Lily's First Story! (Review of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons)

I reserve all rights to brag here. May I present Lily's first story! I'm so proud of her. She worked hard, and did most of it with little help from me. The only word I helped her spell was "Thanksgiving" and the rest she sounded out on her own! You go girl!!!

Leave her a note in the comments section and I'll share them with her!
 

"Thanksgiving day my family went on the choo choo train."

 

We went to the parade. I liked the Hello Kitty balloon. I liked it.

 

Finally we went to our friend's house. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious.


The Reasons:

For the past year Lily and I have been going through the book How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It was a book recommended to us by a few friends. I chose to teach Lily for a number of reasons:

1. As she was getting older I missed experiencing that thrill of her learning something new and exciting. She had mastered such complicated things as staying alive, eating, walking, running, and I wanted to be able to help her reach a new goal.

2. I admit that, *gulp of shame*, I never really learned how to properly teach a child to read. This is a big shame for me as a former elementary school teacher, but having been in the upper classes it was never something I had a chance to master. I could administer reading tests, monitor students, and I did teach them how to master important reading and decoding skills while being a 3rd and 4th grade teacher. Please don't think I slacked off and couldn't provide for my students, but I admit I wish I had been given more tools as a new teacher. I partly blame my university education that was seriously lacking in that department, but mostly I blame myself for not spending more time researching it.

I didn't have the slightest idea how to start other than teaching her the alphabet and each sound. This book provided us a framework to get started, and I spent time researching and learning more about this. I intend to return to classroom teaching someday, and after my experience with Lily I know I have more tools under my belt should I teach a younger grade. I intend to try a different approach with Sawyer when he turns 4 so I can further expand my education.

3. Keith and I have been discussing home schooling for some time now. I felt like this would be the perfect way for me to really test it out, and to see how responsive Lily would be. She's a champ! She listens, she obeys, she is interested, and she tries hard to learn.

With homeschooling I'm leaning towards sending her to school. Following the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, I recontimplated this, but in the end I feel like she will gain a lot from being surrounded by students. She is a great helper and it will give her a chance to use that skill in a classroom setting, and she really wants to make friends. I don't feel nervous for her safety, mostly I feel nervous about the influence of others, but let's face that she is eventually going to interact with someone other than her family.

We live in a community that is far from affluent, and we have a lot of kids here in the area who come from, *ahem*, very interesting homes and backgrounds. But the truth of the matter is that I feel a little excited at the prospect of her having a chance to interact with people from all walks of life, to learn compassion, and to learn to love those who are not the same as her. I think that we'll have many teaching moments, and I pray that she will not be bullied. Many of my friends who have sent their children to our local schools have struggled with bullying, and it is the one thing that worries me the most. She has a tender heart and a love for everyone. I hope that isn't tainted in her first years of school.

I also worry about the teachers. I taught as a rotating teacher up in Boston and struggled with how terrible some of the teachers were. It made me sick to see a 2nd grade teacher telling the whole class how stupid one child was, who was clearly struggling to figure out a difficult task. It could happen, and it's something I fear. A bully teacher is far worse than a peer bullying.

The Review and Our Experience:

This book can be quite easy to follow for an adult, but difficult initially for the child. In the beginning I tried to plow through one lesson in each sitting, and quickly realized it was a mistake. Lily was frustrated and her attention wandered, and I was frustrated that her attention wandered. It usually ended with both of us feeling annoyed and frustrated.

After a few lessons of this I began breaking it up into smaller sections. We would set a timer and do 5-8 minutes initially. Lots of hugs, high fives, and a chocolate chip for each word read. Then we built up to doing 10 minutes. After a few months we could complete one lesson in a sitting.

Then the stories grew longer and she recoiled in fear. She didn't believe she could do it, and the task was pretty daunting to a little 4 year old. With some encouragement, M&Ms, and a sticker chart we plowed through the stories. At one point we had to have a talk about her attitude, and how it was effecting her ability to read. She didn't believe she could do it, and that was making it impossible. We talked about believing that it was possible, and being honest with Mommy when she felt overwhelmed. After that day it went from bad to better, and now she is flying through the stories at lightning speed.

I had to constantly modify the book to fit our needs, and put in other tasks that I felt it was lacking. Around lesson 35 we also began to explore invented spelling. Writing out simple and familiar words that she could sound out.

We are at lesson 67 now (we don't always do reading for school, sometimes we mix it up and do math, writing, art, etc.) and she can fly through a lesson on her own at my feet if I'm trying to do something like make dinner. She'll sit and read the words and story to me and ask me questions when she gets stuck. Her eagerness to learn has made her constantly ask questions about sounds, and she picks up other beginner books and reads them also.

Somehow I think that the book is moving too slow for her (maybe I'm moving too slow with it!). Every time we introduce a new sound she eagerly points to it and tells me what it is before I have a chance to teach it to her. I'm proud of my Lily boo. She is such a smarty pants and makes me proud every day. I love finding little notes from her around the house and trying to decode what she has written.

All in all, I'd give the book 3.5 stars out of 5. It's a little dry and boring at the start, which makes it hard to engage a child before it becomes more interesting. There are parts in the first 15 lessons that I have seen other adults struggle to understand, which throws the child off too. It lacks incorporating more whole words into the picture, focusing mostly on phonics, and the symbols could be confusing for some children and adults. But all in all, it's worth a try, and simple enough that any mom could use to help her child begin reading. If you do pick up the book, take it slow and focus on finishing a few tasks each session. Give it a try through at least the first 20 lessons and it will get easier as you and your child get the hang of it.

Lily and her good friend Alice