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EmilyK
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I'm new to homeschooling. We have a 5 yr dd we are using the above text with. Anyone out there used it successfully to teach someone to read? It seems rather tedious....
Needing some recommendations on how to make it more effective, "happier" experience:)
Thanks!
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Molly Smith
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I'm four for four with 100 Easy Lessons. Don't do the handwriting part, just the reading exercises. A lot of the tediousness is in the handwriting, I found.
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italianalaskan
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ditto. both my girls learned to read with 100 EZ.
But I have heard alot of people not liking it. I guess it depends on the child.
The important thing is to go slow at the beginning and make sure the child understand the steps. Don't skip anything except for the writing part that I don't believe is necessary.
Simona
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Sarah M
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Totally depends on the child, I think. With my oldest, we did one lesson a day (skipped the writing part altogether, though) until lesson 70 or so. By then she was reading quite well on her own and was bored with the book, so we moved on. She didn't particularly like doing it at all, but I was new to homeschooling and was nervous about her not reading yet (silly me), so I made her do it anyway. It doesn't seem to have done any permanent damage, but I probably wouldn't go that route with her again if given the choice.
My second daughter just started on that book. She does 10 minute "lessons" whenever she asks for them. That works much better for her. So sometimes we get through a whole lesson (or two) in 10 minutes, and sometimes she only gets through half of one. Basically, I wait for her to ask for a reading lesson. Then I drop what I'm doing, sit down for 10 minutes with her, and we pick up where we left off last time. I don't propose lessons or say "Now we're going to do a reading lessons" or anything of the sort. The ball is totally in her court. I'm enjoying it *much* more this time- and I think doing it this way is much more child-friendly than the way I did it with my oldest.
HTH!
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JodieLyn
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and I didn't use it at all.. didn't care for it and because my oldest can't combine sounds (there is a percentage of the population that can not learn reading through phonics) and after much frustration we switched to sight reading stuff.. flash cards.. she'd read the word if she knew it.. would try and sound it out once and then I would say the word and she would say the word and we'd move on. And that's what worked for her. Now I'm using CHC's Little Stories for Little Folk and fleshing it out with the white board (we're using it for spelling and they love getting to use it more right now  ) and using other early phonics books (like bob books) so that we're not just memorizing stories. And that's working too.
And I know people who's children have learned just by being read to a lot.
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EmilyK
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| Posted: Sept 25 2008 at 9:51pm | IP Logged
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We work on the lessons for two 10 sessions per day (3 back to back days). Thinking about adding 2 more 10 minute sessions per week to make it go quicker. I hope when we get to the actual "reading" of words, she will take more interest.
I think the writing is beneficial in that you write it, then say it. Helps to reinforce it in the memory. The part I don't like is the rhyming business & the say the (rather random) words slowly, then fast. I just don't understand how that works into the learning to read....
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cornomama4
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Since she's 5 you might take a break if she's not that interested. I had boys when I first tried this book and it DID NOT work, but after trying it for a few weeks and then laying off for about 6 months, they flew through the Bob Books (Well, one flew. The other kind of flip-flopped)
If she enjoys the writing and is competent physically with the mechanics of writing, go for it. But often 5's are still figuring out how to make that pencil go where they want.
The thing I didn't like about 100EZL was the different sized letters for different blends. That's not how "real" writing looks, and all the extra symbols and sizes just became confusing. Fresh minds that are trying to figure out the tangible implications of all these new symbols and shapes (what's the difference on parer between 2 and 9?) have enogh to wade trhough without some arbitrarily morphed letters appearing and then suddenly disappearing.
The book is a product of an educational movement (phonics vs. whole language) and though it has worked for so many, it is not the answer for everyone. Maybe do another way for a bit...magnetic letters on the fridge, a dry-erase board, reading aloud with your finger running under the words...etc. 5 is very young, IMHO.
cm4
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Maddie
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I used it for my first two children with success. My 3rd son, after a very difficult lesson, cried, "You should get your money back for that book, they cheated you. Those lessons aren't easy."
It depends on the child.
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Rachel May
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EmilyK wrote:
The part I don't like is the rhyming business & the say the (rather random) words slowly, then fast. I just don't understand how that works into the learning to read....
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I've found that often there are things in the early years or early stages of learning that seem pointless that later make sense. Sometimes it is worthwhile to persevere. (Memorization is one that springs to mind.)
