A note from the System’s Developers - from 1994 (Back to menu)

Our names are Denise and Grant Ford and we are parents of young children. Michael was born in January 1990 and Magdalen was born in October 1992. Like every new parent we equipped ourselves to raise our children as best we could from the experience of others and the educational theories of our time. However as inexperienced as we believed we were in 1990, we soon discovered that parents are the first, best teachers of their children. It is now obvious that no one is more attuned to a child than her mother (or primary care giver).

We also now know that much we had been led to believe about the learning abilities of all of the children around us and across the world (where similar observations were taking place) hopelessly underestimated their ability. In the first years of life your child is either asleep or learning. Our own children’s learning was only limited by our ability to make learning available to them. This led us to witness to the truth of the quotes on the adjacent page, and to develop the set of learning tools that are the Reading Master system.

There is no time that your child is learning more than between the ages of birth to eight and we must claim these first vital years for their and our future. You don’t need to impart all the knowledge of the world before they can walk. This would be impossible. Just be aware that your child’s mind is like a dry sponge - ready and absorbent. It can take in fact just as easily as it can take in fantasy. Make sure that useful information is being soaked up in these early years. We believe there is no one educational method that will work for all children. We also believe in making things that work, work even better, together. We have integrated the teachings of leading educators, including Glen Doman and Maria Montessori into an accelerated learning format in the belief that children who learn early a little bit about a lot , grow up to know a lot about a lot.

These already proven methods are, therefore, not new. However our experiences in combining them as young parents in this technological age are.

Reading Master Key Quotes: (Back to menu)

• "All children are born geniuses, and we spend the first six years of their lives de-geniusing them" - Buckminster Fuller

• "Every child born has, at the moment of birth, a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo Da Vinci ever used." - Glen Doman

• The child seems to take things in, "not with his mind but with his life" - Maria Montessori

• "There certainly is conclusive evidence that the provision of constant stimuli improves mental ability." - Colin Rose

• "The brain has infinite capacity. The more you put in the more it will hold. The human brain grows by use - the way biceps do." - Glen Doman

• "From the moment of birth your child is either asleep or learning" - Grant Ford

Learning Styles: (Back to menu)

The two most important factors in determining where to begin with any learning system are age and learning style. There are three, currently recognised major learning styles. Everybody has a mixture of all these different styles, but has different primary preferences. It is useful to work out what your child’s preferred learning channel is and pitch your teaching accordingly.

1. Visual - Visual learners respond well to pictures and written words. They enjoy reading books. They also respond well to FlashBook images and whole word cards.

2. Audio - Audio learners learn the most from hearing, whether it be stories read to them or music. These learners often enjoy the phonetic approach to learning to read, more so than the whole word approach. They enjoy playing phonetic "I Spy" games in the car.

3. Kinesthetic-tactile - Kinesthetic-tactile learners learn through doing and feeling. They like to run around pointing out labels on things, they like to skip down the hall once they have been shown the word "skip." They like to write the letters, rather than just look at them or hear them spoken.

It is difficult to establish learning style preferences in children younger than 2 years but, because of the way the child's learning abilities develop; hearing, then sight, then interactivity, the rule is to read and play music to your children from very early on. Baroque music is beneficial in aiding learning. From about three months large images can be seen and color vision is operative so lots of large simple accurate images are useful for developing visual pathways. From around twelve months, introduce whole words (on flashcards and as labels on items around the house) to your child. Keep the letters at least three inches high so they can be seen clearly. From twelve to twenty-four months audial and visual learning can combine to learn to spell the sounds from the Sounds FlashBooks, phonics videos and 'flash to me mode' on the CD-Rom. By three, the small motor skills that will allow a child to write and move a computer mouse are operative. If your child learns mainly by doing, it is critical that physical activity like pointing to things with a mouse and clicking, or writing letters accompanies learning.

Associations and the Brain (Back to menu)

Every child is born with about 100 billion active brain cells. These are all the active brain cells they will ever have. So how is it that some people are so much cleverer than others? If Einstein’s or Da Vinci’s brain had the exact same number of active brain cells that we and your child have today, how is it that we have not had some of the great thoughts they have had? One definition of intelligence is that it is not what you know but how well you can make connections between what you know to make new composite ideas. Of course the more you know the more pieces of information are available for you to make connections with. The difference between brains lies in the number of connections each of these 100 billion brain cells have made. Each individual cell is capable of making up to 20,000 connections. That means that when you connect the color of a fig parrot’s wings with the glow from the planet Uranus, as you will using Reading Master, for example, you will have actually physically grown a new connection in your brain. The more you use that connection to make further connections the more immediately available the information at the end of that connection will be for your mind to ‘remember’ and the easier the connection process will become.

