Learn to Read Activity Book: 101 Fun Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read

This book has actually been really helpful for teaching early reading and phonics. The lessons are simple to follow and broken down in a way that keeps kids interested without feeling too overwhelming. I like that it mixes reading practice with fun little activities. What worked best for us was doing short sessions every day instead of trying to rush through it. Repeating the sounds and words often really helped with remembering them. It’s also nice for building confidence because the lessons gradually get a little harder over time. The pages are colorful and easy to understand, and overall it feels like a good learning tool for preschool or kindergarten kids starting to read. Definitely worth having for extra practice at home.

For the past few months I have been searching for a decent (reasonably priced) activity book that will teach my four year old how to read, but I wasn't satisfied with any until I found this one! I find that most of the activity books out there do not follow any logical order, it's become increasingly common to just throw together a hodgepodge of sight words and vowels in one book, and make believe that the child will magically start reading without building on concepts and giving him the tools he needs to master the art of reading. Another thing that annoyed me was that a lot of activity books would start with four letter words before introducing to the child simpler words like "cat" and "hot". Like why on earth would you teach your child the words "door" "duck" "have" before teaching him simple word families like "at" "ug" "ot" and so forth before moving forward. Even three letter words like "see" "are" "you" that don't follow the normal rules of english grammar should not be taught to a child before they can master the words that do follow the rules like "cat" "log" and "pig". I felt that just bombarding my child with sight words would never work, since there is that many words he can memorize before he forgets everything. This book is the only book that actually builds on concepts and does not confuse the child by introducing myriads of sight words to memorize. This book is extremely methodical and systematic and follows a very logical order, it starts by introducing single letters, then goes on to introduce your child to word families like "at" "ot" "it" and so forth. Your child will only encounter three letter words until lesson 41 where simple sight words like "I" and "A" are first introduced. The activities are quite exciting, the letters and pictures are sharp and big so your child has no problem reading them and stringing vowels and words together. Sight words are only introduced occasionally but the bulk of the book focuses on regular three letter words that your child alone can put together after he's given the tools and taught all the vowel sounds. Four letter words which the author calls blend words like "clip" and "club" are first introduced in lesson 49! Note: this book does not teach the long vowel sounds, only the short vowel sounds. So if you're looking for long vowel sounds this book is not for you. I cannot promise that your child will learn to read from this book alone. By the time I found this book I already taught my four-year old how to recognize basic word families like "at" and "ot", so he was already familiar with these words and was able to apply these concepts, more or less, to unfamiliar word families like "ug" and "ip". Introducing word families to your child can be a very challenging task, and I wonder if my experience with this book would have been the same if I had to teach him all that from scratch (for example the author doesn't have a page about beginning and ending sounds, concepts which I taught my child way before I got this book). As for the ability of this book to keep my child's attention and focus, it's also hard to say, my child is academically inclined and would do even not-such exciting activities if it's challenging enough for him and stimulates his brain, and this is one thing he does not struggle with, so I can't say with certainty, but compared to other books we had in the past the activities in this book do not disappoint. Here are couple of pros that I summarized for you: <Clear instructions for the teacher or parent to follow< <Big and easy-to-spot letters and words< <Vivid pictures and nice graphics< <Exciting activities (although they can get boring as the book drags on)< <Structured in a very logical order by introducing word families first, then moving on to sight words (but not too much), and finally to blend words< <Uses pictograms to help the child string together sentences (I elaborate on this below)< I cannot recommend this book enough. My child is already reading much better, and this book has definitely helped him grasp vowels and word families and recognize them more easily. Please do not hesitate to buy this, you won't be disappointed! I only wish this book had been longer or that the author had written a sequel to this book to teach long vowel sounds, the book as it is now (only teaches short vowel sounds) shows my child only the tip of the iceberg, but there is so much more he needs to learn in order to be able to read all by himself. In any case, my child is absorbing a lot, and I'm very grateful for that! P.S. Now about the part that really impresses me with the pictograms to help my child finish a sentence on his own, here it is: in lesson 41 the author introduces the sight words "I" and "A". Instead of including more sight words like "see" and "car" and bombarding the child with too many sight words, the author manages to structure a sentence without the actual words by substituting them with pictograms, so in the place of "see" the author has a picture of an "eye", and in the place of "car", the author has a picture of a car. So it looks like this "I (#eye) a (#car)", now the child can string his first sentence together by interpreting the pictograms and reading out loud "I see a car", plus he has learnt two new sight words ("I" and "a"). That's what I call brilliant methodology!

This is an attractive, well crafted book with cute illustrations and a range of engaging activities for young children. Is it by itself sufficient to teach your child to read? Of course not, as no single book could achieve that unless it was incredibly thick and a lot of practice and repetition is required for a child to become a proficient reader. But it is a useful and worthwhile supplement to whatever reading program your child is doing, for example at their school. However, parents who are not American should be aware that the English in this book is American - not only the spelling, but also the vocabulary (e.g. 'flashlight' instead of 'torch', 'crib' instead of 'cot', 'check' instead of 'tick'). And I just know that my Australian granddaughter will look at the book's cute illustration of an alligator (used to illustrate the sound made by the letter 'a') and see a crocodile. None of this is an insurmountable problem, but it does mean to use this book non-American parents will have to teach their children the American names for some items if the children are to successfully complete some of the activities.

A useful book for the kids who just started to read. Please note that this isn't a kid's activity book which they can do it their own. Also not for those who just started with ABCs. Parents'/Elders' guidance is a must for this. My kid loves to read and do the activities in this!

I was homeschooling when I bought this for my daughter, it taught her to read. It's simple, fun and she loved doing it. I am now buying one for my son, as we live in France now and I have to teach them English.