Can anyone give me some reviews on the book "the reading lesson" by michael leven and charan langton. For children aged 3 or 4?
Edited to add that this is a child who loves books and activly asks to learn to read. There is also lots and lots of play in this house. There is no forcing of academics here.
11 Replies
Please dont waste your childs valuable early childhood forcing learning to read. They have so much more important work to do, its called play. Leav them to it and watch them get busy and totally immersed in it.
There is lots and lots of play, indoor outdoor, craft, drawing, colouring, painting, play group dance and kinder one day a week. My child however has a great love of books and actually asks to learn to read alot. We read minimum of 8 books a day all of which she has asked for. So my question is about reviews of the book so that I could potentially help her do what she WANTS to do.
I understand where you are coming from as I am a huge believer in learning through play and not pushing academics but when she is asking for it I don't want to tell her no. Just want to find a way that will help that she may enjoy.
you can engage her without starting reading. Once she learns to read she will see the world differently. You always have a choice. My daughter also loves reading, she can retell stories, create puppets and shows, paint and create using play dough, learn the parts of a book, the way we read front to back left to right, different types of texts she can create books andother texts. She can analyse characters and learn about sequence. She can learn about types of stories true or not true, Fairytales, dreamtime stories.
She can use reading strategies, like looking at the cover to predict what the story will be about. Using the title to get an idea. Looking at the pictures throughout to predict what will happen. Then she can start with phonics. So perhaps the first letter of her name. The sound for it, not the name. And she can recognise it, find it, say it in the word.
Building solid foundations at this age is the best thing you can do for your child. following their interests is great, there are ways to do that while supporting their development.
Thank you so much for your non judgemental comment. We do alot of that already but there are a few things in there I will incorporate i to our story times so thank you. She knows pretty much all of her letter sounds and we talk about the stories as we read them. She points out the first letter of her name when she sees it snd the word "the" as she has somehow learned it already. And she recognises all upper and lower case letters already as she was rather obsessed with some foam bath letters that we had from a very young and and would always ask what they were. We read the books, sing them (even if they are not ryning ones haha) and try to guess where the story might go next. She picks books and makes up her own stories and "reads" them to me based on the pictures, yet she still wants to be able to really read and when I came across this book online I thought I might ask about it.
Another important aspect is word play. Rhymes, alliteration, same sounds, anything that builds vocab and ability to organise and make connections with words and sounds.
All the best she sounds a lot like my girl.
Thanks. I need to find some more rhyming books. We do have some but could probably benefit from getting some more. I ask her if things rhyme but she doesn't always know so we may need to do some more rhyming ones.
Honestly if she loves to read and loves books, she will learn how to read without a specific book. My niece is an early reader and we couldn't have stopped her reading. We would literally have had to hide all reading materials.
If you read a book together point at the words as you read them. Also read books like dr Seuss where there is a repetitive rhyme and get her to jump in and say the last word of the rhyme as you point to it.
That's basically how kids learn to read. If she points out a letter or a word and asks what it says then say it to her.
If she asks to learn how to read tell her this is how you learn to read. Something like that letterland books can teach the sounds which are far more important than the letter names.
Thank you very much! We have some Dr Seuss books somewhere, I'll have to find them. She knows her letter sounds and can identify the letters upper and lower case as she learned all this through us talking about them while playing with foam bath letters and reading books. This book looks at teaching them how to put the letter sounds together which is why I thought it might be good rather than just teaching her what the word looks like as a whole. She is my eldest so I have never taught anyine to read before.
Good on you for listening to her and wanting to proceed! My nephew already reads a lot and he is 4, he showed a massive interest and wanted to. They don't really focus on books though, they do little place cards with the words on them. Simple things like I, A, me, you, the, and, to etc. Super basic words. When they're reading if they come across such words he gets really excited that he knows them and joins in.
Personally I don't think Dr Seuss books are a good starting point as the words are large and whilst they do rhyme, they actual storyline is hard to follow and even as an adult I sometimes get jumbled reading it.
Thank you for the positive comment. I do like to follow her lead when it comes to learning. She was never really interested in dr suess so its been a long time since we read them but I guess rhyming is pretty important too. I think we have other rhyming books though and we have just joined the library so are borrowing lots from there for variety. I'm not a fan of flash cards as they seem boring to me and I dont know if she would enjoy them but we have some somewhere so I might bring them out and see what she thinks. Variety in "reading" activities can only help right?
I haven't heard of the book so can't comment on it specifically, but it sounds like you're on the right track with what you're doing. If you want something to extend on what you're doing, try Reading Eggs (google for website). It focuses on letter names and sounds, them moves on to sight words and reading. My eldest was 5 when he started the program (didn't really need the program and advanced quickly through the lessons). My youngest was 3 when he started only because big brother was doing it (I checked with his speech pathologist first and was told it was one of the better programs). It helped with his speech as well as learning to read.