Your associations are your own!

What is the first thought you have when someone says "blue". Is it sky, flowers, or the way you look when you are feeling cold? The color blue or red is not necessarily located in a file in everyone’s brain labelled ‘colors’. For some people red has an association with fire engines or for others it may be the color of Mommy’s car. The brain stores information like branches on a tree.

Each of the 100 million active neurons or cells in a child’s brain is capable of growing up to twenty thousand different branches.

The interconnections contained within the Reading Master books were designed before any of the books were written. The challenge was to write 27 books that draw on a common and familiar library of 350 base images, 400 key words and 70 spellings of the 44 sounds in the English language within story lines that are accurate and true to life. The reality of the books enables connections to be made even beyond the more than eight hundred and fifty direct links programmed into the CD-Rom; to the real world experiences of the children and adults interacting with these tools. This design enables the CD-Rom in particular, to access information based on the users interest and in a way that mirrors the way that our brains store and retrieve information; in information trees of our own design, based on our own associations. For example, if you’re playing on the computer in the book, Michael and the Rainforest, and you click on where the word "birds" is first mentioned, you are taken to a "hummingbird" in the Rainforest Birds FlashBook. Here you learn about the Hummingbird. Then if you click on the word "hummingbird" in the Flashbook you are taken to "hummingbirds hover like helicopters" (a different page, later on) in Michael and the Rainforest, reinforcing what you have just learned in the Flashbook. It is up to the user how far down a trail they want to go and there are virtually no end points to the circular linking.

If, for instance, you click on the word "owl" in the sentence, "She has big round eyes like an owl," in Fluffy the Show Cat, you are taken to the owl in the New Zealand Birds FlashBook where more information is provided on owls. If you click on "red" on "Red Persian", you are taken to the rainbow in the Rainbow Sounds Reader where you may add Red Persian to the list of red objects you know. All of this helps the brain add information by associating them with its existing knowledge files.

The Reading Master Learning Tools (Back to menu)

There are 27 educational children’s books that form the foundations of the Reading Master System. There are four different types of book: The FlashBook, the FlashBook Reader, the Sounds FlashBook and the Sounds Reader.

• The FlashBook and its companion FlashBook Reader, focus on increasing general knowledge. In doing so they help in forming the up to 20,000 branches for each of your 100 billion active brain cells.
• Sound FlashBooks and Sound Readers aid your children to read through helping them recognise both whole words and the sound components of words used to describe the encyclopedic knowledge presented in all 4 types of book.

We believe the combination of the four types of book lay down pathways in the brain that make retrieving what has been learned much more rapid and much more relevant to your child’s world and experience.

If you have bought the Reading Master tools for a young child, we recommend that you concentrate your efforts on the FlashBooks and corresponding FlashBook Readers, (encyclopedic videos and the green covered books from the "pictures" section of ‘flash to me’ mode on the CD-Rom). By doing so from an early age you are actually helping to grow your child’s brain. The letters that describe the sounds in the Sounds FlashBooks are a little more abstract and are best added later when you feel your child is ready to associate these letters with the sounds. You may like to teach some whole words before using the Sounds books. To do this, just write words out on large pieces of card. Show them to your child three times a day. Keep the sessions brief and keep the words relevant to your child’s world. eg. your child’s name and pets names etc. Words like "mommy" have more meaning to a very young child than the spelling of the sound "m." Once your child knows some whole words then it will be easier to get a grasp of the individual sound components of the words. Every child is different and will respond differently. Let your child guide you. If she enjoys learning whole words then keep at it. Step up the rate. If she shows little interest, try some sounds. If your child responds well to picture flashcards, then show more. If she doesn‘t then try some new subjects. Let your child choose what she wants to see. The key is to stay flexible. Keep the information in reach of your child, so that she can see and use it.

The Reading Master Guide Book (Back to menu)

• Throughout the rest of this guidebook each Reading Master learning tool will be described followed by instructions on how best to use them.
• Periodically passages appear in blue italic print that provide additional useful information.

• At the end of each section normalblue text occurs in that describes our own experiences in developing and using these tools with our own children.

