S/O Reading too young: 100 EZ Lessons

[Tammi K]

I was reading the 'too young' thread and a lot of people mentioned using 100 EZ Lessons and it got me wondering, for the parents who used this book with their children, how many of your children actually NEEDED all 100 lessons?

 

There just seems to be something about the method that 'clicks' with so many kids that the vast number of people I know who used it all found their kids just took off with reading about midway through the book. Of course, I also know people who didn't have success with it with one or more kids.

 

At any rate, I would love to hear anecdotal reports if you used the book. How many lessons did it take your child before they were reading on their own?

[mom2att]

I went through about half of the book with my oldest, then we stopped to take a break when her brother was born.  We never went back to it because she was already reading everything in sight.  She was 4.

 

100EZ Lessons was not successful with my younger two.  Lots and lots and lots of repetition with phonics and lots and lots and lots of very slooooow reading was what it took with them.  They also read much later than their sister.

 

But she's always been my easiest kid :-)

 

 

[Jackie]

We only made it about 10-12 lessons in. We were doing lessons only when my young reader wanted them, and she just stopped asking at that point. She said it was "boring" and she didn't want to do it any more. After a while, I was curious and asked her to try a lesson quite a bit further into the book, and it turned out she could already do that one. We switched to Bob Books, which were much easier to adjust to her own pace and she took off from there.

[Beth S]

We taught all 5 of our kids to read (at about age 5), using 100EZL . . . but I'm not a script-reader, and more of a spontaneous teacher.

 

My kids loved the cartoons in 100EZL.

 

I routinely tell others that:  It's not 100 days.  It's not easy.  and I try not to make it seem like a lesson.

We may take 2 days for one lesson.

When the child is overwhelmed, we'll just drop back and re-read prior lessons' cartoons.

Once the child can slowly read something like "Frog & Toad", we just stop.

 

I think the final lessons in the book are geared for Grade 2 . . . so you really don't need to make it to the end of the book.

It's homeschool--you get to personalize the experience. :)

 

[rose]

Both my older two struggled to learn to read but for different reasons. 100 EZ lessons wasn't our first attempt at reading. We tried alphaphonics, McGuffey primer and Abeka readers first.

 

My ds just couldn't sit still and concentrate long enough to bother reading until he was about 7. We used 100 EZ lessons and he was doing quite well before the end of the book. He just adored the silly stories so we kept reading them. I'm not sure at what point we could have dropped it but it was definitely before the end of the book.

 

My dd at age 7 worked her way through the book but when the lessons dropped the mark-up (somewhere around lesson 80) she floundered miserably. She was so sad. She had felt like she was reading but then she couldn't keep it up. It just didn't click. About six months later we started Spell to Read and Write and that did the trick for her. I think that she really needed it spelled out for her that letters and phonograms can make different sounds and that reading could be approached in a systematic manner.

[RootAnn]

None of my started reading spontaneously in the middle of 100EZ.

I've never had a kid who could read fluently at the end of 100EZ.

I've had some that didn't make it all the way through for various reasons -- and we switched to something else.

 

I have used it for four of my five kids so far & like it as a first reading exposure. But it has never been The Thing for us.

Ds#1 got about halfway through (having to go back & re-do some lessons & definitely taking multiple days for some lessons) before we took a break from it. I might go back to it in a little bit & have him work on the lessons in the back (after they drop the marking system & have introduced capital letters) in a couple of weeks. We always have plenty of "learn to read" materials in the house to pick from to practice fluent reading. My kids need it.

[Btervet]

We just finished (as in last week) 100EZ Lessons, and loved it here. DS is 4, and he isn't fluent yet. We also just finished up the Bob books. Both BOB books and 100EZ were appropriately challenging all the way to the end, but never overwhelming, so we both really enjoyed them. DS is able to read most stage 1 readers we pick up at the library, but I'm not entirely sure what grade level he would be. We are now quickly going through OPGTR (4-5 lessons a day so far) to learn the phonics rules, since neither 100EZ or BOB taught them explicitly. 

 

I never did use the script, and he only ever read through each story once, so maybe that's why he enjoyed it more than some people seem to? We found that the special symbols and character were very helpful at the start, and DS has no trouble transitioning away from them.

