Teach Your Child to Read in Just Ten Minutes a Day

by Sidney Ledson

Book Overview

Reveals the phonic program by which preschoolers as young as two begin reading at the Sidney Ledson Institute for Intellectual Advancement (see www.sidneyledsoninstitute.com). This light-hearted, yet... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1412015545
• ISBN13: 9781412015547
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The best program available! No more sightwords, guessing, and boring repetetive books!!!!

The program presented in this book is better than the others because it is pure phonics. The kids learn to read and then memorize sight words by reading them in context without even realizing it. The backbone of the program is a fun little game that encourages children to practice decoding words. They play the game for tokens, stickers, treats, or privileges. I had to limit it for my kids they liked it so much. The book also encourages puppets as fellow students to add humor. Both of these tactics made the program a blast. I made a list of the 32 sounds to introduce, hung it on the wall and we started playing the game. We added a new sound whenever my child got really confident on the old ones. How fast does it work? In three and a half months my 5 year old daughter went from knowing most of the alphabet and sounds to being able to read like a second-grader. She spent an hour a day the first three weeks and about 20 minutes a day thereafter. I never taught her sight words, but she passed all the kindergarten sight words off the first day only struggling on "said" and "been", she had inadvertantly memorized the rest from reading so much. In three and a half months my just-barely 4 year old son who knew only one letter and no sounds has graduated from level one of the Sidney Ledson program, He can read 120 words easily and has the building blocks for hundreds more if they were presented to him. I think that puts him at late kindergarten or early first grade reading level. He spent about 5 minutes a day about 5 days a week. At this rate, (5 minutes a day) he will be reading on a second grade reading level when he starts kindergarten. Pros of this method *Don't have to memorize a single sight word (my kids can't/won't do that). *Kids never think of learning to read as any more difficult than learning the alphabet song. *Kids don't develop dislexia (disordered reading), this is one of only two methods I have found that addresses this issue and what to do about it. *This method helped me spot reading problems that had been invisible with my daughter while she tried whole word method unsuccessfully and tearfully. *When kids graduate from this program they don't have to read boring repetitive books that insult their intelligence. Repetitive books are whole-word method, my kids can really read and aren't limited to books with 30 or less words. Cons of this method *you use treats and candy to get them started, which have to be weaned away eventually (not too hard). *because it is easy, it is soooo tempting to rush a child through the program too fast, keep telling yourself "easy and fun, don't push too fast" *the program doesn't have lesson plans. That is because you don't need one, the program is really simple and basic, but some people see this as a negative.

The funnest program available! kids read lots of fun words right away, no guessing, no sightwords!

The program presented in this book is pure phonics just like in the perennial favorite "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and it works. The backbone of the program is a fun little game called blocks that motivates kids to get through the early stages of learning to read. The author chooses to start with fun words like up, cup, and cat whereas most programs start with am, sam, and see. Phonics is nothing new, but the reason this book is so useful is the wealth of knowledge it gives parents on the science of teaching a child to read. After reading the book, all you need in order to sit down and teach your child to read is the list of 32 steps to remind you what order to proceed in and a little creativity about how to make it fun. There are not day to day lesson plans, because for a young child that isn't the most effective teaching method. Essentially the child needs to practice word blending, letter sound association, and left-to-right decoding. Ledson explains how to make these activities part of your daily routine. Lots of examples are given on how to make learning to read into games which you could copy directly, or even better if you are creative, you can make up the games as you go along to fit your child's unique interests. In addition to games, the author suggests using puppets as fellow learners to help motivate and captivate children and that worked really well for us. A puppet can encourage a child to try again ten times as often as a parent and the kids still giggle. In our public school, kindergartners are asked to memorize 100 sight words all about 3 letters long. That is a lot of hard miserable work, my child was in tears when she got the list the last month of preschool. The next week we started this program and it was easy and fun, no more tears. She only had to memorize 54 sounds, mostly one letter long and they were part of a game! Then she was able to start reading real books and enjoy it. How fast does it work? My daughter completed steps 1-32 (kindergarten) in 3 weeks at age 5 1/2, spending an hour a day playing games with me(she knew half the alphabet when she started). In three more months she completed the next level (first grade) spending 20 minutes a day. In two more months she had read her first 100 books. I never taught her sight words, but about half way through the second level she started kindergarten. She passed off the entire list of 100 sight words on the first day of school using phonics--only, struggling on "been" and "said". I had a friend who teaches at another school say she heard teachers talking about my daughter's amazing reading ability. My son, age 4, needed lots of practice decoding left to right. We did about 5 minutes a day several times a week for over a year and he still was unsure, it was just games though, so he didn't get frustrated or feel dumb. Left to right was never destined to be easy for him, the games we played served as therapy to rewire his brain.

Phonics-First for the very young!

Sidney Lesdon is a master teacher of very young children. His Institute in Canada has for many years helped young children reach their full potential. This is a very well thought out program that teaches step by step phonics to very young children. The programs starts out using capital letters because they are easier for the young child to distinguish and because they effectively destroy the word configuration outline that causes many students to read from the word shape instead of the letters: squeal is often confused with squirrel, but there is no such tendency with capitals: SQUEAL versus SQUIRREL. Students starting with this program will never develop whole-word dyslexia. The fun games are an especially delightful and helpful feature of the program.

Give them the gift of reading and the sky is the limit!!

If you want a fancy program with alot of pretty colored pictures this may not be for you. If you want to educate yourself and give your children the correct foundation to open their eyes to a life long love of reading this is it!! I am now teaching my 4th child to read using this book and I am here reordering another copy because my first copy is wearing out after using it with the others! My 4th and 5th grade boys are sitting in the living room each reading a 400 page novel as I write this. I have found this solid program has kept us from the pitfalls of "sight words" and has helped them both with speech and spelling. I only used the games the book suggested if my child was either very young or was a little stubborn and needed encouragement! Check this out at your library, read it and you will find it makes sense!

The Fun Is A Bonus

This book was great for its clear directions, great ideas and good advice. I was amazed by the complete acuracy of how the suggested activities would take place. Not only will you learn how to teach phonics, but how to instill the fun of learning. On cue, my three year old responded to the "lessons" with giggles, laughter and begged for more. This book is great for anyone that wants to see the joy and delight of any child as they learn to read. The challenge will be to keeping it to only ten minutes a day.