reading

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
$22.00
I don't usually find the time to write reviews on products but I just felt that I have to this time. Because of this book, my 5-year old son who started kindergarten in September learned how to read on the first day that we used this book. I have to admit I got obsessed that we covered more than 70 pages in one seating but we both got very excited when he started to get the concept and started reading all the words in the lessons. Even though most were only 3-letter words, the main thing is that he got the concept finally which I was not previously successful by just using flash cards, online reading activities and games on the computer and reading books to him. Now, he is so happy with his new found confidence in reading. I've recommended this book to all my friends who have kindergarteners and I am definitely recommending this to everyone who wants to get their preschoolers have a jumpstart on reading.

The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers
$16.99
"The Reading Zone" is a manifesto, and like all good manifestos it identifies a big problem and aims to fix it. The problem is the drop off in pleasure reading that occurs somewhere between elementary school and high school. Parents who faithfully read to their children and forked over advance purchase money for every Harry Potter sequel suddenly discover that those same children, now adolescents, disdain reading. Librarians design enticing book displays and keep up with the young adult booklists, teachers toss "The Scarlet Letter" in favor of more enticing fare ---but they sense they're on the losing side.

What is the culprit? TV? Computers? A shortened attention span? It certainly isn't a dearth of good and appealing books for students in middle and high school. Nancie Atwell, the author of "The Reading Zone" and a well known educator, blames the schools, and to some extent she is right, although big problems usually have more than one source. Atwell indicts the schools for failing to foster simple reading for pleasure, and her book offers a number of sensible and interesting ways to set that right. She also conveys, far better than anyone else I've read on the subject, the joy to be had when a book transports a child or young adult out of his or her life and into the lives of others.

"The Reading Zone" should be mandatory reading for language arts and English teachers. (It's not very long and it's relatively inexpensive, thus easy to pass around a department.) Atwell's jeremiad on the subject of how high school English teachers kill the pleasure kids might take in books is designed to make said teachers (I include myself) squirm. To some extent she is right, but she does not consider the intense pressures on high school kids whose leisure time is splintered by jobs, sports, SAT prep, and any other number of things. For a teenager, it can be hard simply to find time to read. If you're a teacher, you may not be able to institute her concept of a Reading Workshop, but you can take away many valuable ideas from this little book. The reading lists she has posted on her school's web site (mentioned in the book) are worth the price all by themselves.

Vtech Bugsby Reading System - Pen and Starter Book
$29.99
We first purchased the Tag for our (then) 5 year old son, but could not get the audio to download. After numerous emails to LeapFrog and many tries on several different (family & friends) computers, we just could not get it to work. Very disappointing as I felt that it was truly a quality product. The only book he can use with it is the one it came with.

Enter the Bugsby. Each book has it's own cartridge which has a place for storage inside the back cover. For that reason I gave it an extra star for "ease of use" (at least for us!). As long as you don't loose these you're good to go and can change out the cartridge for a new story as many times as you want(the Tag could only store 5 stories at a time, if you wanted to add more you add to remove another). The pen device works in the same manner as a Tag. It has a place for headphones to be plugged in, buttons to adjust the volume up and down and a "read the whole story" button.

As far as the book that comes with it goes, it's a simple story about how Bugsby, who has lost his glasses, searches within different stories (accompanied by his friends Josh and Hanna)to find them. Along the way it labels different animals, and includes "game" buttons on each page (with "stop", "repeat", "yes" and "no" buttons to be used with it). Games include things such as "Find the animal next to the squirrel", "What animal begins with this sound 'p'?", "Do these words have the same vowel sound, 'cup'/'mat'?" and have different levels. Touching in different areas of the book produce little silly sounds, characters saying a few phrases, and short songs. The back of the book includes a two page spread of the alphabet with games to go along with it and a "Story Writer" spread which allows the child to come up with several versions of a short story, changing the character, action and setting. The book has the option to read each individual page or the whole book. I would say the reading level is K-2 depending on the child.

Overall my son (and I) like this product. I don't think it offers quite as many games or levels of play as the Tag, and the way the narrator voice of the book says certain words sounds strange to me (the T's are overemphasized on certain words - other character voices are fine though). But considering the lower price and the fact that you don't have to worry about downloading anything, the Bugsby worked much better for us.

Reading Comprehension Success in 20 Minutes a Day, 3rd Edition (Skill Builders)
$16.00
If you read and can't understand what you just read, but you have to read several times, this is the book for you. This book will help you to break down the paragraphs in a way to understand so you read with a purpose. It also helps you to focus better on what you are doing since you have work to do, to obtain the jewel of understanding.