Everyday HSer Early Years Cover w border jpeg

A quick note most a resources you may similar:

The Everyday Homeschooler's Guide to Teaching the Early Years is for all parents of young students who are beginning to homeschool or who are in their early on elementary years. Homeschooling young children doesn't have to be complicated or expensive, and this no-fuss resource volition show y'all how. Information technology will guide you on how to create an platonic environs that will accolade your child'due south natural desire to learn also as how to foster inventiveness and tips on setting priorities.

This resource also answers many questions that new homeschoolers accept, such as What are my kids supposed to learn? What resources should I use? How do I meet other homeschoolers? And much more than.

Thanks so much to my readers for inspiring me to write this. I hope it helps.

Click hither to view the Table of Contents and Introduction.

Click hither to purchase.

At present dorsum to the original mail service….

***

Before this year I decided to try Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Like shooting fish in a barrel Lessons for my so 4-year-old.  (We started 3 months earlier his fifth birthday.)  If you lot expect up the reviews on this volume, which is as well called the Distar method, they are mostly favorable, but I could run into that it doesn't work for everybody. That's not surprising considering zippo works for everybody.

Fortunately, my son loved the lessons when we began the book, and I liked the book because it was easy for me to use.

In that location is an eighteen-page parent guide at the showtime of the book, which is important to read, and in each lesson, in that location's a script that parents are supposed to follow exactly.  At first this looked daunting, but afterward reading the guide and doing a few lessons with my son, I saw that it was beneficial.  During the early lessons, I kept to the script fairly well, though I inverse some of the words considering I knew my son would sympathise me better with my changes.

Every bit we continued on with the book, I didn't accept to read the script so closely considering it'due south very repetitive, and by and then my son knew what he needed to do.  However, I glanced at each lesson beforehand to see if there were whatsoever changes.

What I similar the most nearly 100 Lessons is that each lesson builds on the one before information technology, and it introduces new letter of the alphabet sounds gradually.  It helped that my son already knew all the sounds of the letters before we started this book, but the way it's taught, you could potentially teach a kid who doesn't know any phonics.

I have a feeling that if my son had not known the sounds of the letters, he would not have liked it. Since the kickoff lessons were very easy for him, it congenital his confidence and showed him that reading lessons were non scary.  Equally he sounded out words with these sounds, he was delighted that he could read!

A couple of points virtually how this book teaches reading:

  • The book teaches the child to sound out words by blending the sounds together instead of pausing between sounds.  For instance, we commonly teach kids to sound out the give-and-take "mat" by proverb "mmm (break) aaa (pause) t."  The Distar method says not to pause.  Say "mmmaaat."  This simple technique helped my son hear the word, and he was able to decipher it quicker.
  • The book also uses an contradistinct orthography or symbols to help the kid read.  That is, if the audio is a long A, such equally in the word "lake", there is a line over the A, and if it'south a brusk A sound, such as in the word "cat," in that location'due south no line.  Silent letters, such as the Eastward in "lake" are printed smaller.

The altered orthography worried me at first considering I wondered how my son would transition to regular books with regular print, but apace this worry faded. My son was so excited that he could read!  He said, "I can read in this book, just I can't read in those."

Three things I liked about the volume:

  • The light-headed pictures: My son would read the stories in the book, and I would keep the accompanying movie covered until he finished. He always looked frontwards to seeing the picture show, so this gave him an incentive to finish the lesson.  (Notwithstanding I tin can encounter where the pictures and stories might not involvement older children.)
  • The book gradually introduces many irregular words or "sight words," and since there's and so much repetition in the volume, my son has nearly of them memorized at present.  This is why I didn't worry about the altered orthography.
  • The volume also requires the educatee to write 2 or three sounds at the end of each lesson.  Fortunately, my son was already writing well and enjoyed this function as well.  It'due south a expert reinforcement of the sounds and practice of writing.

Making my child excited well-nigh reading is the start step in getting him to read.  I'k grateful that 100 Lessons got us on the road to reading.  Yet, as we got further into it, things changed.

In one case we got to around Lesson 50, the lessons got harder.  It wasn't that my son wasn't reading well.  He could exercise the lessons, and he was learning, but while we did the lessons, he would squirm in his seat, start talking about other topics, and act silly.  It was very hard for him to focus on the lesson.

I should interject hither and say that the volume claims these lessons will accept simply xx minutes a 24-hour interval.  The first few lessons took only twenty minutes, but equally they become harder and at that place's more reading involved, they take much longer.  And when my child could not focus and kept squirming, I think we spent closer to 45 minutes completing a lesson.

Suddenly it became a lesson in patience for mama!  Fortunately, this was nigh the time we were going on vacation to Chicago, so we took a pause.  Afterward returning home, I looked up 100 Lessons on the Internet and began to read what other people'south experiences were.

I found one person who said a tutor recommended this book for her child, simply emphasized that the lessons should remain light and fun.  Some other man described his lilliputian daughter as squirmy and unable to focus too.  He gave her incentives to finish each lesson, which worked.

Reading this renewed my patience with my son, and I regained my equanimity.  Here are some tactics I employed:

  • I fabricated sure we had plenty of fourth dimension to do the lessons.  I didn't rush my son through them.
  • I gave my son "wiggle moments" when he got too antsy, and he loved that.  I'd count to three and and so we'd both jerk for a few minutes.
  • I was too more than probable to take a day off from a lesson if we were busy with errands whereas in the offset, I kept a tight daily schedule.

With this new strategy, nosotros inched our way upward to Lesson 70 where we reached another plateau.  At that bespeak, the book became monotonous.  Since my son was reading quite well anyway, I decided to take another break from the book.  Now I feel we probably won't go back to it. I've searched my shelves for all the early readers in my house, and my son seems excited to exist able to read real books with more lively illustrations.

Above is a photo of part of Lesson 69.  My son completed through Lesson 70.

At the end of 100 Lessons, it states that a child who successfully completes this program volition be reading at a 2nd grade level.  Considering that my son is simply v-years-sometime, I experience confident that I don't have to push button him to cease it correct now.  He is happy that he's starting to read, and he's reading early readers.  I couldn't exist more pleased.

If you have a young child who is struggling with reading, I highly suggest giving 100 Lessons a try.  I'm non sure information technology would involvement older students because the stories and pictures are silly, simply it never hurts to try.  Also, I found the volume used online for $11, so information technology doesn't hurt the pocket book either.

Accept yous tried Teach Your Kid to Read in 100 Easy Lessons?What was your experience with it?UPDATE: I will be posting an update of our experience with 100 Like shooting fish in a barrel Lessons this January 2014. My son is now vii, and nosotros are finishing the book!

UPDATE JANUARY 2014: Nosotros have finished 100 Like shooting fish in a barrel Lessons. Read about our experience with it two years later on here: 1st Class Homeschool Reading