FlashBooks (Back to menu)

So far, we have produced the following FlashBooks for the Reading Master programme:

Rainforest Birds, Cats, Planets, Horses, African Animals, Weather, Whales, New Zealand Birds

FlashBooks contain sets of specific images bound into a book. The pages conform to Glen Doman’s brief on the composition of flash cards. The pictures are precisely drawn. Providing accurate pictures makes it easier for your child to identify and learn them than it would be with a cartoon portrayal.

The pictures are discrete on the page, that is, appearing without backgrounds. By so doing the child is not distracted from the subject. The labels are accurate. ie. "Persian," "Siamese"; not "pussy’s." The reason for the precise labelling is that the child can just as easily learn the correct names as the "simplified" names. We have bound the "flash cards" into books so that complete sets stay together. The information can be read by you and your child sitting together on a sofa, because reading books together is about parenting as much as it is about learning.

How to use FlashBooks (Back to menu)

FlashBooks are simple to use. You can use them with your baby.

At the beginning of each FlashBook is an instruction page. Use this as your guide. For a baby or first time user, restrict yourself to just showing the pictures. Say, "These are all cats." As you show the images, just say what each one is, as written in the heading. Show the picture of the Persian cat, and say "Persian", then show the picture of the Siamese cat and say "Siamese" etc. until the child has either seen enough or you have reached the last image. If you repeat this exercise two or three times a day you will soon discover that your child is remembering the images and their names. When you feel your child wants more information, then start presenting some of the text from the books. Once again, only give as much as your child wants.

• When you present the information use it for discussion. Maybe you could compare the long fur of the Persian cat with the short fur of your own cat. Maybe you could compare the Siamese’s bright sapphire blue eyes with Daddy’s brown eyes.

• Wherever possible try and relate the information back to the child’s own experiences. You will find the information when presented this way will be more readily assimilated by your child.

• Do not stay too long with one book. Move on to new material regularly but do come back occasionally to review what has been learnt. By doing this, you will be helping to transfer the information into Long-term Memory.

The FlashBooks are not just for children. They are also a tool to stimulate the teacher, whether it be a school teacher, care giver, the new mom or grandad. They provide a way into subjects that may previously have not been explored. You will find that once you have a base knowledge of a subject, you will find yourself wanting to find out more. It is the same for your child. You may become inspired to do projects with your children on the subjects under discussion.

A child can assimilate the detail in the image very quickly. Try holding up a picture of the Sun for yourself and see how many seconds it takes before you become bored. We recommend showing each image for approximately one second only. This way the lesson remains interesting and stimulating. Finally, try to avoid testing your child or the sessions may become an ordeal. When ready your child may spontaneously say what the picture is. Until that happens, just keep showing the pictures. Obviously there are many other subjects that you may wish to present to your children. The books on the Reading Master CD-Rom are just a starting point. They provide eighty images across eight different subjects of general knowledge and show a methodology for teaching that has had proven results. Try and let your child dictate other subjects that are of specific interest to her and let us know about them.

We started increasing our son’s knowledge base when he was around six months old. It took hours each week often late into the night to make the flashcards. During the day I would resource the material required. At night we laboured making them and in the morning Michael consumed them at an ever increasing rate.

• We have a home video of Michael at age two identifying the first twenty chemical elements in the Periodic Table of Elements from both their symbols and their atomic structures.
• Before he was three, Michael could recite the Greek alphabet and identify the individual letters. He knew many breeds of dog and cat, different flowers and herbs, and many different paintings by famous artists.
• Michael read his first book at 23 months of age and by three and a half, Michael was a reasonably fluent reader.
• We have Michael on video, at four years of age, teaching his baby sister, ten different breeds of cat.

Their is so much more that he could do, which seems astounding to us now but was quite normal to him and to us then. The thing that struck me the most was the enthusiasm that Michael displayed for learning these facts. Michael was often the one who initiated the lessons. He would go to the drawer, get out the cards and say "Mommy I want a lesson."

Because the actual making of flash cards was very time consuming and we could find little on the market that met the key criteria for the presentation of images, we decided to make FlashBooks for publication ourselves.

FlashBooks on Video (Back to menu)

There are 4 flashbooks on your encyclopedic video (Cats, Rainforest Birds, Horses and New Zealand Birds).

Each image flashes on the screen at its optimum learning rate. If these images are watched several times a day for a week or so, the information should be retained.

