Got a headache because of your child is still unable to read ,though he has been in elementary school? I have succeeded in helping my daughter learning to read English using Jim Yang Children Learning Reading Program. Scroll down to the story below, to find out more about it.

I turned my head to my daughter who sat next to me when I heard her reading “hot stuff” as “hot stove”. Yes, I am not a native English, even English is not my second language. But since it became one of additional lesson at my daughter school, I don’t have any choice, but helping her to master it.

Though I love English much, and often use it to write or make simple communication with my clients, but I could never teach it to my daughter.

I’ve tried to subscribe many newsletters on how teaching children as non-native English, bought some children English books, but I never success helping her conquer her difficulty in English. She even got bad marks on her last mid term.

After trying to observe and ensures my daughter's difficulty in learning English, I decided to teach her to read English first. I hope by being able to read, she will able to write or even be triggered to find its meaning in our language.

Just like any other parents when having a problem, I asked Google for some advice on how to teach Children to read. And I found some ways, for it, like through repetition, flash card, nursery rhyme…. such methods as my daughter learn at school.

However, there was something knew about me, teaching children to read with phonemic method.

Why phonemic method

Telling you the truth, teaching children reading using phonemic method is something new for me (even, I just heard about the term).

Many expert education said learning how to read through letter sound is much easier for children. Because with letter sound children will learn to decode words, not memorizing words. If children learn to read by memorizing, they will find difficulties when they meet new word/s.

Moreover, English has thousands vocabulary, which impossible for children to memorize all of those words.

But by understanding how to decode words, children will always able to read new vocabulary, no matter whether they knew the meaning of the word/s or not.

I think that this method is what I'm looking for. So, I find out more about courses or online material that can help me teach reading more structured.

About Children Learning Reading Program

The Children Learning Reading Program by Jim Yang created based on scientific research about phonemes awareness

Feeling learning to read with the phonetic method is suitable for my child, I just say “Yes” when my friend offering me to try Children Learning Reading Course by Jim Yang.

From the free video on its official site, I found that Jim created the course after finding his first daughter's (Rain) difficulty when reading new vocabulary. He found that Rain was able to read because of she memorizing words, not because she did understand the words.

We all knew that English is an Alphabet language, each of its words comprised of individual letters and combination of letters which represent different sounds. Of course it will be hard for young learners to remember all the words in English. And it can lead to confusion and frustration for children to learn another language, moreover, when you’re non-native speaker.

Though this course is mainly based on the creator experience (Jim Yang) when he taught his children to read, but the technique itself is based on scientific research. One of it is a detailed report produced by the National Reading Panel (NRP) which said “early phonemes awareness and phonics training efficiently accelerates the word recognition and spelling skills of first and second language learners alike.

What’s in Children Reading Course

Jim Yang offers his learning program in two packages, standard and premium. You will get more complete product on premium package.

Inside of standart package Children Learning Reading Program by Jim Yang

Inside of premium package Children Learning Reading Program by Jim Yang

Sneak peak of the package:

1. Children Learning Reading – Stage 1; on this e-book Jim told us about phonemic awareness, the research behind it, and step by step guide to start teaching your children learning to read.
2. Children Learning Reading – Stage 2; this is the further explanation on how to teach your children learning to read. On this book, Jim will guide you how to introduce your children with letter combination as digraphs (ch, sh, ar, etc).
3. Lesson stories for Stage 1; simple stories based on the letter sound your children learn at stage 1. The stories are written in such a way to help your children to blend and read the sentences easily.
4. Lesson stories for Stage 2; the stories which written here are similar to other children's story books you find out there.
5. Letter sound MP3 Audio Clip; many people said teaching children to read using rhymes is good, and yes, you will find MP3 here along with lyrics in separate digital book.
6. The most common sight words; children have a lot of question including sight words, you can find useful answer about sight words here.

On the premium package, you will also get a video of Premium Children Learning. It is a video which contents are similar to e-book Children Learning Reading Stage -1.

What is the Recommended Age to Start Children Learning Reading

The Program is best suited for children between 3-8 years old. when he or she can speak more clearly. However, Jim also claimed that his program can be used for older children too.

What you should do after buying Children Learning Reading Program

After having access to the learning reading program, download and spare your time to read The Step-by-step Lesson to teach Your Child to Read.

If you're buying the premium package, it is better to watch the “Premium Package #1: Children Learning Reading Lesson Videos”, moreover, if you don't have much time to read the step-by-step guide. 

Phonemic is about the sound of a letter, you will get more understanding about it after watching Jim Video.

After you are ready to teach your child to read, then print the lesson material in the package.

