Author and educator Stephen Parker has written three books on teaching your child to read using his “Synthetic Phonics” system, and has made all three freely available on his website in PDF ebook format. Here’s what he has to say about his background and the techniques he uses to teach children to read:
I’m a life-long teacher of mathematics, computer science, and reading. After teaching my own 3 children to read by their third birthdays, I became interested in reading instruction in general. What I discovered in many schools baffled me: a method called Whole Language (since discredited) and now, in its place, Balanced Literacy.
There is no “balance” in Balanced Literacy. Essentially, it’s Whole Language with some ineffective phonics added in after the child starts “reading” based on memorized sight words. Balanced Literacy will not alter the scandalous fact that 2 out of 3 of our children never become proficient readers.
A word can become meaningless when people start using it to indicate anything they want. This has happened to the word “phonics” in some educational circles where one hears talk of “analytic” phonics, “analogy” phonics, “embedded” phonics, and “onset-and-rime” phonics.
None of the above are methods for teaching reading. They all rely heavily upon memorization of sight words and on guessing strategies. Genuine phonics, that is to say, synthetic phonics, is the only type of phonics that functions as a stand-alone method for teaching both reading and spelling.
Synthetic phonics uses neither sight words nor guessing strategies. It is employed right at the start of reading instruction – and the child is not expected to memorize any whole words. Instead, the child is taught, explicitly, to correlate individual sounds with individual letters.
As soon as 5 – 8 such letter/sound correspondences are mastered, the child can begin authentic reading, that is, taking an unknown word and blending the sounds of its individual letters into a recognizable pronunciation – a process called decoding.
It’s the only way to teach reading in a manner that respects the reasoning ability of the child. Children, like adults, need to understand what they’re being asked to do, especially if the task requires significant effort over an extended period of time.
CLICK HERE to go to the download page!
Here’s a simple, short lesson plan from the terrific 
Over the past 13 years, Dad’s Worksheets.com has created over 9000 printable math worksheets, logic puzzles and math games for students at every level — and makes them available free for printing or downloading on their website. Just about any mathematics topic you can think of can be found here, including all the core math skills, number patterns, measurement & conversions, word problems, geometry, rounding numbers, factorization, and on and on. All worksheets can be printed or saved to PDF.
Christmas Every Day by William Dean Howells (MP3 audio)
This neat collection of interactive historical maps of American history, Latin American history, African history and European history was developed by the University of Oregon. As explained on the site, it is “…designed to provide interactive and animated representations of fundamental historical problems and/or illustrations of historical events, demonstrations, and dynamics.”
Reading Bear is an easy-to-use, engaging site that uses simple (and entertaining) interactive lessons to teach beginning readers to read. They teach over 1,200 vocabulary items and offer 50 interactive presentations that cover all the main phonics rules. You can create an account and watch what sounds your child has mastered, or can use the site without creating an account. This well-designed site is a great resource for littles just starting out learning how to read.
Mary (and her son) at HomeGrownLearners.com put together this fun 10 week class all about LEGOs! The full 10 session lesson plan is a PDF freebie on her site. Here’s what she says about it:
MAKING BOOKS with your KIDS