All of the flashing images on the video are accompanied by ‘accelerated learning music’. This music has been chosen to foster Alpha Brain Wave activity. Your brain is most receptive to learning when Alpha Wave activity is occurring. The information presented in sequences where accelerated learning music is playing will be retained more easily.

Each Flashbook is followed by its companion Flashbook Reader (Fluffy the Show Cat, Michael and the Rainforest, I can Really Ride and I Love Berries. By so doing, the learning is immediately put into context in a fun story.

FlashBooks on the CD-Rom (Back to menu)

All eight flashbooks are on your CD-Rom. In ‘flash-to-me’ mode the FlashBook animated images will run through by themselves at the optimum learning rate. A young child not yet capable of using a mouse may be set up to view these images.

Once again, you may wish to play through the Cats FlashBook and then follow it with its companion reader, Fluffy the Show Cat. Follow this with Rainforest Birds and the Michael and the Rainforest reader. Follow this with Horses and the I Can Really Ride reader. Follow this with New Zealand Birds and the I Love Berries reader. To do this entails switching between ‘flash to me’ and ‘read to me’ modes which takes a few moments on pre-pentium chip computers. Therefore this sequence of Flashbook, followed by Flashbook Reader has been used as the basis for the Encyclopedic Video which may be an option for a busy parent.

In ‘read-to-me’ mode, the books are read with the text changing to blue as the words are being said. Animations and sound bring the books to life.

In ‘let-me-play’ mode, there are many links from stories back into the FlashBooks. In this mode the FlashBooks act as encyclopedias. For example, click on the words "gorillas," or "zebra" in the Safari Sounds Reader and you will be taken to the gorilla and zebra pages respectively in the African Animals Flashbook where you can find out more interesting information about these animals. It is then easy to return back into the Safari Sounds Reader by first clicking on the middle button at the bottom of the page and then the little cover of the last book you were in that pops up (or one of the previous two book covers that pop up above it).

FlashBooks while overtly increasing the general knowledge of your children will also covertly prepare their brains for early reading.

FlashBook Readers (Back to menu)

The four FlashBook Readers are on both the CD-Rom and videos. They are:

Fluffy the Show Cat, Michael and the Rainforest, I Can Really Ride, I Love Berries

Just think of them as storybooks. However, Fluffy the Show Cat expands upon information in the Cats FlashBook.

Michael in the Rainforest expands upon information in the Rainforest Birds FlashBook.

I Can Really Ride expands upon information in the Horses FlashBook.

I Love Berries expands upon the New Zealand Birds FlashBook.

FlashBook Readers create another level of information that builds upon the information already given in the FlashBooks. It is being provided in such a way that children can relate it to their own real life experiences. Lets use Fluffy the Show Cat s an example. Fluffy the Show Cat starts off "This is Fluffy. Fluffy is a Tabby Persian." In the Cats FlashBook the first cat depicted is a Persian cat. The text states "Persian cats come in many different colors." and the picture shows a Cream Persian. So in Fluffy the Show Cat all we have done is show one of the other colors that Persian cats can be. Further on in the book, three other colors of Persian cat are then shown in the same precise, and uncluttered or discrete way that the Cream Persian is portrayed in the FlashBook.

On another page in Fluffy the Show Cat, four of the other cats from the Cats FlashBook appear in the context of a cat show. Use this opportunity for your child to identify these cats from his or her own knowledge.

You will also find reference to the meanings of different cat tail motions and positions in this book. "She settles back to sleep. Her tail swishes angrily." and "I like this judge, thinks Fluffy. Fluffy’s tail begins to rise." These FlashBook Readers, have a very high educational content but remain enjoyable bedtime stories. Key words are repeated in the books. For example Fluffy is written 21 times, tail and judge 8 times etc. This repetition makes it easier for the beginner reader. Elsewhere in the system words like judge are presented again but this time to illustrate the sound of the ‘dge’ combination of letters.

How to Use FlashBook Readers (Back to menu)

FlashBook Readers may be introduced and used at any time. Think of them as just story books. It is useful however, to follow each FlashBook with its companion FlashBook Reader. This way the information learnt in the FlashBook can be seen applied in a true to life story. It is fun to introduce a subject with a FlashBook, follow it up with a FlashBook Reader, and then follow this up with a field trip.

For example, show the Cats FlashBook progressively, then Fluffy the Show Cat and then go to a local cat show. Or show the NZ Birds FlashBook, read the I Love Berries Reader and then go for a native bush walk (or the zoo) and try and find a real Kereru or even just some of the berry trees mentioned. You could follow this with a trip to the local garden centre to purchase one of the trees.

