Things I LOVE: Reading

How to Teach Your Preschooler to Read
I LOVE to read and I wanted my kids to experience the LOVE of reading as well. I've discovered a couple of secrets to teaching my kids how to read.
1. Read to your kids when they are super young!!
2. Introduce letters at an early age. I start at about a year. I found the coolest DVD from LeapFrog. It's called, The Letter Factory. I put it on when I need a few minutes to get some things done and it's awesome. My kids know the letters of the alaphbet and the sounds the letters make by the time they turn two just from watching this DVD. I also put letter magnets on the fridge and they play with them and put sounds together. So awesome!
3. The best thing I've ever done for my kids' education was to sit down with them for 20 minutes a day and go through the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons a Day. The book is fail-proof!! It does take time and patience, but if you're willing to dedicate 20 minutes a day, it works wonders! My kids are great readers and I blame this book! It's amazing!! If you have little ones, buy it today!!

Here's the info:
Product Description
* Is your child halfway through first grade and still unable to read?
* Is your preschooler bored with coloring and ready for reading?
* Are you worried that your child will become lost in overcrowded classrooms?
* Did you know that early readers hold an advantage over their peers throughout school?
* Do you want to help your child read, but are afraid you'll do something wrong?

SRAs DISTAR® is the most successful beginning reading program available to schools across the country. Research has proven that children taught by the DISTAR® method outperform their peers who receive instruction from other programs. Now for the first time, this program has been adapted for parent and child to use at home. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is a complete, step-by-step program that shows patents simply and clearly how to teach their children to read.

Twenty minutes a day is all you need, and within 100 teaching days your child will be reading on a solid second-grade reading level. It's a sensible, easy-to-follow, and enjoyable way to help your child gain the essential skills of reading. Everything you need is here -- no paste, no scissors, no flash cards, no complicated directions -- just you and your child learning together. One hundred lessons, fully illustrated and color-coded for clarity, give your child the basic and more advanced skills needed to become a good reader.

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons will bring you and your child closer together, while giving your child the reading skills needed now, for a better chance at tomorrow.

About the Author
Siegfried Engelmann is a professor of education at the University of Oregon, and has written many books on teaching, including Give Your Child a Superior Mind. He is the originator of Direct Instruction, the most successful approach to teaching, and he has developed more than thirty direct instruction programs. He has provided teaching demonstrations with a wide range of children -- consistently showing that they could learn much more than had been achieved with traditional teaching.