Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read

Parents may find the first long chapter on the history and process of learning how to read a bit tedious and technical. But since each chapter--and the method--builds on these thoughts, it's a must to read the book from cover to cover. Harder still is accepting the McGuinnesses' claim that Phono-Graphix has a 100 percent success rate. Much of the research cited in their book seems to have been conducted by the authors themselves, with no indication of comparison groups or follow-up studies. Still, numerous schools throughout the country and in England have adopted the method. And the McGuinnesses' tone of alarm may ring true for some parents frustrated with their children's struggles to read. Phono-Graphix represents a new alternative where none existed before. Future analysis by outside evaluators will show whether it deserves the confidence its creators possess. --Jodi Mailander Farrell

Product Description

HELP YOUR CHILD UNLOCK THE SOUND-PICTURE CODE

Reading is the single most important skill for any child to develop. And the key to learning how to read effectively is recognizing the sounds that letters and words represent. With the help of the revolutionary system known as Phono-Graphix™, you and your child can discover the sound-picture code that is the foundation of the written English language.

An effective and easy-to-understand approach, Phono-Graphix enables you to teach your child to read in one-tenth the time of phonics with a 100 percent success rate. In just eleven weeks, you can bring your kindergartner to first-grade-level reading -- even learning-disabled children can reach grade level or higher in just twelve weeks.

Reading Reflex provides you with:

* Simple diagnostic tests to determine your child's reading level, and a Literacy Growth Chart so you'll know what goals to establish
* Detailed instructions and illustrations to help your child develop strong, consistent reading skills and to correct ineffective reading strategies such as part-word reading and memorizing
* Fun and easy-to-follow exercises, hands-on materials, worksheets, stories, and games that you and your child can do together
* Enjoyable lessons that are carefully constructed to meet the interests and capabilities of children of all ages

I must agree with Tony that have never met more unimaginative and uninteresting stories in my life. Not all, just a few. However...the stories in the Parent Support books are actually interesting, mildly imaginative and very much what the children relate to. Maybe in further editions of Reading Reflex, they'll change their stories. We can hope. At the same time, practice in the sounds is what is important and it is assumed that you are reading other "real" books too.

There are a few other things about the program I don't appreciate. I don't like the way they break up the words like all, tall and wall (since they've already stated that a plain a can say 'a' as in father and two l's can say that sound. (hmm... hard to explain in type) and the 'th' thing (it makes two separate sounds) bothered me too. I just taught them as 2 separate sounds with the same sound picture. Similar things have already been taught, so it isn't a big jump.

I do especially like the way they print the very beginner stories with the sounds that are more than one letter bolded and squashed together (coded text). It sure helps beginners read more quickly and gives them practice in reading more than one letter at a time, and encouragement to continue. I didn't find the chapter on multi-syllable as clear as maybe it could be. It took me a while to understand it enough to explain it to the kids, but I agree that it is something totally skipped in other programs

Overall, I think Reading Reflex is an excellent program and I just make the changes I want when I'm doing it. I don't think there's a perfect program out there, but this one has an excellent approach, fantastic diagnostics and a few less 'bugs' than any I've seen.

I hope Carmen and Geoff would be open to hearing some constructive critisism from those who truly appreciate their work and I hope in a few years they would put out a new-improved book (Ultra-Reading Reflex!) with a few of these issues addressed.


A Remarkable Success Story--Thanks to This Book   May 12, 1999
36 out of 36 found this review helpful

In early March, before I found "Reading Reflex" by chance on an amazon.com search, my 6-1/2-year old daughter's reading skills were barely on grade level according to her school records. She often struggled through attempts to read fairly simple but unfamiliar words, frequently inserting sounds that were not there or switching the letter sequences. Because sounding out words took such effort, she often resorted to a guessing strategy that, not surprisingly, failed her frequently. She was starting to become discouraged, and at times I wondered if formal testing and tutoring was needed.