FlashBook Readers on Video (Back to menu)

There are four flashbook readers on your Encyclopedic Video (Fluffy the Show Cat, I Can Really Ride, I Love Berries and Michael and the Rainforest) They are designed to tell an informative true story that expands upon information presented in their companion Flashbooks.

FlashBook Readers in the CD ROM (Back to menu)

In the CD-Rom these Readers are useful for interspersing between the FlashBooks in ‘Read to Me’ mode as described previously. These books are also good on Read-to-me mode when setting up a youngster on the computer. On Read-to-me the pages turn automatically so no mouse skills are necessary.

The Encyclopedic Tools and Your World (Back to menu)

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Learning opportunities are to be found everywhere. After using the African Animals FlashBook, you could take your children to the zoo to try and identify as many African Animals as you can. After using the Planets FlashBook, try to locate Venus in the night sky or you could buy a Planisphere and try and identify some of the other stars. When out walking, try to identify the different cloud formations from the weather FlashBook.

Sounds FlashBooks (Back to menu)

There are five Sounds FlashBooks - Sounds 1,2,3,4 and 5. There are only 44 sounds in the English language.

• There are 70 basic ways of spelling these 44 sounds. Each spelling is called a phonogram.
• The five Reading Master Sounds FlashBooks present these 70 phonograms with an image.

( The image is as much to help the parent to say the sound properly as it is for the child - it is not o,w, as in cow - but the sound ow in cow, and the sound ow in rainbow that needs to be said out loud to the child while looking at ow.)

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• Being able to recognise the sound units of words is an important part of learning to read. Once combinations of letters like ch and sh and ow, can be recognised as sound blends then words can be easily broken down into sound units and sounded out.
• This is not to say that once a child has acquired a knowledge of these phonograms that these will be all that is required to read.

• The pages of the Sounds FlashBooks have been deliberately left uncluttered. For each sound there is one word and image to link and associate with that particular sound. This way, the images are large and bold and can be easily assimilated by the child. Other words using the sounds are provided in the Sounds Reader books.

• The sound or phonogram is always presented on the right hand page by itself. This is what is being learned.

• Because each Sounds Flashbook is supported by two specific readers, it is not as important to strictly grade the phonograms in order of their adult imagined complexity. The power of association is a greater learning aid than strict gradations of phonograms. However we have, as always tried to maximise the value of both forms of presentation.

How to use Sounds FlashBooks (Back to menu)

Sounds FlashBooks can be thought of as activity books. Explore them together. You cannot expect to just give them to your children and expect them to work out all the sounds. Going through them and asking what all the sounds are is similarly unrealistic. The aim of these books is to teach, not test your children.

As with the FlashBooks, these books also have an instruction page at the beginning. Use this as your guide. Start with Sounds FlashBook 1. Just go through each page pointing to each phonogram in turn and saying, "bih as in bubble," "dih as in duck," "e as in egg, ee as in egret, " through to the end. To begin with, you may wish to leave out some of the sounds for ed. Maybe just say "ed as in sprouted, " and go on to "hih as in hat."

It is important that your children are given the correct sound or sounds for each phonogram correctly from the beginning. Before using these books with your children familiarise yourself with the sounds in them. Avoid saying the name of the letter, it is not the letter bee, but "bih as in bubble". If you are unsure of the sound say the word it is used in and listen for the sound. If still unsure, use the CD-Rom or video as your tutor.

A few of the phonograms have multiple sounds that may take some practice. For example, the phonogram i has three different sounds associated with it. "i" as in fig, "i" as in ice and a more unusual one "e" as in sewing machine. For a younger child you may only want to use the first sound on each page for a while and add the others as the first one becomes familiar. The most commonly occurring sound generally appears first. It is important, however, to eventually teach all of the sounds associated with each letter or combination of letters. If for example, a child is taught just c as in cat, when they come to sound out the word city they would sound out kitty.

If you show the book each day, your child will soon become familiar with the sounds. Later, when your child gains confidence and is sounding out words use the examples from the Sounds FlashBooks when help is needed in sounding out a word. Eg. for the word each say ea as in eagle and ch as in chinchilla. This will help your child to remember.

The Sounds FlashBooks are graded in that Sounds FlashBook 5 has many more of the complex sounds than any of the previous FlashBooks. The most complex phonogram "ough." has six sounds associated with it.

