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Does Reading
Master contain phonics?
Is the approach that Reading Master uses to teach
reading, compatible with the approach that is used in schools?
Is supplementing my school children & teaching
at home wise?
What are your qualifications?
How much time does it take to use Reading Master
effectively?
Is it too late to buy a system for my struggling
6 year old?
What other products do you have?
What are the main differences between the phonics,
whole word and the whole language methods of teaching reading
and how do these relate to Reading Master?
Can we just
buy components of Reading Master or do we have to buy the complete
system?
What is the best age to start with Reading Master?
What are the advantages of teaching your child
early?
Shouldn't a pre-schooler just be free to play
instead of learning to read?
Won't a child who learnt early get bored once
at school?
Will it help with my reading as well as my child’s?
Why is the
art realistic rather than the usual cartoon portrayals in children’s
books?
Can we just buy components of Reading Master
or do we have to buy the complete system? It is advisable
to buy Reading Master as a complete set of 27 books, 1 guidebook,
3 videos and 1 CD-ROM. This is because we learn best when we receive
information in many different ways and all of the 27 books across
the system interrelate. The way in which the books interrelate
mirrors the way in which the brain processes information through
association. For example, when you connect the color of a fig
parrots wings with the color of the planet Uranus, as you do in
Reading Master, you are learning through association and by so
doing are actually increasing the number of interconnections within
the brain. The CD-ROM is powerful in producing these sorts of
connections but by only buying some of the books the effectiveness
of these associations is diminished. The different learning styles
of children are also covered across the 3 different mediums of
books, videos and CD-ROM. Through only buying the books and not
the videos or ROM, for example, you may miss your child's preferred
learning style. Books are also more important to parenting than
people imagine. They can assist bonding with your child whilst
providing the opportunity to practice with your assistance or
alone, components picked up in some ways more effectively through
video and CD-Rom (the videos and CD-Rom are also useful when you
have other things to do). However, if you wish to purchase separate
components or need additional or replacement pieces, you may do
so. It is possible to order the CD-ROM and the videos separately
off this site, as well as the complete ReadingMaster and ReadingMaster
Math kits.
If you wish to purchase the Denise Books (phonic 1st reader books)as
hard copy you can from the product
centre.
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Does Reading Master contain phonics?
Yes! Reading Master uses both the whole words and the phonics
methods for teaching reading. It teaches in an accelerated learning
template, the 70 different phonograms, or minimal sound units,
of English that describe or spell the 44 sounds in English.. For
example, it covers "b (bih) as in bubble", through to
"ow as in cow", right through to the more difficult
groups of letters like "ough" and its six sounds. back
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Is the approach that Reading Master uses
to teach reading, compatible with the approach that is used in
schools? Yes! In 1996, the Californian Legislature declared
a return of phonics to the classroom. This was after a study revealed
that 60% of their fourth-graders could barely read after ten years
of using the whole language approach to reading. Schools in New
Zealand have the go-ahead to use phonics too. In fact, most schools
have returned to using some phonics teaching now. However, many
schools are not teaching a total phonics package. For example,
they may teach that the letter "c" makes the sound "kih"
as in "cat" but not that the letter "c" can
sometimes make the sound "s" as in "city".
For a child who is missing out on a full phonics program, Reading
Master will work wonders in a very short space of time. If your
child attends a school with a full phonics program already in
operation, Reading Master will provide tools at home to supplement
what your children are learning during the day at school. This
will also, of course, help you assist your child at home.
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Is supplementing my school children &
teaching at home wise? A poll by Scholastic Inc and the National
Association of State Boards of Education of America, conducted
in 1996, revealed that parents believe they should be doing more
at home. In fact, 82% stated that "children may not be learning
to read as well as they should because parents are not encouraging
their children to read at home." Another report by the U.S.
Department of Education in 1996, cites that "Fourth grade
average reading scores were 46 points below the national average
where principals judged parental involvement to be low, but 28
points above the national average where parental involvement was
high - a difference of 74 points."
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What are your qualifications? Our major
qualification for this project is that we are parents! It is as
parents that we undertook the development of Reading Master. It
is as parents that we have succeeded in providing a practical
system grounded in love. This love permeates our system not only
from ourselves but also has infiltrated the system through our
major influences: Maria Montessori and Glen Doman, from their
many years of research and writings. Denise Ford has a Bachelor’s
degree from Auckland University in New Zealand. She studied Education,
Music, Anthropology and Psychology. Grant has a Bachelor’s
degree in English from Auckland University where he won academic
prizes for English. His degree also contains Math and Physics
papers. He has spent the past 15 years working as a Corporate
Trainer and Organizational Coach. back to top
How much time does it take to use Reading
Master effectively? A school in New Zealand allows students
CD ROM alone-time for 30-40 minutes daily as part of their classroom
structure and has found that over a period of six months, the
boys in their study advanced the two years that they had fallen
behind. Used at home, the books should be used daily for 5-10
minutes. For a young child, the images in the FlashBooks need
only be flashed for a second per image for a total of ten images.
The videos and CD ROM can also supplement this learning when the
parent is busy. You will find that sessions of up to 60 minutes
will occur for some ROM users and some children just cannot put
those books down. back to top
Is it too late to buy a system for my struggling
6 year old? If your six year old has not been taught using
a complete phonics approach, then Reading Master will help them
to regain ground quickly buiilding upon their life experience
and bas library of images and whole words. The FlashBooks in the
system will also prove very useful in school projects and homework
for many more years. back to top
What other products do you have? In
the field of childhood education, we have released a range of
first reader books to follow on from Reading Master. They are
called Denise Books. Denise Books are a values based series that
utilize whole words, phonics and the whole language approach to
reading. A five pack of Denise Books is available from the product
centre. In 2000 we released our early math progam - ReadingMaster-Math
which is also available from the product
centre. The Math
GuideBook is available in full on-line.
