the reading skills needed now, for a better chance at tomorrow.

my girl is a reader 2008-07-23
I have to say I agree with jn trotter. You can't exactly go from one page to the next. We started out that way but as the difficulty advanced my daughter began to get discouraged so we would review some lessons. One other thing she seemed to have problem with the practice sections. I thgink it just bored her to read random words that didn't form sentences. I wrote the words on flash cards and she did great after that. This way were able to concentrait more on her problem words and discard the ones she was more familiar with. Anyway she is reading now, and quite proud of herself.

Try it! 2008-07-21
I have been teaching my 8 year old sister from this book, yes she is behind. We didn't do everything in this book we did the new sounds and read the stories (I didn't let her look at the pictures until after because she would guess and not even try to sound it out) and when there began to be a lot of new sounds we would review every other sound so it wasn't too much at once, most of the time we would only do the ones she kept forgetting. Even with doing only half of the recommended stuff she progressed! She felt great because for once she could read! The only thing I wish was that they had easy readers to go with this book, it is confusing for kids to learn words one way and have it be different in other books (they have their own way of writing silent e and some other's too). It really does depend on how your child is... Nothing is a one size fits all when it comes to learning.

Simple and Sensible Approach to Reading 2008-07-19
We purchased this book for our 3 and a half year old daughter who seemed very eager to learn to read. The lessons are short and work well with her attention span.

awesome book for any child to learn to read! 2008-07-08
I started this book with my daughter when she was three and she took to it immediately. After working through it with her at home, I decided to use it to work with my kindergartener and 1st grader (who was struggling with reading)who were in school. All of them have enjoyed the fact that they are able to read through a lesson in a matter of 10-20 minutes. The parent portion of the book is so nice, there is no way to go wrong. If you follow the directions, and if you are starting with a little one (3 to 4 years old), you will know what they can handle and what they cannot. The writing portion is also very useful. We use a magna-doodle pad to do the letters, then they can do them over and over, as well as draw pictures to go along with sounds...
I plan to gift this book to as many friends as possible, it is truly a great book!