YOU Can Teach Someone to Read, 2nd Edition: A How-to Book for Friends, Parents, and Teachers: Step-by-Step Detailed Directions to Provide Any Reader the Necessary Tools to Easily Teach Someone to Read
As indicated by the title, this book was written to equip any reader for the purpose of teaching someone else to read. As homeschoolers, we are usually teaching our own children, one or two at a time, to read and spell. Oftentimes, parents think that because they haven't been specially trained in teaching skills they will not be qualified to teach their own children. To dispel this myth, this book's author, Lorraine Peoples, states in her Introduction: "This book was written because I strongly believe that any reader can help someone else learn to read." This clearly-written, user-friendly guidebook provides any reader with a day-by-day plan to teach phonics and reading comprehension to any student. Each lesson states at the beginning how long the author expects the lesson to last, then proceeds to give detailed procedures for each day. Of course each user can go at his own pace, but the sequential presentation of the lessons assure that the user will always know what to do next.  Everything you need to get started is detailed in the first of six units. Starting with the basics, Mrs. Peoples discusses finding your student's learning style, finding any physical problems that might affect reading, determining his interests, and involving the entire family. She then reviews the procedures for presenting the lessons from the book and evaluating your student's current knowledge. The author explains the importance of evaluating your student's progress as the lessons are mastered, and the evaluations are inserted where needed as the final step of the lessons.  The next three units give step-by-step lessons covering all the phonics rules and the most common sight words. The rules are presented in simple "silly stories" that help the students remember when the rules are applied. There are many illustrations throughout these units, allowing visual learners to form concrete images with which to remember the phonics rules. Instructions are given to transfer these stories and illustrations to overhead transparencies for classroom use…. Emphasis is on decoding, which gives the student the tools he needs to read most words in our language. The silly stories are very appealing to young children, as they help dispel the "mystery" of reading and give the students confidence in their ability to understand. The illustrations are comically animated, and simple enough that some children will be able to copy the illustrations themselves.  After the student achieves mastery of the basic phonics rules and common sight words, the lessons move into decoding longer words by applying syllable rules, explaining suffixes, and examining compound words and contractions. These are the final tools that equip the reader to attack any word he may find in his reading. There are many suffix charts that fully explain the various applications of word endings. This emphasis on building words also provides a solid foundation in spelling skills.  The final unit teaches the students to use punctuation and context clues to decipher word meanings, and provides a wonderful introduction to reading comprehension. Teaching the students to understand what they read is the goal of this book, and it reaches this goal in amazingly simple, yet thorough lessons that can be taught by anyone who can themselves read.  This book provides a systematic blueprint that can be expanded on for all students, using all learning styles. With this book, you can teach your child, or any student, to read independently and confidently. --Education ClearinghouseA superb contribution to the field of literacy. This latest edition, still amazingly practical in its approach to literacy, will serve as an essential resource for anyone helping a student become a lifelong reader. ----Dr. Stephan Sargent, Prof. of Reading Methods. NSU, Broken Arrow, OKThis program is very effective with ELL (English Language Learners) students. They are immediately drawn to the lessons because they are instructed at their level and move at their pace. A strength of this program is that after the initial assessment the instructor can address the learner's speciic needs with the appropriate sections in the book. The Silly Stories combined with the games engage even the most reluctant learners. ----Andrea Dunne, Elementary School Teacher, Mesa, Arizona