• Don’t expect your children to memorise the sounds and recite ow/off/oo/aw/o/u every time you hold up an "ough" card. This is not the idea.
• Generally speaking, words with "ough" in them will be learnt more readily through whole word recognition. ie. the child will just learn the word as a complete word without breaking it down into its parts.
• If you wish, with Sounds FlashBook 5 just use the first o sound, o as in otter, and the first ou sound, ou as in mountain, until these are known, then introduce the others at a later date.

More About Sounds FlashBooks: (Back to menu)

1. Over-emphasise the sounds and let your children repeat them after you. Eg. "zzzz" as in zebra, "oi!" as in coin or "orrrr" as in orangutan. This will be fun for both of you.
2. If you wish, sing them or say them rhythmically.
3. Think of other words that use the sound. This can be an interactive process between yourself and your child.
4. Play phonic games. For example, phonetic "I Spy" is fun to play in the car. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with bih".
5. Use funny or absurd words for other examples. These are the most memorable. For example - for bih as in bubble, also try bih as in bottom, bih as in bang, bih as in bounce- and then bounce up and down on your bottom with your child.
6. The reason we have given only one word and image per sound is so that the child may create a strong association between the sound and the image. Do come up with other words yourselves.
7. For ar as in star cover st on star and substitute new letters with the child - car/bar/jar. Use ar to start words eg. art/arc/ar-choo. Use it in the middle of words like hard/backyard /start etc.

Most importantly use your imagination always keep the sessions fun and light hearted. If you or your child start to tire then stop. Only ever do as much as either of you want to do. Jump around through the books if you wish.

For "egret," in Sound FlashBook 1 you may wish to show the egret in context in the Michael in the Rainforest FlashBook reader and then move on to that book. There are no hard and fast rules. Explore the system in the way that comes most naturally for you and your child. In the Let me Play mode on the CD-Rom this is exactly what happens. In this mode the child is the driver and may switch around from book to book creating his own associations as he goes. This is mirroring how the brain stores information.

Sounds FlashBooks on Video (Back to menu)

Phonics videos 1 and 2 contain all the sounds in English and all the ways of spelling these sounds (phonograms).

In order to assist you with making the sounds you can watch Denise as an inset in the top corner of your screen forming the sounds. As with the other types of Flashbooks, music to assist in preparing the brain for maximum retention accompanies the 70 spellings of the 44 sounds.

Sounds FlashBooks on CD Rom (Back to menu)

In flash mode, the phonograms flash up at the optimum learning rate, followed by the associated picture and whole word. One idea is to select the pictures from FlashBooks and phonograms from Sounds FlashBooks and alternate them. ie. Cats FlashBook followed by Sounds FlashBook 1; followed by Planets FlashBook and Sounds FlashBook 2. A child who watches these images several times a day for a week or so will soon start to absorb them! The Sounds FlashBooks also occur on Read and Play modes. In this mode, both phonogram, picture and whole word appear on the screen together.

To back up the learning from the Sounds FlashBooks, try simple phonetic word building too. Use magnetic letters or The Parent Company magnetic phonograms. Start with short vowel words eg. cat, bed, fig, cot and but. When your child is confident with these move onto long vowel sounds and ‘the magic e’. The magic e changes short vowel sounds into long vowels that sound like their letter names, eg. cap to cape, bit to bite and cut to cute. Then add doubles; such as ‘ch’ as in chat and ow as in cow.

Sounds Readers (Back to menu)

There are ten Sounds Readers in the Reading Master range; two for every Sounds Flashbook.

• Ducks and Whales (with Sounds 1)
• Zoo and Rainbow (with Sounds 2)
• Pets and Family (with Sounds 3)
• Safari and Space (with Sounds 4)
• Arctic and Our World (with Sounds 5)

The Sounds Reader books demonstrate the 70 phonograms in use in true-to-life stories. Each phonogram is concentrated in turn, in order to demonstrate its sound. Each phonogram is color coded for easy recognition. The Sounds Reader books present ten words before the story begins for whole word recognition. These words are words that are used in the story and the majority are drawn from a list of the 450 most commonly used words in the English language.

How to use Sounds Readers (Back to menu)

• A good time to start using the Sounds Readers is when your children are becoming familiar with the sounds in the Sounds FlashBook.
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• For example, once your child knows most of the sounds in Sounds FlashBook 1 introduce the Ducks and Whales Sound Readers, see if they recognise some of the sounds they have learned.
• If you wish, start showing the ten words from the front of the books one per day before reading the books.
• In the classroom it may be helpful to make up large whole word Flashcards of the ten words at the beginning of each book. Start showing these before introducing the story.