[rose]

I hope that this isn't too much of a thread hijack...

 

I just had a thought. My boy has a terrible time remembering to capitalize words. I was just wondering if the lack of capitalization through out the beginning of the book was responsible for this. Have any of you had the same experience with children that learned to read with 100 EZ lessons?

[RootAnn]

I just had a thought. My boy has a terrible time remembering to capitalize words. I was just wondering if the lack of capitalization through out the beginning of the book was responsible for this. Have any of you had the same experience with children that learned to read with 100 EZ lessons?

 

Yes. And I had this same thought. But I decided not to beat myself up over it too much as some programs teach with only capital letters at the beginning - yet kids don't necessarily write in all caps after that.

[lots of little ducklings]

I've taught 3 children with 100EZ, and am currently teaching 2 more.

 

Of the three olders, one had no need to complete it (I think we abandoned it around lesson 80?).  She understood decoding fairly intuitively and her reading took off quickly without any additional phonogram instruction. The other two completed the program; one was reading somewhat fluently by the end (but I wouldn't say at a 2nd grade level), and the other child (with dyslexia) still struggled by the end of the book but is now (at fifth grade) doing well.  

 

I agree that it isn't a complete phonics program, but in all fairness, the epilogue itself addresses this.  It directs the teacher to continue to teach multi-letter phonograms that the book did not introduce.  (For this, we moved on to WRTR and found it to be an easy transition.)  

 

The strengths of the program, I think, are:

• (gasp….!) the (infamous) crazy font at the beginning of the program.  Multiple sounds for a single phonogram are eliminated at first, which really helps the child conquer reading in one small manageable step at a time. None of the children I taught had trouble transitioning from this as we progressed through the book toward a normal font.  I did teach one of the major roles of silent "e" (to lengthen a preceding vowel) when it became appropriate in the book to explain its purpose. The book did not do this, and I wish it had.  But otherwise I followed the book's content.  
• the fact that it is not writing-centered. For a child who is developmentally ready to write (and enjoys it), writing is a big boost.  But for all those kiddos who hate writing until they are 7 or 8 (or 12, or never), I see no reason to mix the two at the start.  100EZ let me teach my son to read years before he was ready to handle WRTR.  
• the fact that it creates an automatic association between letter-symbol and sound (not symbol, then name, then sound).  Yes, this means my DS (age 7) still occasionally uses a letter sound instead of name when reading the chart at the ophthalmologist's office.  For the sake of fluency, I can live with that.   :001_smile:
• the fact that it really is easy.  Pull it off the shelf and you are ready to go; no prep (except learning the font before you use it the first time, which is also very easy), no manipulatives, no major expense to possibly regret later on.  

 

[maize]

I've used this book with at least two of my children (can't remember if I used it with the child in between those two or not) together with a mish-mash of other materials. I've never gone clear through, at some point my kids do just start making the leap to independent reading.

[TracyP]

Child 1 - Went through 78 lessons in 3 months, then moved into easy readers (Danny and the Dinosaur, Dr. Seuss)

 

#2 - He went through lesson 67 before starting easy readers.

 

#3 - Started at 5.5, but got stuck pretty early on. Switched to PP/AAS/ETC/the kitchen sink ;) and couldn't get past ccvc/cvcc words. Restarted 100EZL at almost 7yo and he is flying through. He is on lesson 77 and reading easy readers, but I will continue to end because the comprehension questions are valuable for him. 

 

#4 - Currently on lesson 61 and reading easy readers. We will drop 100EZL when his brother finishes - they get a raisin for each word or sentence read. There will be an uprising if anyone misses out on this.

 

#5 - She demands that I teach her to read. We are on lesson 21... Same as above, we will drop when bro finishes because -

 

I also want to torch this book. Not because it doesn't work, it has been a huge success at my home. But right now I am teaching 3!!! kids from this book which means I spend an hour per day with it. Seriously, I daydream about burning it. :laugh:

 

[dirty ethel rackham]

Someone gave us 100EZ Lessons.  I had planned on using it with my first, but he taught himself to read so he really only needed a phonics program to reinforce spelling since he really didn't know the phonics rules.  I pulled it out to teach my second son.  He was doing really well in it until we got past lesson 70.  They dropped their special lexicon around then and we learned that ds did not know how to read real words; he was decoding their symbols.  So, I had to go back and re-teach him everything he had was supposed to have learned without their visual cues.  With our last child, OPGTR was available so we used it and were very pleased with the results.  With my last two children, it seemed that they really took off reading after the summer after second grade ... they each went from struggling through pathway readers to reading Harry Potter ... all within the space of 3 months. 

