My son refused to do this 6 months into the book. We switched to "hooked on phonics" which he loves

I bought this book because it was so highly recommended. Sorry, I didn't like it. I didn't like the way that several different sounds for one letter had to be learned before getting down to words. I find the word family way easier, where, for example, you teach "at" then "cat," "hat" "bat" and so on before saying the letter "a" can make other sounds.

Despite the glowing reviews that convinced me to buy the book for my 3 year old daughter, I wouldn't recommend this. There are 3 areas that it fails:1. On a practical level the binding is poor quality - within a few days the pages were falling out; and for weighty tome such as this, getting pages out of order makes the book pretty hard going. (And it is a large, heavy book - again not suitable for small children, or for an adult to comfortably share).2. On a design level, the choice of typefaces and general layout is weak.3. Most significantly, however, is the fundamental icon set used to convey the letters/phonetics. It is an odd, inconsistent mix of nouns and verbs, and some of them are confusing. For instance, in session 1... working on 'A' for Alligator - my daughter was convinced it's a crocodile. And it went downhill from there.So I'm pleased it worked for some people, but it's not the miracle book some claim it to be. There are some nice ideas, but poorly implemented.

I just got this book from amazon today. I was excited to use it with my 5 year old. I opened it right away and began reading the introduction. They say to use the "token game" with kids and say if the child gets a word wrong to pinch them. This is wrong on so many levels. I will be tearing that page out of the book and donating it. I'm not happy.

my little ones hated this book. We found it to be very boring. My kids did better with hooked on phonics.

Our 3 1/2 year old is addicted to the CD-ROM. She would rather play with the CD than watch a kid show on TV. It is interactive and helps her to learn to read and spell without her becoming frustrated. She is also becoming educated on how to use the keyboard and computer. Because she recognizes the characters in the book from the CD-ROM she has begun to be involved in writing and using the book. It is fun and interactive and I highly recommend the book for any toddler learning to read.