Saturday, January 15, 2011

FREE Funnix Children's Reading Program Available During January (reg. $249)


During the month of January, you can download the entire two-year Funnix Children's Reading Program for free. I am DEFINITELY taking advantage of this offer!! This program retails for $249. Here's more info from the site:

During the month of January, the Funnix Reading Program will be FREE--no strings, no hidden costs. The Funnix sequence teaches 2 years worth of reading skills and is regularly priced at $249.

The program is designed by the world's most successful creator of instructional materials, Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann, a maverick professor of Education who has authored many books, including Give Your Child a Superior Mind, and highly successful reading programs like Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Engelmann says of Funnix,"Teaching the lessons requires a lot less effort, and the lessons are more entertaining. Also, the program consists of 220 daily lessons, so it takes kids farther than most beginning-reading programs-- from being non readers to reading on the third-grade level."

The free version of Funnix is electronic. You download the entire package of 220 lessons and other material onto your computer, and you have everything you need to teach the program. The steps of what you do and how you do it are spelled out in Teacher’s Guide, which you review before presenting the program. Workbook and textbook activities accompany the lessons. You print these.

When you teach Funnix, you and you child sit next to each other and watch the computer screen. A narrator presents a series fast-paced exercises in each 30-minute lesson. The narrator asks questions, and your child responds--out loud. Your job is to reinforce correct responses and correct any mistakes by following simple rules for "navigating" through the material.

In schools, the program works the same way, except that there's usually a small group of children being taught, and the person who leads the group is a teacher or an aide.

The program has been very successful with a large range of children from ages 4 through 7 who enter the program knowing nothing about reading, including children who have been written off by schools.

What is Zig Engelmann's reason for providing this amazing give-away? He indicated, "We've been trying for years to do things that make schools successful, particularly with young kids and lower performers. We figured that we're in a position to offer schools and parents a stimulus package that could be worth a lot for every kid who otherwise would not be accelerated or who would be a reading failure. Why not make the electronic package available to anybody who needs it? It doesn't cost us much to do it, and it could help in a small way to counteract the effects of bankrupt schools and dismal times."

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