Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 400 pages
- Published by: W. W. Norton & Company October 30, 2004
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0972860312
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0972860314
-
Book Dimensions:
10.9 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Product Description
A plain-English guide to teaching phonics. Every parent can teach reading-no experts need apply! Too many parents watch their children struggle with early reading skills-and don't know how to help. Phonics programs are too often complicated, overpriced, gimmicky, and filled with unusual educationalese.
The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading cuts through the confusion, giving parents a simple, direct, scripted guide to teaching reading-from short vowels through supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This one book supplies parents with all the tools they need.
Over the years of her teaching career, Jessie Wise has seen good reading instruction fall prey to trendy philosophies and political infighting. Now she has teamed with dynamic coauthor Sara Buffington to supply parents with a clear, direct phonics program-a program that gives them the know-how and confidence to take matters into their own hands.
About The Author
Jessie Wise has decades of experience as a classroom teacher, elementary school principal, private tutor, and educational consultant. She is the co-author of the best-selling
The Well-Trained Mind and the groundbreaking elementary grammar text
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind.
Sara Buffington is a teacher, writer, and children's book editor.
Reader ReviewsI am a teacher and a Language Arts' specialist. Because I am home schooling my own child, I ordered Wise's book as I felt I wanted a book specific to phonics instruction (and I love The Well-Trained Mind). I didn't want my son to miss something important along the way (yes, even teachers feel insecure about their own kids). Although it's helpful to think about different vowel sounds and consent blends/digraphs, I find that Wise's very structured lessons are too limiting for us. Maybe it's my kid, but he is much more interested in learning to read in context than through the lessons (The Bob Books are a big hit, as are the I Can Read books). In fact, he even says the "boring" word when I pull out the book. Uh Oh. We do little bits throughout the day and I only focus on those areas where I can see he needs more support (as he taught himself to read at the age of 4). We do try to get as silly as possible as there is great potential for making up extremely goofy rhymes thanks to the helpful lists of word families. A note of caution: Wise favours the terms "little a" and "big A", which can be confusing for children (upper case and lower case, although more technical, are more accurate descriptors than size). In addition, describing vowel sounds as "short" and "long" is also confusing for a child as you can draw out the "short" a in "cat" to be as long as the "long" a in "take". Unfortunately, these are the conventional terms used to differentiate vowel sounds; however, we choose to describe them differently at our house. For the insecure or inexperienced "teacher", this book will help you understand the important phonetic concepts to cover with your child. *Your* child may enjoy the lessons and you may have peace of mind that you are being thorough. I do urge you to keep in mind that most early readers are children who are frequently read to and that not all children are ready to read at a very young age. Certainly, not all children need rigid phonics instruction to learn to read (although knowledge of phonics is important but it can be taught in the context of reading aloud with your child). And feel free to deviate and make things a bit more fun (contrary to what Wise states, learning to read can be entertaining).
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