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Comment by asimeqi | Hacker News Reader

I think this is the thread where I should recommend the best book to teach reading: Let's Read, a Linguistic Approach http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-A-Linguistic-Approach/dp/081...

I got the recommendation here in HN and I used the book with my 2 daughters. I started with my first daughter when she was 4.5 years old. I started with my second daughter at an older age because she was showing a slight case of dyslexia. It took 2 years to finish the book with each of them. After they were done they could read everything. My second daughter is 9 and is almost done with Oliver Twist. Read this comment by tokenadult: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4665466

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I would appreciate links to similarly helpful tools for early childhood education for any subject (or language).

"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" has been recommended ancedata-ly to me.

I've also anecdotally heard good things regarding "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" -- does anyone have direct experience with both that book and "Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach" (and if so, a recommendation for one over the other)?

I'm currently using "Teach your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons." with my 3 year old. He hasn't had trouble with the reading, but a few of the exercises were too long for him.

It uses the DISTAR method which seems to have the most empirical evidence supporting it. (The controversy over DISTAR appears to me to be that it's boring for the teacher)

I concur. We used that book to teach three of our children to read at ages 3 to 4 and it is mind numbing. It worked for our kids though. One of them was reading "The Hobbit" when she was 5 years old and except for being a professional musician she's more or less a normal young adult now.

I used it on two kids. They now both score on standardized tests as reading far in advance of their grade level. This leads to difficulties wherein much of the material available at their level of technical proficiency does not match with either their maturity levels or with their specific interests.

Neither of them actually finished all 100 lessons. At some point, they both preferred moving on to actual books rather than doing the remaining lessons. So a little boring for the student as well, apparently.

I had the same exact experience with 2 of my sons. Will start the third (5) on it (Teach Your Child to Read...) this summer.

Not quite the same kind of tool but you might enjoy http://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf

I also used this book with both my sons. It worked amazingly. The oldest one is one of the best readers in the state if the assessment is to be believed. I suspect a lot of the value is the time with the parent actually doing the work of teaching. But the book itself is arranged in such a way that the reading patterns are highlighted and reinforced.

When our first son was three years old we would stick his high chair in front of the TV at lunch time, give him food, and turn on a Leap Frog phonics DVD. We had three: 1) Letter Factory, 2) Talking Words Factory, and 3) Talking Words Factory II. Our son absolutely loved these and wanted to watch them over and over again every day. Within about four months he started spontaneously reading things like the sign in a business window that says "open". Within a year or so he could read whole children's books. I couldn't believe it. With our next son, we waited patiently until he was three and tried it again: same result. The only other thing we did (which took much more effort) was read them bedtime stories every night before bed. With that, we had two boys reading before they started school. I can't recommend these DVDs enough.

Honestly I bet it doesn't matter what products or setup you use - sounds like you as parents made words and reading a ever-present part of the environment. I'm 98% sure that general atmosphere is important and has big results, regardless of the fine specifics of technique & etc. But that's just my intuition

I also got the recommendation for that book from HN; specifically from a user who maintains this site: http://learninfreedom.org/readbook.html

We used it with our son, with fantastic results. He’s now almost seven and reads voraciously.

Edit: on review, I got the rec from the same user you did. Years later and I’m even more grateful he shared that book here.

Is there a similar book for French or German?

Isn't it too early Oliver Twist at 9? I read it in my 40s and found it quite frightening

I was probably exposed to (mostly in film, not reading) Dickens, including Twist, at around that age. When kids are young enough, they aren't so frightened by that sort of thing because they simply don't get it. They know the words that are being used, but they don't really understand the real-world situations and insinuations that the words convey.

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