Printing lesson material will be very helpful and make it easier for you to teach children. This program is recommended to teach your children from 5-10 minutes only for each session. You can make 2-3 session per day. It is depend on your child age and readiness to learn.

My experience helping my daughter learning to read using Jim Yang method

The first thing I did after having access to Children Learning Reading Program was downloading and printing the e-book. I was so curious about the premium package, so, I also watch “Premium Package #1: Children Learning Reading Lesson Videos”

If you bought the Premium Package, at first you will get 27 days to access the premium package (Jim Yang protect his program with DLGuard).

But when your 27-days almost over, you can ask Jim to refresh your download link and you will able to access your package again. 

From the video I found out that it is better to print the lesson in card form. Doing so will help your child to read more and more. For instance, when he’s playing around the house, you can stop him to read and sounding word on the card.

However, I didn't do it. I wasn't sure whether my daughter would be “okay” or not with the flash / reading card. So, at first I just used alphabet magnetic and stuck it on our refrigerator. Once a while I asked her to read letters or words there.

I printed all of the e-book, because I am not that good to understand digital book. Moreover, when I have to read a hundred pages of e-book. I love to bookmark, or created simple notes on paper rather than on digital.

So, if you are a type of learner like me, then your first assignment after downloading this course material is: print all the material.

Watching video sometimes felt so boring for me, so I chunked it into some time. That’s why it took 1 week to finish reading as well as watching the lesson 1-4 videos. After that, I began to teach reading to my child.

Unfortunately, even though I prepared myself by reading and trying to understand phonemic awareness, our teaching and learning process was totally a mess, I failed to teach this method to my daughter.

You can watch and learn on how Jim taught his children learning to read

My first difficulty was on how to sound letter “A”. Later on, I also got difficulty to sound “O” and “U”. I was unable to distinguish the different the sound of letter “A”, “O”, and “U”. Moreover when I have to blend it with other letters.
So I chose to stop our learning process, and told my daughter that I would study the method once more.

Yes, Jim has so many clue on Children Learning Reading Program official site, but it wasn't really help me, since I have been learning reading and sounding words on my dialect for so long.

So, once again I surfed on Google how to learn to read with the phoneme method, and how to voice letters, including how to voice them when they form words (chopping and blending).

Jim also provide his video teaching process on the package, but unfortunately it doesn't have clear sound; thus it hard for me to distinguish the sound.

My another difficulty was about blending. In one of the videos, Jim reminded that it's a little bit difficult to do blending, so you have to be patient. And start from 3-4 words first.

Once again, my difficulties came because I had learned to read English for a long time just by listening to songs and dialects on film. So, learning or even teaching reading English with this method was really difficult for me.

I tried listening to Jim's audio again about blending (AI blending letter, Ay and how to blend it in a word) plus  collecting audios and other videos out there.

Right now, my daughter still on lesson 18. But I am glad, she's able to read short story now. She also able to write some 4-letters vocabulary.

Yes, our learning process were indeed slow because I have to repeat how to voice some letters . But I am glad with the result now.

Successful story from others parents

Stories from happy parents on YouTube

Price and Guarantee

As I mention before, there are two package offered on this program, standar and premium package.

The standart package is offered for $69 and the premium package is $89.

However, there's a chance for you to sneak peak all of the package for $9 only. With the $9, you will have the access for full of 14 days.

Click above picture to get your $9 package

And if you happy with the package, you can extend the access time by completing the purchasing based on your desired package.

What about if you're think the program is unworthy? You can claimed for the refund before your 14-days is over.

Verdict and conclusion

As you can read above, my experience in teaching reading for children using Jim's method, was indeed messy.

The main factor is, because I don't understand at all about letter sounds. Therefore I need a lot of resources to understand Jim's program as well as the letter sound material itself.

From this experience, if you are non native and willing to try this program, try to understand about letter sounds first. If necessary, try some free material from others resources out there.

Actually, there are many free resources to learn reading based on phonemic awareness.

But I chose to stick with Jim's program because it was more systematic. Unlike some free resources which suggest us to learn all the alphabet sound first; after learning to voice the letters A, and B, Jim goes directly to the two letters AT. This helped me answer my daughter question who couldn't wait to try to read a lot of words.

So, if you were asking me, is this program will work for your children? My answer, yes there is possibility for it. However, just like what Jim said on his official site, result of this program may vary from one children to another. There are many factors influence the success of this program, including the readiness of your child to read, age, as well as his type of learning.

Disclaimer

This review is based on my personal experience and assessment, result may vary depending on individual user. And it should not be taken as educational advice, but as general information and general understanding.