Happy Friday! Since we are ending our special series “Teaching Your Child to Read with Confidence” and “Strategies for Success”, we are sharing our favorite reading programs that we have used to teach our kids to read! Enjoy this homeschooling reading item that we can’t live without….and you shouldn’t either!
This Friday, we want to share a tried and true program that has stood the test of time “Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons”. We love this reading program for so many reasons!
Teacher-friendly. This program contains scripted lessons, so you don’t have to come up with a plan yourself! It guides you through each task, so you know you are not missing out on essential components.
Short lessons. Most lessons can be finished in 20 minutes, perfect for the shorter attention spans of early readers!
Comprehensive. The lessons cover everything from sound-symbol relationships, forming letters, decoding, rhyming, and other fundamental reading skills. It also teaches children comprehension strategies.
Easy to follow.... during the 100 lessons and beyond! After you have finished the lessons, the book provides a reading list to gently move your child from easier picture books into beginning chapter books!
Affordable. It is hard to beat the price of this curriculum. Typically you can find the book for less than $15!
Best of all---it works! Following this program will take your child from early phonics instruction to easily reading chapter books. We have used this book to teach our visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. We have used it with kids who were ready to read at four years old….and those who weren’t ready to read until they were older. We have used it with more active/energetic learners, as well as those who are more subdued. It is hard to find a curriculum that can do all of that
Flashcards
We have added one component to this program to strengthen its overall effectiveness.
We both feel that practicing the words introduced in the lessons as sight word flashcards helped our children transition to text outside the book. So we created our own set of flashcards as a companion resource to this terrific book!
The DISTAR symbols, and other decoding marks (like the balls and arrows) are removed. We have found that this helps children transition to reading words in normal text a bit easier. This set includes 24 printable pages with over 130 flashcards! Set one corresponds to lessons 1-49 while set two corresponds to lessons 50-100.
How can you make practicing words a fun and engaging activity?
You can do so much more besides just having your child read the words from these cards! Use sidewalk chalk, toy cars, Legos, and nerf guns to make practicing words and sounds incredibly fun! There are unlimited ideas out there, and the best part is you don’t have to come up with them. We have done the legwork for you--check out our Teaching Reading Pinterest Board for some amazingly fun ideas to continue to reinforce the words learned!
Our final piece of advice.
Be patient and take your time and don’t feel you need to rush through it to complete it in 100 days! Create a pace that your child finds challenging but not frustrating! Learning to become a fluent reader is actually hundreds of smaller skills that need to be woven together to accomplish that final result. Taking this journey with your child will be one of the highlights of teaching your child, but it will be filled with countless ups and downs. Know and
remember this heading into this process, and your journey will be more joy-filled!
Missed our other Favorite Fridays? Check them out at our blog, Our Favorites!
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