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What are the main differences between the
phonics, whole word and the whole language methods of teaching
reading and how do these relate to Reading Master?
The phonics approach teaches children to break words down into
their sound components. There are 44 different sounds that have
been identified in English (Spalding and Spalding) that can be
spelled 70 different ways. Reading Master demonstrates these 70
spellings of the 44 sounds or phonograms in English in its Sounds
FlashBooks and uses them in color-coded high concentration in
its Sounds Reader storybooks. The whole word approach teaches
children to view whole words in their entirety almost as if they
are pictures. Reading Master presents 100 key words to early reading
in bold type at the beginning of its Sounds Reader books. The
whole language approach teaches children to digest whole sentences
at once by using different contextual clues in order to work out
the full meaning of the sentences. There is no actual teaching
of how to read (the connection of letters and sounds) before reading
begins. Reading Master utilizes repetition of sounds in its Sounds
Reader books and the pictures are drawn true-to-life to help children
visually understand the text. However, Reading Master is designed
primarily, around the first two approaches of teaching reading
(phonics and whole word) after all the whole-language method,
used alone, is failing. (Denise Books,
designed as first reader books to follow on from Reading Master,
amalgamate all three approaches.) Note: with a phonics grounding,
as used in Reading Master, simple books designed in keeping with
the whole-language approach can become very useful as early reader
books particularly when they have true-to-life content and good
values. back to top
What is the best age to start with Reading
Master? Reading Master can be used from birth. The FlashBooks
contain discrete images of planets, through cloud formations,
rainforest birds to whales. These can be shown as first images
to a young baby. Although you will probably not even be aware
that these images are being taken in by baby, at some later point
in time, you will be rewarded. By showing images regularly, like
the ones in the FlashBooks you will covertly be preparing pathways
in your baby’s brain for early reading. 50% of a person’s
ability to learn is developed in the first 4 years of life and
another 30% is added in the following 4 years. Therefore, any
teaching that you manage to get in, in these first 4 years will
provide a solid foundation for your child. There is a chart in
the guidebook which will help you to choose which pieces of the
system to use first based on your child’s age, learning style
and previous experiences. A golden rule to remember, however,
is go with whatever your child is interested in. Your child’s
level of interest is a good indictor of what is required next.
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What are the advantages of teaching your
child early? A child up to the age of eight is very receptive
to learning. It is only as your children get older that they start
to rebel against learning and homework and they acquire other
interests. For a young child, knowledge is survival! Use this
receptive time to lay a solid foundation for your children. In
our experience, children who have grown up learning a little about
a lot end up knowing a lot about a lot. It is very easy for them
to add some more knowledge on to some knowledge they already have
than it is to start learning something radically new and different.
A child that reads early also has the advantage that he gets to
read many more books in the early receptive years. The earlier
the transition from "learn to read" to "read to
learn" occurs, the more knowledge the child will be able
to acquire in the early years when this knowledge is the most
easily absorbed. Also consider the esteem of a child that enters
school already knowing how to read compared with that of a child
who enters school with little to no knowledge of reading. Which
child would you rather be? Which child would you want your child
to be? back to top
Shouldn't a pre-schooler just be free
to play instead of learning to read? We often get asked this
question. Asking "Can a child learn too early?" is a
bit like asking "Can a child learn too much?" Learning
is fun for the very young. The little three-year-old running around
saying "why" to everything is not doing it just to annoy
you. He really needs to know some answers. It is his way of working
out his world. Just as play is educational for children, learning
is fun. Learning is best made just a part of everything else.
The more formal aspects where you’re sitting down learning
from the books need only take a few minutes out of each day but
you’ll probably find your child asking for more than this.
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Won't a child who learnt early get bored
once at school? A child with a lot of knowledge has a very
inquiring mind. Through teaching your child the basics you are
leading him to a whole series of doors just waiting to be opened.
Go ahead and make sure you open a few of these doors with your
child. Enrol in after school classes that interest your child
and keep up activities at home. We can’t not teach our children
early, for fear that it will put them ahead of others their age.
We must strive to pull other children up to the level of our children!
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Will it help with my reading as well as
my child’s? Because Reading Master does not "talk
down" with its language, subject matter or true-to-life illustrations,
many adults are now using Reading Master to help them with their
reading. Additionally, the videos contain a person in the top
right corner pronouncing the sounds. This makes it easier for
people learning English as a second language. By watching someone
else, the learner can see how the lips position to make each sound.
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Why is the art realistic rather than the
usual cartoon portrayals in children’s books?"When
we are very young we do not need fairy tales: we need only tales.
A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened the
door and saw a dragon.. But a child of three is excited by being
told that Tommy opened the door." We do not need images of
monsters and dragons in children’s books. What we need are
real images from real life. When a child is young, he is trying
to piece together his new world. We make this process easier by
providing only true-to-life images from real life! Also, by using
art that looks like reality, it means that when a child comes
across one of the images from the books in real life, he can identify
it easily. All of the art in Reading Master conforms to the Glen
Doman specification of being precise, discrete and unambiguously
labelled. Precise means that all images are drawn 100% accurately
for easy identification and accurate learning; discrete means
that none of the images in the FlashBooks have anything other
than the object being referred to, in order that the new learner
knows what it is that he is meant to be looking at; and unambiguously
labelled means that all images have clear, objective labels. back
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