It seems that the program they offer works for both toddles and children (they have several other videos in their channel that shows toddlers and children who seem to read (not memorize as I noticed!), that’s why I came to the conclusion that maybe the program really works…
They say that they don’t suggest sight words reading because it causes our toddlers/children to memorize word shapes! but instead they seem to mention that phonics and phonemic method of learning to read works better…
Please, I would like to know the opinion of you parents about what they offer and of course about its price, compared to other programs (if you know any please kindly let me know)…
We used Little Reader and native Reading approach ( reading a lot of books together, following each word with our finger and paying attention to individual words and letters).
Little Reader is done, so even if you would repeat the very same lesson again and again, your child would see the words written with different fonts, in different color, red by different voice and illustrated by different pictures, videos and sentences. Pattern phonics would teach them phonic pattens and rules in a native way, exactly how children learn to speak. So I would not worry about “memorizing the shapes”.
All of my kids were early readers, when they started reading they were reading any word that they saw, not just the words that they’ve seen during their previous lessons. They figured out phonic rules intuitively, and were capable of applying these rules easily and automatically to any words they were seeing.
So Little Reader was a perfect fit for all of our kids.
You said that it is “extremely cost effective at $50”… So when it come to the price, What is/are the other(s) reading program(s) you compare to? In their main video they mention that too: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2BjRbGqe-0
But Please can I know the price of one or 2 of “working” reading programs so that I could have a comparison by my self too?
It can be used with babies and toddlers. The course is designed for 1 year ( 2 lessons a day), but you can do it as fast or as slow as your child would like, it would largely depend on your child. In addition it can be used with other additional materials from BK Free library and more, depending on your child’s interest. All my children were reading by the time they started to talk. And by 3 yo they were reading absolutely everything, regardless of how difficult the language was . Now at 5 yo my daughter reads faster then me with excellent retention and comprehension, she prefers to read books at about 4th and 5th grade level ideally though, my sun at 4 yo can spell almost any word, reads books from 3rd grade ( science, non-fiction and some fiction) and they continually tell everyone how reading is their most favorite activity. I attribute it to the fact that hey learned early and did not experience any pressure while learning, so all they know of reading that it is fun, inspiring and easy.
I am also looking into this program. I just finished the entire little reader lesson with my child and though we enjoyed little reader, my little girl has not yet started to read independently. She can however sight read several words but nowhere near the level of the other kids here. I want to start her with phonics so I’m looking at http://www.childrenlearningreading.org and at this book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 easy lessons http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985
I am looking for a non computer based curriculum which the two abovementioned are offering. So if anyone here has feedback or review for the children learning reading and teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons, please please please do so. I will be really grateful. Thank you in advance.
This seems shady. I don’t think I’d spend $50 on that program because they don’t even say WHAT the program is. They do not show a single child USING the mysterious program. It is weird, a new person is signing up to various educational forums and asking about this program…so I smell :fart: and all over this company.
Now it could be a coincidence but it seems that they are trying to drum up traffic and rack up sales by posing as a new user who is curious about this relatively unheard of product. I think that this is a scam and wouldn’t buy it.
There are a lot of good phonic options for free and for reasonably priced. There is no need to throw money after a mystery product mentioned by a mystery user. That video is 15+ minutes long and NOT ONCE do they say what the product is–is it a series of videos? Is it a PDF of lessons with instruction for the parents? Is it a printable set of games? Is it an book of learning activities and lessons? Does it include readers? Does it include video instruction? Do they give refunds? That is a very, shady ad and I’m a little suspicious of the user also, but maybe I’m being needlessly cynical.
Free Phonics Resources that Could Work with an EL Kid:
Progressive Phonics
Reading Bear
Ultimate Phonics
from Spencer Learning–plain and thorough. You can download the fully functioning trial version of the program and try it if you like it. UP has their word and sentence list for free so you could use those similar to DadDudes Flesch cards if you don’t like the software version and it includes sentences
Reading A-Z
has an extensive “free sample” option and you can do download booklets from there based on sightwords, phonics, and more. VERY nice. If you want more, you can pay for access, but during your trial period you can download a TON, I can’t imagine you needing more readers.
YouTube
There are a lot of phonic videos on YouTube that you can search and work through any play list that you like.
I See Sam
The first 52 of these readers are free online.
And those were just the free products that I could think of in about 2 minutes. Now, if you are open to spending money then there are many reputable paid options for baby reading products: There are so many options, of course there is
BKs Little Reader
software which includes Pattern Phonics.
Meet the SightWords/Phonics
Hooked On Phonics Learn to Read- program with DVDs or Without
[li]Little Champion Reader
Readeez
Monki–See
And these are just the DVD multimedia options that pop into my head within a few seconds. If you want a book/guide for you and your kids to use then know that you just need to model blending and read to them using the words and scope of these lessons.
Phonics Pathways + Reading Pathways
The Reading Lesson which --my personal favorite for the 3+ crowd.
Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading is very thorough–its like the UP list, but it includes an instructional guide for the parent.
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
And thats just a small sample of programs that are KNOWN to be legit and highly effective.
Not one of the book based options that I listed costs more than $50, most of them are $15-$40 but I’m too lazy to go and price check. I’m not sure of the price of the DVD reading options.