  If you start ten days prior to reading the story you can show one word several times a day for ten days.

  We started showing Michael whole word Flashcards from when he was around 18 months. By this method alone Michael read his first book containing 21 different words, at twenty-three months of age. At this time he could recognise 65 different words easily. We found that he just started to accelerate through the words. To begin with he took two or three days to recognise the word, then he started learning a new word every day, then he started learning several new words a day. This method of teaching works for children who have a preference to learn visually.

• The duck gathered the eggs together guarded them and covered them with down. Sentences like these will become easier to read as the child begins to hear the high concentrations of ‘g’ and ‘ed’ sounds in this paragraph. Talk about gathered, guarded and covered as being ‘ed’ words before you read the story. Let the children listen for and point these ‘ed’ words out when they occur as you read the story.

Many of the fun sounds are concentrated into these first two readers. You can have fun with your children saying bih, and th, and ng, and sss and zzz, and wh versus w, and sh. Play "I Spy with my Little Eye something beginning with’ these sounds as you progress. The last two Sounds Readers use more of the less common sounds - the six different sounds of ough (Here the sounds are split between the two Sounds Readers to lessen the confusion), the four different sounds of ou, the four different sounds of o. Other sounds included in these last two Sounds Readers include augh, wor, ei, and ci. These are less commonly used but are nevertheless still useful to know.

As with the sounds FlashBooks, do not just give these books to your children and expect them to read them, even if they are older children. Use the books as tools to teach the sounds of the language. The Sounds Reader books will extend your children’s vocabulary as they use lots of different and unusual words that occur in the books for their sounds. eg. eggs glistened like gems or "between the shimmering shiny sheets of ice, shoals of fish swim".

Sounds Readers on Video (Back to menu)

There are two phonics videos. On each, the Sounds FlashBooks play first followed by their companion Sounds Readers. Your child may wish to follow along with the Sounds Reader books as they watch the videos. There are ten Sounds Readers on the phonics videos.

Sounds Readers on CD Rom (Back to menu)

In ‘flash to me mode’, ten whole words from the selected Sounds Reader flash up at optimum learning rate for whole word recognition. The majority of these words have been drawn from the list of the 400 most commonly occurring words in English. Once your child can recognise the first 100 whole words, she will be well on her way to reading. The words are large enough that even a young child can learn them. In ‘read to me’ mode, first the sounds that occur in the story are read out followed by a word from the story using that sound. Then, the story is read. All the sounds as they occur are color coded for easy recognition. In ‘let me play mode’, the first page of the story is read and then the program is available to be explored by clicking on forward and back arrows and the objects and text.

For Adults and as a Second Language (Back to menu)

Learning the English language is no different for an adult. In many ways it is simpler because the adult already has an extensive life experience and audio-visual library to link to. Whether a person has been previously exposed to the language or not, Reading Master first establishes a library of images, gives the words that describe the images, presents the letter combinations that describe the sounds and gives the component sounds themselves in a recognisably real environment. There is nothing else needed to start reading. Children or adults that find themselves in need of remedial reading have simply missed out on a component that was essential for their particular learning style. When they have the component, delivered by the learning channel that corresponds to their style, they quickly catch up.

Other Things to Do (Back to menu)

Read lots of books

You can never start using books too early. By reading to a baby, you are introducing the sounds in the language. We recommend reading at least three books a day. If you can make a set time to do this each day, then it becomes a habit. Good habits like bad habits are hard to break!

It has been our experience that the less clutter in the pictures of a book for the very young, the easier it is to learn from. The books that young children seem to identify with most readily are the books where the words and pictures correspond directly; the text is simple and may include rhyme or repetition.

We also believe it is important to show babies and young children many true and accurate books. In those early years a child is trying to work out his world and it is important to help that process along. I like this quote by G.K. Chesterton quoted by Maria Montessori - "When we are very young we do not need fairy tales. Mere life is interesting enough. 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 a door. Boys like romantic tales but babies like realistic tales because they find them romantic."

Try making your own books. Cut up photos of your family and pets and write a story. Make them simple with few words so that your child can learn to read them too. Maybe repeat the child’s name in the story a number of times so that he can learn to recognise it. Keep the text size large and print or type the letters clearly.