In late April, seven weeks after we started the "Phono-Graphix" lessons in "Reading Reflex," a standardized test showed that my first-grader could now decode unfamiliar words at the level of a third grader. I knew from my own observations that she was doing very well, but this confirmation was stunning. Her leap in abilities came about because "Reading Reflex" gave me the background knowledge, evaluation materials, and activities to create a concentrated, highly successful "catch-up" program for her. My goal was to help her to get solidly on grade level, but this was successful beyond anything I could imagine.

For six weeks, my daughter and I worked together at about twice the pace suggested in the book. We did about three to four 40-60-minute lessons a week (instead of two lessons). Each lesson included about 20-30 minutes of Phono-Graphix activities followed by 20-30 minutes in which she read poems or a story aloud, during which I corrected her as needed using the quick, instructive techniques from the book. It is not necessary or probably desirable to work with most children at this rate, but my daughter needed to catch up and was willing, motivated, and doing beautifully--plus I was able to make the time for extra lesson planning--so we proceeded. Now we do a lesson only occasionally but try to read together daily to keep her skills up.

Although my daughter is a bright child with strong story analysis skills who loves books--and has had many thousands read to her--cracking the written code did not come easily to her (before Phono-Graphix). Last fall, when I became concerned about her struggles, I learned that this problem is common. According to information I got from a leading research agency, most children "pick up" reading regardless of how they are taught, but some 20%, regardless of how intelligent they are, need systematic, explicit instruction in decoding to fully develop as readers.

I tried a number of other approaches before finding "Reading Reflex." I assumed that "explicit instruction" in decoding was phonics instruction, so I tried some software programs, electronic phonics toys, and a popular mail-order program, with varying results--none of them remarkable.

When I finally found "Reading Reflex" in early March, it was clear, from its emphasis on "phonemic awareness" and the logical nature of our written code, that this was what I had been looking for all along. After spending five months and a few hundred dollars on less effective materials, I found that the recommendations from 20+ years of research were wrapped up in a single book aimed at parents. I could hardly believe it.

The introductory chapters of "Reading Reflex" de-mystified the reading process for me. It took about a week for some of the concepts to sink in, as this approach, though entirely logical (even brilliant), is very different from the traditional phonics approach I had been taught many years ago and was using to help my daughter. I needed to re-wire my thinking quite a bit.

Unlike phonics, with Phono-Graphix there are no memorization drills, no confusing "rules" (with their many exceptions), and no work on sounds unless within the context of a word. The skills development activities are brief, varied, and often use manipulatives (sliding letters on a dry-erase board or desk), so it was a heck of a lot more interesting for my daughter than, say, phonics flash cards.

My daughter grasped the concepts readily and her skills developed rapidly. As she became adept at isolating and manipulating sounds in words--two areas of initial weakness that I could identify using the tests in the book--her reading improved in leaps, as did her confidence level. Soon, instead of just asking me to read to her, she began to ask, "Can I read YOU a book?" And when she did, she no longer needed to rely on guessing strategies. She was gaining the skills and knowledge to carefully tackle just about every word she encountered.

As my daughter grew as a reader, I developed as her teacher. "Reading Reflex" taught me how to conduct the lessons and correct mistakes. I gained many additional, invaluable tips from the book's online bulletin board (www.readamerica.net), on which the authors and other representatives of their program converse with teachers, parents, and tutors. Online I was lucky to find a local certified Phono-Graphix trainer who offered a workshop for parents, which added to my teaching and lesson planning skills.

I have only two small criticisms of the book. One is that it does not provide an at-a-glance road map of the lessons which I, as a visual thinker, needed to avoid confusion. I easily remedied this by making an outline of the sequence of activities in the most complicated and important section (chapter 5). The other is that the few stories and illustrations are not appealing, although my daughter and I came to look upon them with humor. This was not a problem. I simply sought appropriate, engaging stories and poems from the library that reinforced the lessons (the book's web site had many suggestions).