[ThursdayNext]

So how does OPGTR compare to 100EZ lessons?

I'm thinking of switching.

I wrote the reading too young post, and since then my 3 year old and I have read a couple more BOB books, looked at the first few lessons in 100EZ, looked at some phonogram cards from WRTR. The first few lessons in 100EZ are way too easy for him, since he gets blending and letter sounds. He doesn't know about 2 letter phonograms or silent e, that sort of thing yet.

 

I'm not sure that I love 100EZ, but I loved the daily lesson plan and script (not that I'm following it exactly.) toward the end my daughter liked 100EZ better, but mostly it was a struggle, no fun.

But with WRTR, when we were on break from 100EZ, she missed having a story to read. And she was not able to memorize phonograms very quickly. We plan to pick up with WRTR as she needs a lot more phonics education, but I do miss that already planned lesson.

[duckens]

 

Tammi K asks:

How many lessons did it take your child before they were reading on their own?

Define "reading on their own."

 

1) Dd7 did 100EL at age ~4-5.  She could read easy readers (BOB books, etc) by the end of the 100 Lessons, but wasn't particularly motivated to seek out books to "read" on her own.  She WOULD look at books on her own, but I'm not sure that she would read even the "easy readers" on her own unless we read them together as "shared reading" at reading time.

 

2) For us, 100EL is a part of a continuum of good reading and comprehension. 

--We started with a program called PAL that my best friend (a reading specialist in the public school system) gave me.  This is NOT the PAL Reading from IEW; it is at least a decade older than that.

--We do 100EL.

--Onward to Saxon Phonics.  Not fancy, but effective. 

--For the next step, I am looking at Logic of English.

 

3) Dd has completed Saxon Phonics K, Saxon Phonics 1, and is now in Saxon Phonics 2.  This year, she is breezing through the program, doing several lessons a day, and easily completing my required 5 lessons/week.  Her reading has zoomed ahead since even last spring.

 

However, dd7 discovered Graphic Novels last year, and our library has an enviable collection of them.  Plus they will order her almost anything she asks for.   So now she DOES read on her own, and I can tell how advanced her reading has become when we read together now: either for Phonics Lesson or for fun.  And once in a while, I catch her reading a non-graphic novel type of book.

[dirty ethel rackham]

So how does OPGTR compare to 100EZ lessons?

I'm thinking of switching.

I wrote the reading too young post, and since then my 3 year old and I have read a couple more BOB books, looked at the first few lessons in 100EZ, looked at some phonogram cards from WRTR. The first few lessons in 100EZ are way too easy for him, since he gets blending and letter sounds. He doesn't know about 2 letter phonograms or silent e, that sort of thing yet.

 

I'm not sure that I love 100EZ, but I loved the daily lesson plan and script (not that I'm following it exactly.) toward the end my daughter liked 100EZ better, but mostly it was a struggle, no fun.

But with WRTR, when we were on break from 100EZ, she missed having a story to read. And she was not able to memorize phonograms very quickly. We plan to pick up with WRTR as she needs a lot more phonics education, but I do miss that already planned lesson.

 

OPGTR is scripted like 100EZ lessons, but so much more thorough.  I think it takes all the good things that 100 EZ lessons had but does not have that lexicon, which can create problems for some kids.  We did not do every activity in OPGTR, and we took lots of breaks when she would get frustrated.  I did a little bit of MCP phonics just to reinforce what we were learning when she needed breaks.  It was a cheap supplement.  We also used Pathway Readers.  It took us two years to go through OPGTR.  We did find out that dd had some minor tracking problems so we had to work on those as well.  About 3 months after completing OPGTR, dd's reading took off ... like reading Eragon and its sequels in one summer and reading the entire Harry Potter series the next (unbeknownst to me ... I thought she was on the 2nd book when she announced that she was done with the series.)