Finished!

Last week we finished Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I'm so proud of Lincoln for getting through it, and I am amazed at the progress he's made in his reading while we've been working with this book.

In the first lesson starts off very slow and simple, not even reading words yet, but going over letter sounds. Like this:

And by Lesson 100 the child is reading full page stories, like this:

What I like about the program, is that everything is very gradual. There are no big skill jumps. Everything is just routinely worked in and builds onto itself nicely and easily, so that you never really notice the new concepts. I also like that there is zero prep work involved. When Lincoln and I wanted to do a reading lesson, we simply grabbed the book, opened up to where we left off and went for it. Everything is scripted out for you, so you can either read it word for word, or, once you get a feel for their style, you can add-lib most all of it.  (That being said, I do highly recommend reading the teacher intro/preface to the book, before starting it with your child, because it explains the method and what they're trying to accomplish. It will help the book make more sense.)

Aaron and I decided that finishing all 100 lessons what a pretty big accomplishment, so as a reward, Lincoln got to go with Daddy and pick out a new $10 Lego set to add to his collection. He picked a firetruck that pulls a trailer, and has some cute (is that word appropriate in this context?) little Lego fireman guys that go along with it. Linc put it together all by himself in about 2 hours the next morning. He was pretty pleased with him self on both accounts (Finishing the reading book, and building the firetruck without help).

So what's next for us as far as reading? Well, we'll be reading a lot of books together. I have a pretty good collection of the Step-into-Reading and I-Can-Read series of books. Also, we're going to try a program called Funnix, which is by the same authors as Teach Your Child To Read, only it's a computer version. Basically, it's a very similar format as the book, only Linc and I sit at the computer together, and I click the mouse to turn the "pages" and a lady voice reads all the parts that I would have read in the book. (That is if I don't just decide to mute her and do it myself :) ) I'm not thrilled with the idea of it being on the computer, I'd rather it be in book format again. But I do like the way the lessons are organized and the way they teach new concepts, so we're going to give it a try.