Raising Confident Readers: How to Teach Your Child to Read and Write -- from Baby to Age 7

by J. Richard Gentry

Raise a Child Who Loves to Read

How do kids really learn to read? And how can you encourage interest in reading and writing from the start? In Raising Confident Readers, based on the five phases of literacy development, Dr. J. Richard Gentry provides fun and easy ways to teach your child to read and write successfully.

When it comes to language, the most critical brain growth happens in early childhood. Raising Confident Readers shows you how to activate and accelerate this capacity for The key is to introduce the right activities at the right time. Whether your child is a baby or toddler, in preschool or kindergarten, or first or second grade, Dr. Gentry helps you identify your child's literacy phase and take the next steps to build writing, reading, and spelling skills. You'll



As your child moves through the five phases, they'll soon be sounding out and spelling words correctly, reading chapter books independently, and writing creative stories on their own. Complete with samples of children's writing throughout, Raising Confident Readers is an essential resource to foster your child's lifelong love of reading.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Education

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2010

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 1 out of 5]

As the mother of a 15 month old, I didn't find this bok very useful. Perhaps the practical methods to teach your child to read and write would be well applied for a 4 or 5 year old, but the idea of pushing a child under the age of three into flash cards and sight words seems slightly out of control to me.

[Summer Meyers · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, here's the thing. I'm looking for a book that talks about brain development and different phases of literacy. This book definitely fit the bill-- It had a fascinating chapter on different sections of the brain and how they work together while reading. It broke down four different phases of reading including spelling. However, I call baloney on a couple of different things.

It felt like there was a bit of over emphasizing baby preparation to reading. Labeling things in your baby nursery in an effort to word associate with a 3 month old? Not so much.

The last chapter made excellent points and should have been incorporated more in the rest of the book, perhaps calming parental fears that fluency typically is not reached until 7. Oh well. It was still worth the read.

[Kyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good outline of how to support a child’s reading development. I ended up skimming most of the last half due to the repetition of suggested activities and not needing to know the specifics for my particular child’s current skill level, but I at least know what’s in this resource and can refer back to it when the time comes.

[Margaret Chind · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a mother of five with three readers and a preschooler in her letters I think this book is ridiculous. It is condescending to those that may have diagnosable road blocks and overkill to boredom for those that will naturally adapt over time. I so not recommend it. Other guides out there are better, or just plain read to your kids. I read this in the #libbyapp.

[Brook Madera · Rating 5 out of 5]

A myriad of helpful tools, and a way to track the growth of a young child's literacy. I think it feels overwhelming for parent's to think they can get this involved in their child's learning, but most of the suggestions can be implemented once a week which I don't think is an unreasonable burden.

[Annalee · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author’s tone was overbearing. Examples didn’t come off as genuine. And I didn’t agree with the rigor of writing instruction beginning in toddlerhood. This was an unpleasant & mostly unhelpful read.

[Manuscriptable · Rating 1 out of 5]

Outdated and very biased against science-backed phonics learning. Those interested in teaching their kids to read via evidence-based methods should stick to newer releases (or "Why Johnny Can't Read" instead).

[Sara Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information on teaching ids how to read and what’s appropriate for each age/phase. Lots of good tips for parents.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found this book to be one of the most helpful early reading education books I've read. Though I didn't agree with the author's age frames for reaching reading readiness milestones (I thought they were too rigid), I found most of the milestones themselves great tools by which to measure how children are progressing in reading readiness. I found many great ideas to use with my kids to prepare them for reading - fun ideas. For instance, the author emphasizes the importance of learning to write along with reading. He uses a technique called "kid writing" where the child scribbles or writes the letters they think spell the words in their drawings. The parent then writes "adult writing" under the kid writing (reading aloud for the child). This method has worked very well with my 4 year old. He felt empowered to try and write, and instructed on proper writing in an encouraging manner. This book actually inspired me to have my 4 year old start illustrating and writing his own books - which has made learning to read and write a lot of fun for him and our whole family. His younger siblings actually choose his books off our bookshelf to have read to them. I plan on reading this book again and using as a reference as I continue training my children to read!

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book that should be on every parent's reading list. Gentry carefully puts together phases of literacy and describes each one in extensive detail.

I loved the way this book was broken down. Instead of saying a child should be doing something by a certain age, Gentry uses phases. This allows parents to focus on where their kids are without stressing about what is "expected" of them. I also appreciated the emphasis on writing and phonics. There is a lot of good information on the importance of writing and letting kids spell words themselves. The book contains activities, games, tricks, and book lists for each phase of reading. He also provides information on helping children overcome struggles and sets realistic markers and goals for parents.

I highly recommend it if you have kids anywhere from birth to second grade. There is so much good information packed in this book that every parent would benefit from reading it.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because my almost 7-year-old is really struggling learning to read, despite being read to for hours on end, plenty of work on letter sounds, writing, and various methods of encouraging reading. On the one hand, there are some very helpful tactics and techniques presented in the book that I do intend to try, and it was interesting to read the authors breakdown of stages of reading. However, it also made me feel like it's entirely my fault that my daughter can't read, and made it seem like any child entering school without being able to read has been failed by their parents. Most worrisome, the author says that by teaching reading at home you can avoid dyslexia and learning disabilities.

[Deborah]

Gentry believes that parents have the responsibility to teach their children early literacy skills. Rather than give ages for different literacy skill milestones, he offers four phases, listing skills a young child masters in each phase before moving to the next. The skills and tips for helping children reach those skills are ones that I've read in several other places. I like that Gentry encourages parents to keep reading fun and proceed based on a child's abilities. Recommend for parents look to teach literacy skills to their babies through early elementary school.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the more helpful books on teaching reading that I've seen. I really liked the way that he broke it into phases that don't have to rigidly correspond with ages, and that seem to be supported by my experiences with my own children. I think his ideas of tying writing to early reading experiences are spot on, and wish that I had approached this differently with my current 7 year old...but I also feel like he gave room for hope and progress no matter where you are at. Some spots in the book felt quite repetitive, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Alissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resources guide with tons of easy, practical things to do to encourage reading and writing. I had never realized the importance of drawing/scribbling/writing in developing literacy and we have added lots of drawing time into our routine since I've read this book. Might need to purchase as I only read through the first two phases since that's where my girls are.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

My kids are beyond the baby stage when I picked up this book, and we read a LOT in our house. That said, I found the reading level assessment to be extremely helpful, and I will be trying to implement some of the activities and games with my older kids. I find this to be a helpful companion resource to the phonics program my kids are doing at their preschool (and reinforced at home).

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few helpful ideas, but overall I thought this book made the whole process of reading unnecessarily complicated. He made it sound like there's a "right" and a "wrong" way to read a book to an infant, and you'd mess your child up for life if you chose incorrectly.

[Irina Dmitrenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I agree with early literacy development philosophy, I disagree with flash cards for infants. Valuable info on stages of early literacy development.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! So many great ideas! I'm going to start using them with my two younger kids!!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good resource when teaching kids to read. It wasn't all new to me but had some good ideas and things I hadn't thought of.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent source in helping your child to read and being able to do so. Simple lessons and games to help child learn.

[Giordahno · Rating 3 out of 5]

its an alright guide

[Dragana Saas]

Phonics vs. whole word reading, page 33

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K]

Resource book