I wish to extend my deep, heartfelt thanks to the developers of Phono-Graphix and authors of the "Reading Reflex," Carmen and Goeff McGuinness, and to the Phono-Graphix certified therapist who held the parent workshop, Kim Bacon. They empowered me to help my daughter in a fast and effective way, which has made all the difference


Amazing, no-nonsense approach that works.   March 16, 2002
Rocco B. Rubino (Ohio)
34 out of 36 found this review helpful

I am a special education teacher that had struggled to find a method to teach children how to decode; especially those children who were left behind by the "whole language" or "literature based" approach to reading. When it came right down to it, my students had never been taught how to decode the letter-sound code, which is what the English language is based upon.

I came upon Reading Reflex after reading the book "Why Our Children Can't Read, and What We Can Do About it" by Dianne McGuiness, who is Geoffrey McGuiness' mother. That book convinced me that I needed to find away to teach children how to read, based upon (1) how children learn, and (2) teach them English the way English needs to be taught.

Reading Reflex, along with a magnetic letter board which has the 37 common word families was a blessing. In one example, I had a 5th grade student that no one ever bothered to teach to read because he was a behavior problem. At the end of a week of drills using Reading Reflex, he was reading the simple stories in the book, which was a powerful motivator to persevere with me, and now he is reading Dr. Suess books.

Research has shown that explicit, one on one phonics instruction; letter-to-sound correspondence instructions, works. If you are a teacher, or a parent of a student that has yet to "get it," try Reading Reflex. You will not be disappointed.


Reading made easy   January 2, 2003
Rebecca A. Moon (Austin, TX United States)
23 out of 23 found this review helpful

At first glance, this book reminded me of - "A Home Start in Reading" by Ruth Beechick (a wonderful little pamphlet for homeschoolers/parents). I would still recommend the pamphlet, but Reading Reflex has much more information that might be needed to teach a beginning reader.

Although Phonografix has a reputation for being very effective in remediating reading, it is very easy, effective, and fun to use for beginning reading as well. The skill of reading is broken down into more basic components -- blending, segmenting, auditory processing, and code knowledge. There is a test at the beginning to help pinpoint problem areas so that no time is spent on areas the student understands. A beginning reader would just begin without the test and cover all the lessons.

There are some other aspects of reading that the book covers that I have not seen so thoroughly and effectively explained in any of the other reading methods I've encountered. The English language is based on a phonetic code, but some letters/letter combinations can represent multiple sounds and some sounds can be represented in multiple ways. The authors include information about how to effectively explain these ideas and lesson plans for how these ideas work in practice. For example, the word 'out' might be pronounced 'oat' or 'owt'. The only way to know which is to have the word read to you or to figure it out from the context of a sentence. Part of reading is simply remembering which pronunciation to use on particular words. There are often patterns to these pronunciations and noticing these patterns is included in the lessons.

If all this information isn't enough, the authors include "error corrections" in each lesson. The authors emphasize that mistakes are where real learning happens.

One minor point I disagree with is the emphasis on writing. Some children really dislike writing or simply don't have the skill to write to the extent suggested by the authors. Fortunately, writing isn't necessary to learning to read through this method. It was easy to adapt the activities so that writing wasn't necessary. Another area I disagreed with was the assumption that a tutor/teacher should control the learning. The activities can be easily adapted into fun games that children can choose to play and learn from. It is the information about reading that is useful and makes this book great, not the format. Another tip -- instead of cutting out all those puzzles, just make up a set of letters (multiples of the ones that are used twice or more in words). Additionally, the authors have a website with more great information.

Overall, this book is a great resource for any person interested in helping others - children and adults - learn to read.


EXCELLENT - A Must Read For Parents and Professionals   November 24, 1999
Liza
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

Reading Reflex is truly a revolution in reading instruction. As an ed psych of sixteen years I have never worked with such a clear and concise and logical approach to instruction. The authors really have nailed it! Maybe the swing between phonics and whole language will finally end with this expose of both methods. As a supervisor of teachers using this method and a helper of parents using it I have some advice for readers. Read every word. Nothing is waisted. This book has a pearl of instructional wisdom in every sentence. Also visit their website at readamerica.net, and subscribe to their free magazine for even more help.