Hi mom2bee thanks for your recommendations. I am actually also using starfall and readingbear for our phonics computer based lessons. I have so far bought little reader, little musician, wink to learn chinese and little chinese for early learning- which I bought mainly because these were highly recommended here in brillkids forum. But since I sent my little one to a montessori pre-school, the school’s advise was to limit screen time that’s why I was looking for a non-computer/screen curriculum for our phonics lessons.
Seems like I’m going to have to cross the pdf only curriculum off my list then. I was actually about to press the buy button in their website but I was a little wary about the fact that they have no “about us” page and they have not published their exact office address. But the other book Teaching Your Child To read in 100 easy lessons has over 1000 reviews in amazon. Most reviews are positive so I think I’ll get that one instead.
Well, do you have a printer at home or a Print Shop (Target Copy, Kinkos, UPS Store, Office Max, Office Depot etc) in your area? You can use a PDF curriculum if you just print it out. Many libraries have free printing for registered patrons though there may be a limit to how much you can print daily.
I have the eBook version of The Reading Lesson (TRL) but rarely use it on-screen. I just print out one chapter at a time and use it with the kid that I’m working with. This is helpful because a kid is not faced with 200+ pages all at once and it helps some kids focus on only the page in front of them.
I have used both The Reading Lesson and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons (100EZ), they are both solid but I prefer the Reading Lesson personally for a bunch of reasons if you want to hear them.
But, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a good program and you can probably find it at a library near you its such a staple in home reading programs so you can try before you buy it. Even if you don’t want to use 100EZ, I think that if you have never taught reading before then there is value in just reading through the intro and first several lessons of 100EZ.
100EZ teaches you exactly how to teach blending–its not developmental that only a child of age N can do it.
Blending is a skill and it can be explicitly taught via appropriate instruction consisting of demonstrations, modeling, scaffolding. Some kids will learn to do it easily and effortlessly, others will fumble a bit but still I believe that pretty much any typical kid can be TAUGHT to blend, but what the process can’t be is rushed. 100EZ has excellent instruction and lessons on blending, its good to read through, even if you don’t want to use the book with your kid.
Larry Sangers essay on Baby Reading addresses this slightly, he says that he just sounded out words for his son and gradually his son learned to sound out words for himself.
I agree with momtobee the only other program I’d add would be readingeggs which both my children enjoyed and benefited from. The nice thing with that program is its often easy to get several months free and then discounts on the monthly cost.
Just because the kindy recommends you reduce screen time doesn’t mean you need to actually do it. If your child is engaged and actually learning from their screen time then that is a very different thing to watching cartoon all afternoon…
Sorry I was not online here after I wrote to you… Last month I finally decided to grasp the premium version of the CLR program… but anyway thank you so much for your words…
I just asked a question here:(… Now I see you accuse me! What was wrong with my question??? I just wanted to know the opinion of others (those who have used the program or are aware of the aspects of reading programs ) about that program I found! This section is related to ‘reading’ so I just wanted to take the opinion of others… I even didn’t directly link to their page so that nobody accuse me… So how should I asked my question in your opinion so that nobody blames me???
I don’t want to defend of the owners of the program but when I wanted to grasp the program, I watched the video ‘in full’ and then did read the ‘full’ video description text, plus their main page and the order page… And found all of these questions you mentioned answered there! I can address for them if needed!?
““That video is 15+ minutes long and NOT ONCE do they say what the product is–is it a series of videos? Is it a PDF of lessons with instruction for the parents? Is it a printable set of games? Is it an book of learning activities and lessons? Does it include readers? Does it include video instruction? Do they give refunds? That is a very, shady ad and I’m a little suspicious of the user also, but maybe I’m being needlessly cynical.””
Sorry mom2bee, I don’t want to say that it is great program or say whether it works or not. Just want to say that in my opinion you shouldn’t ‘accuse’ somebody while you even haven’t token a ‘full’ look at what he has added here…
sorry mom2bee, I hope you haven’t be unhappy with my light criticism…
Hi Flyer, I am sorry to make you feel attacked. I certainly don’t want to scare anyone away from these very useful EL forums. And I’m sorry that I implied you were a phantom-account made by that company. I saw that you only had a posts on this forum and I missed that this thread was CREATED in Dec. 2014. In March and April of 2015 I saw a posts about this program on a few different educational/mom sites so that is when I noticed this thread on this site I mentioned that it seemed shady to me because of that occurrence.
I still do not feel comfortable with this company. There are plenty of well known and transparent products our there and more than enough resources to teach your child to read all the way up to a collegiate level for free. There are full phonics programs available online for free that you can use as an eBook or that you can print at your leisure.
This company doesn’t have a good presentation in my opinion. For one, their website isn’t well designed (its the one-continuous page website that a lot of scams use.) They don’t clearly state what the product is. They never show what the product is–it seems like they have cobbled together a bunch of phonics resources and are charging parents for it. Essentially all I can tell from this website and the videos (And yes, I have seen ALL of their videos in full) is that this company is saying “Use phonics” but instead of being upright and forth coming aobut it, they make it seem like they are doing something wonderful and mysterious to get the kids reading and oh–if you give them $50 they will tell you how you can do it too!
However NONE of that companies short comings is your fault. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome. Now, since you have had a few months , can you tell us if you have used this program? If so, then perhaps you can shed some light on it because while I have not used the program, their company/videos/shadiness make me not trust them enough to want to use the program. If someone can provide a review and tell about their experience with the EasyToTeachReading program, then it can put a lot of minds at ease.
…
all over this company.