Make up word cards

Label things in the home

Just as Glen Doman suggests, keep the lettering on each card large: at least 2.5 inches high (around 6cm) up to 30 months, and then about one inch (2.5cm) after that. Start with the nouns - chair, table, window, television, bed, mirror.

Run around with your child reading the labels. Do this three or so times a day. It only takes a few minutes to do. If you speak more than one language then label in more than one language.

Do lots of physical activities.

Walk, swim and cycle with your children. Your brain uses up to 50% of all available oxygen. The more aerobic activities that you do, the more oxygen your brain has available to use. Baby gym classes are excellent for aiding coordination. They teach vital skills such as climbing, jumping, and balancing.

Use Magnetic Phonograms

To aid the learning of the phonograms, begin basic word building using magnetic phonograms or letters. By doing this, the child can put into practise what is being learnt. Let him form his own words using the sounds that he has just learnt. For more on this, refer to the section at the end of Sounds FlashBooks on basic word building.

Use Whiteboards

Whiteboards are useful for drawing pictures on, writing words and messages on and if you get a magnetic one, for putting magnetic letters on. If you position it in a well used area, then you will gain the maximum benefit.

Eat a Healthy Diet

We’ve heard it all before. Eat more vegetables, fruit and wholegrain cereals. Eat less sugar, fat and salt. These words are particularly important, however, for children during their growing years. By modelling good eating habits from early on, your children will not only be healthier for it but you will be establishing healthy eating patterns for your child that should continue for the rest of his life. Because diet is so important, I have spent a bit of time on it.

Let your child grow his own fruit and vegetables. A watermelon, some fresh raw beans or carrots grown by oneself is much more rewarding and nutritionally sound to have packed in one’s lunch box than a packet of potato chips each day or sweet biscuits. Rice and millet crackers are usually enjoyed by children in place of sweet biscuits. They may be eaten with cashew nut butter or cheese on them. Make up your own iceblocks. Try blending together banana and pineapple and freezing into iceblocks. Make milkshakes using acidopilus yoghurt, fruit and milk with no ice cream. Some children react to dairy products. Try using soy or rice milk on cereal in the morning. Your children may not notice the difference. When baking cakes, put in half wholemeal and half white flour. Try to avoid carbonated sugar drinks, and sachet drinks full of preservatives and food coloring. Diluted fruit juice, water or milk is better.

Your children need protein. This is found in many different foods including soya beans, meat, fish, eggs, nuts and brown rice. A one year old will get enough protein for one day by eating one egg, a five year old needs one egg, 40g (1.5oz) chicken, 40g Cheddar cheese, and 100g (4oz) of nuts. (See Bampfylde & Dickerson listed below)

Your children need carbohydrates. Not refined white flour, pastry and rice, but unrefined carbohydrates. Eat wholemeal bread, and use wholemeal flour in baking. Eat a wholegrain cereal in the morning such as granola or muesli. These foods also supply essential fibre. Fibre helps eliminate toxic waste in the body. Baked potato, peas and corn are good sources of fibre. Do not give a baby under one year much fibre as they cannot process it well.

Do not give sugar to your baby. Try to minimise the amount given to children. Sugar contains no nutritional value. It is also addictive! Molasses can be substituted for sugar in some recipes. Molasses is also a good source of iron.

Your children need vitamins. If your child is eating a balanced diet including foods listed above then they will probably be receiving adequate vitamins. The only vitamins that are not stored in the body are Vitamins C and B. It is important to make sure that these are eaten daily. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, potatoes, tomatoes, parsley and berries. The B group vitamins can be found in brewers yeast, wheatgerm, whole grain cereals and breads and eggs.

Calcium is important for healthy bones and teeth. Milk, cheese, yoghurt, sardines and eggs are good sources of calcium.

Recommended Reading: (Back to menu)

Glenn Doman, Janet Doman and Susan Aisen How to Give your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge, The Better Baby Press, Philadelphia (1984)

Glenn Doman Teach your Baby to Read, Jonathan Cape, London (1964)

Felicity Hughes Reading and Writing Before School, Jonathan Cape, London (1971)

E.M. Standing Maria Montessori, Her Life and Work, Plume (1984)

Romalda Bishop Spalding, with Walter T. Spalding, The Writing Road to Reading,

Quill (1990)

Colin Rose Accelerated Learning, Accelerated Learning Systems Ltd, (1985)

Heather Bampfylde & John Dickerson Healthy Eating for your Child, Collins (1985)