Compiled by Michael Jay Read
Seawriters, Inc.
www.seawriters.com
Largo, FL 33774-4832
727-596-4493
The Log Cabin Reader was born out of Michael Jay Read's desire to pass on an old-fashioned love of reading and a piece of American history to today's children. Mr. Read's own aunt found this original primer in an old mining town in the 1930s and was able to rescue and repair it. She used it to teach her own children to read and later passed it on to her nephew, Mr. Read. Mr. Read reprinted the primer in an easy-to-read format and combined the text with sweet, rustic illustrations by Melissa Yankey Stickler so that this time-honored book would be available for a new generation.
The front cover of The Log Cabin Reader describes the book as "A back-to-basics Primer" and promises to "Teach Anyone to Read in 60 Days." Inside, you will find over 100 pages of reading practice, beginning with words that may be deciphered with mastery of only a few letter sounds. The readings move quickly to sentences and paragraphs of increasing length and difficulty. The charming vignettes center on everyday life in the 1900s, mentioning topics such as playing in the sand, barnyard pets, and traditional toys and games.
The Log Cabin Reader seems to have been created with home educators in mind. Because this primer originated in the early 1900s, it is somewhat similar to the other old-fashioned readers with which many of us homeschoolers are familiar. The Log Cabin Reader will appeal to home educators who prefer a phonics approach but who also like to reward children with "real" reading. By page 3 of this primer, the student is reading full sentences (not just unrelated words), hopefully providing the child with a taste of the real purpose for reading: to understand stories!
Each section of The Log Cabin Reader centers on the introduction of a new letter or combination of letters and their corresponding sounds. Grouping words together with similar spellings in this manner is not only helpful to new readers, but also useful for older students who need practice with spelling. There are three appendices in the back of the book to help the parent organize and plan when to introduce specific letters and letter combinations. A parent could use this book not only as a progressive reader, but also to increase student practice for specific sounds, letter combinations, or word families according to need.
I admit that when I looked at this primer, it was the "Teach Anyone to Read in 60 Days" that prompted me to use it with our youngest son. Almost 6 years old, our son has known his letters and their sounds for quite some time. However, he simply cannot seem to make those sounds blend together. (Ruth Beechick, in An Early Start in Reading, says, "Blending skill is one of those things you cannot hurry in [your child.] . . . All you can do is give him opportunities to learn it, and one day you will see he is beginning to catch on.")
I had to realize that "Teach Anyone to Read in 60 Days," was a promise that came with qualifications. A home teacher desiring to use this primer should begin with a student who is already capable of blending separate sounds together. If the student is not yet blending sounds, the parent must be willing to patiently stay on the first few pages with the student (for possibly more than 60 days!) until he or she is ready to move on.
The Sea Writers' website describes this primer as "a wonderful teacher's aid for the development of lesson plans"--a description I much prefer to the tagline on the book's cover. The Log Cabin Reader should not be seen as a magic pill that can transform a non-reader into a reader in 60 days. However, The Log Cabin Reader can be an excellent tool in one's reading tool chest, especially when combined with other real-life learning-to-read opportunities.
Product review by Deborah Burt, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, August 2008
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