Teach a Child to Read with Children's Books

[amyc78]

I just finished reading this book and the method makes a lot of sense to me as a very organic way to teach reading. I would modify it some I think to suit us- adding a little more phonics instruction than he suggests. Just wanted feedback from anyone who's used this method and how it looked on a daily basis in your homeschool.

[SoCalLynn]

I taught both of my daughters to read by reading to them a lot, spelling simple words as we read while underlining the word with my finger, looking at and reading our colorful children's dictionary (it was a favorite of both my girls), and spell-and-say words everywhere we went, such as the grocery store. We read Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman, Robert Lopshire, Beatrix Potter and other simple books.  My oldest went to public school K-12, but my youngest was homeschooled starting in 2nd. When my youngest was in K her teacher was conducting the routine weekly testing and was shocked that her reading tested at +6th grade, which she said was as high as she could be tested. I only got a formal phonics program when we began homeschooling because her spelling was terrible. It was Spell to Write and Read.  For my girls, at least, this method worked beautifully, and in fact I never set out to formally teach them to read, I just wanted learning to read to be natural and fun.