Rhyming in 100 EZ builds confidence by helping the child learn to add sounds together using a predictable pattern that lets the child be sucessful most of the time. Meet, seat, rope, soap.
The 'say it slow, say it fast' mimics sounding out a word and then saying it correctly, the way a new reader does, without adding the complication of trying to read the sounds too.
Both of these exercises have been very beneficial for my reader who we were told has a hard time blending sounds. The speech pathologist offered to provide special training in sound blending for several hundred dollars a month, but I've found 100 EZ has helped us through that problem. 
My early 5 yos have not thrived on 100 EZ, but instead of trying other resources, I've waited. Each time I've found that several months' wait made the program usable. The kids haven't had a problem transitioning from the special letters in the book and none of us has died of boredom yet. 
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DeAnn M
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I am using, "Reading Made Easy" with my 5-year-old this year. It is similar to 100 easy lessons, but I really like it a lot better. It seems to be more CM-like with narrations and at the end of each lesson your child chooses a book to read together and picks out sounds he/she has just learned.
The book is kind of hard to find but worth the effort.
Happy Reading!
DeAnn
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EmilyK
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| Posted: Oct 07 2008 at 5:17pm | IP Logged
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Update:
After 4 "painful" weeks of doing the 100 Easy Lessons, we've decided to take a break from it. My St Thomas Aquinas Academy suggested laying it aside and working on a letter/sound a week until about Christmas.
We'll see how that goes.
I'm relieved - so is my dd!
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mariB
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I have used 100 Easy Lessons with four of our children and I'm on our fifth round with our 5 year old daughter. We take the lessons slowly.
With my first child, I made the mistake of following the lessons to the "t" and it was PAINFUL! Now I do not do the writing portion.
- I make letters with a yellow highlighter that my 5 year old traces. She chooses what letters she would like to learn.
-for the lessons I may use the flash cards I make
-i teach her to sound out slowly
-we read childrens books with the ABC's in them and focus on things around the house beginning with the particular letter we are learning.
-we use Get REady for the Code...because she feels big with her workbook(only about once or twice a week when she asks for it)
- We do not do handwriting that much at all. I like to wait until the child is 6 or 7 unless they are begging me to do so.
Sorry to hear it is painful. Maybe making flash cards that match the lessons might help. With our five year old we are only on lesson 11...so that tells you how slowly we move. she's just happy to read a few words. Our flash cards consist of only m,s,t,a,d,e,r. With a couple of my children we only went to about lesson 75 and then started using simple readers along with flash cards.
I hope this helps a little. When I think of how I teach our 5 year old and how i taught my oldest at 5, I see how my teaching style differs. WE do a lot of hands on stuff along with reading literature and counting things. School time is weaved within our 5 year old's life throughout the day and if we don't get to it, I know we will at some point in the week.
A letter a week is a wonderful idea!!! And...your child will learn to read with whatever method you use!
Blessings,
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marib-Mother to 22ds,21ds,18ds,15dd,11dd and wife to an amazing man for 23 years
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knowloveserve
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FWIW: We hated that book. My son detests anything that requires a lot of repetition and he was very frustrated with having to constantly repeat things that he "already learned."
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Barbara C.
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| Posted: Oct 09 2008 at 5:38pm | IP Logged
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When my oldest was about 3 1/2 she said she wanted to know how to read. I held her off until age 4 and started working in 100 Easy lessons. She found it very tedious. We both had some pronunciation problems (maybe it's the Southern accent). And I found that some of the letter pronunciations they recommended actually interfered with her ability to blend sounds to make words later.
I think the biggest issue was that even though she had the desire her brain just wasn't ready. I also don't know if the design didn't really fit her personality. I think the book did give her a basics of letter sounds (as far as we got), but I am sure we could have accomplished that in other ways.
Sadly, the whole thing turned her off of reading completely. We didn't do much of anything for almost a year with reading. While she is really doing well reading simple three letter words (I made worksheets with the paper folded in sixths. A 3-letter word is written at the bottom of each box. She reads and then draws a picture for the word.), she still freaks out if I try to get her to read words strung together in a sentence.
With my next, I definitely plan to hold her off of any formal reading lessons until she is closer to six. If she figures it out on her own more power to her.  If she doesn't, I may try 100 Easy Lessons again if I think it will be a good fit for her. She does tend to have more focus in general.
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4Real Forums : Language Arts Come Alive
Topic: Teach...to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
