Rose Academy: Learning Dynamics Review

Imagine teaching a child to read in as little as four weeks! With the Learning Dynamics Reading Program from Learning Dynamics any child can be ready to read in a short amount of time. I am so excited to share this review with you. When my own children were young and just learning to read, I searched and tried several different learn to read programs. While all my children did learn to read when they were in kindergarten, I realized how much easier it would have been if we had we had this program!

First of all, I want to say that I was super impressed when I opened this box. Of course it came in the middle of the day when I didn't have time to thoroughly investigate all of the components, but that evening I grabbed everything out and started looking through it. As I was opening each component, I couldn't help myself from thinking how much a child would enjoy each item and how proud they would be as they worked through each lesson.

There are just a few short pages of instruction in the beginning of the teacher manual for the teacher to read before beginning lessons. This program is so simple to implement and is truly open and go--meaning you open the manual and begin teaching. No need to make things complicated.

The beginning lessons focus on letter/sound identification. The sound of each letter is introduced through a little story. For example, the letter B is introduced by talking about Baby Bear. You get use one of the cute little punch-outs with a picture of Baby Bear on it. After the lesson, the child can keep the picture of Baby Bear to help remind him or her of the sound that the letter B makes.

Here is the story of the letter B: Baby Bear was bouncing his big ball. Every time he bounced his ball, he heard a special sound -- b b b b. "That is my favorite sound," said Baby Bear--b b b b! He bounced the ball. He batted the ball. He balanced the ball. "Boy, I love to play ball! b b b b!"

Once you have enjoyed the story of the letter B and Baby Bear, you can play the song that goes along with it. The little songs that go with these lessons are cute and engaging and are meant to remind the children of different rules and reading cues. You can check out this link that has excerpt videos sharing lots of teaching ideas as well as the research into how and why this program was created. While many homeschool families use this program successfully, it is also accessible to anyone wanting to teach young children to read.

The student workbook is a cute little book about 6 X 6 inches. The pages are simple and are not meant to be overwhelming. They keep the attention of the young reader while reinforcing the lesson for that day. You can work through the pages together. Remember they are for review and reinforcement. Don't expect your child to have the material mastered within the first 5 minutes of the lesson. Keep practicing and talking through the work pages.

The suggested pacing for this early reading program is to work three times per week for 15 minutes each lesson. That doesn't mean you ignore teaching reading the rest of the week. You simple reinforce the lessons that have already been taught in between these lessons. When you are at the grocery store--point out the bread and say "b b b bread...bread starts with the b sound. What else starts with b?" Or simply ask the child, "What do you see that starts with the m sound?" It is the interactions like these that make the sounds stick in the child's brain. Feel free to listen to the little jingles over and over. Kids learn best through repetition and adding a tune to the information you want them to remember, really helps to cement the learning.

Now for the part that I really love of this program. The books! Your student will begin reading real, actual books in this program. And each time they read a book, they get to keep that book! At the end of the program, they will have an entire collection of books that they can confidently read all by themselves. Of course in the beginning of the lessons, the books are very simple--one or two words per page. The books work up in complexity as your child progresses through the program. The print becomes increasingly smaller and multiple sentences are on each page. Below I have included three pictures of different books in the series--one from the beginning of the program, the middle, and then towards the end of the program so you can see the increasing complexity.

These are good sized paper back books about the same size as the student workbook and teacher manual. Each component of this reading program fits nicely into this special box. When you turn the top of the box over, it becomes a personal bookshelf for the child. As they master reading each book, have them keep their book on their personal bookshelf so they can see their progress.

As the child progresses through the entire program, they will learn more sophisticated phonics sounds. They will have grown in confidence and will know so many sounds and words. This program does focus heavily on positive reinforcement through the use of praise and rewards. Don't you just love it when someone tells you that you have done a good job on something? Well, kids love it too! And it makes them want to keep doing a good job. It's a huge confidence booster too. I love it when children love to read, and this program gives them a great start!