This book presents a step-by-step program that parents can follow at home with their young children with the ultimate goal of teaching them to read. The program is an adaptation of the Distar Fast Cycle Reading Program, but it has been retailored for home use. It is appropriate for preschoolers (they mention "bright 3 and 1/2 year olds" to 5 year olds), for kids first learning to read in school, and for struggling readers.
This program is nice in that it is an all-in-one program — there is no need for extra materials, flash cards, etc. The price of the book is all you will pay, so if the program works, it certainly will be worth it. What is required is a fair amount of dedication.
There is a wonderful parents' guide at the beginning of the book that is a must-read. It backs up the program's method used, explains it thoroughly, and gives general suggestions. It describes how the program starts off simple, and that the later exercises don't resemble the first ones (logically).
Parents will learn a lot from this book too! Being so highly involved in the learn-to-read process step by step will help parents understand how their children learn to read.
The program emphasizes and outlines exactly what a parent should say to the child. This makes it quite simple for parents who may not be confident in their own methods. The communications to a child in every step are totally spelled out for parents — nothing is ambiguous or unclear. This communication plays a huge role in this particular reading method, and parents are encouraged to follow them exactly as they are scripted. Parents are also urged to learn the pronunciation of the letter sounds exactly in order to teach them properly. There is a simple pronunciation guide in the form of a table in the parents' guide that serve this purpose. Sounds and combinations of sounds (words) are placed on top of an arrow line that contains little balls that act like markers. Parents are guided as to where to place their finger along the line and how long to hold their finger at the different markers.
Note that this book employs some Distar orthography (symbols used for different letter sounds). For example, children are introduced first to the letter "e" with a line on top of it (it sounds like a long vowel sound "e"), then later an "e" without the symbol for the short vowel sound "e". The goal is not to replace the alphabet with their own alphabet, but rather to make the beginning stages of learning to read a bit easier with these symbols. They are slowly phased out later in the program.
Kids learn to read almost immediately in the program, which is a good motivating factor. The authors are quite strict about following through the program without skipping steps or lessons.
Sound writing is part of each lesson, and is included only for the impact it has on reading, not for teaching a child to write. I agree with the idea that writing out the sounds will help to reinforce them — you need only watch a child saying the sounds of the letters as they write them and you can almost see them being etched in their memory.
As kids progress through the lessons, reading comprehension is incorporated as well.
The lessons are meant to be no more than 20 minutes long, and the idea is to teach your child in 100 lessons altogether. A very dedicated parent and child may thus be able to complete the program in a little over 3 months, and perhaps less if more than one lesson is taught per day. Lesson 1 introduces the sounds associated with the letters "m" and "s", lesson 2 is a sounds review, and lesson 3 introduces the letter sound "a" (kids will read the sound combinations "am" and "sa"). Lesson 13 has kids reading words like sad, mad, eat, ram, me. Lesson 24 includes a sentence "a rat is in a sack. that rat is not sad." Lesson 40 contains a whole paragraph. The end lessons have kids reading a number of paragraphs.
An example of an early lesson, Lesson 12, starts with the first task — sounds introduction (a new sound is introduced "d"). Task 2 involves reviewing sounds already learned. Rhyming words is involved in task 3. Task 4 is entitled "Say the Sounds" and involves verbal repetition, and in task 5, actual words are read (in this case, "seed, sam, rat, me"). Task 6 is a rhyming activity (ex. kids must rhyme with the sound "at" using the letters printed in the lesson — m, r, s). Sounds review comprises task 7, more word reading in task 8, then sounds writing in task 9.
Younger children may be confused by the rhyming lessons. The other lessons are intuitive and kids caught on well. My own daughter was very pleased by the idea that she had her own "workbook" that would help her learn to read. Despite the fact that skipping lessons is considered a no-no, because my daughter was already familiar with the alphabet and the attached sounds, as well as simple words, we went very fast through the early lessons and did skip some of the tasks. (I didn't want to totally bore her). As a parent who already had taught my first child how to read before he went to school, I still found this book very helpful. The ideas presented and lessons learned seem to be very effective, and would probably suit children and parents who enjoy structure. For parents less dedicated or structured (like myself), I still feel that this book can be useful. It gives some handy guidelines and illustrates the process of learning to read, empowering parents with the idea that they can do it. At the very least, time spent doing lessons can certainly be considered quality time.
This program will be especially worthwhile as an economical learn-to-read program for homeschoolers.
