I am a homeschool mum and I have taught two children to read using this book and I would highly recommend it to others. With my other two older children I used a labour intensive phonics program that is quite expensive but the effort it took to implement the program was more than I was prepared to devote.
This takes 10 mins per day and is easy. Snuggle up with your child on the couch and watch them rapidly increase their reading skills.

There is some Americanisms but as a whole they are easily overlooked.

I will let you know after about a month. Am giving it to my sister to help her son learn to read

fantastic learning programm! Wouldn't go for anything else. It is working very well with our two homeschooled 5 year olds. Absolutly recommendable.

I think this book is exceptionally good - if used a certain way. The books success is dependant on a few factors - The foremost one being that the child is at a stage of "reading readiness". To be honest, my daughter was fully aware of the alphabet and knew all the "sounds" that letters make before we started this book, which gave us a tremendous headstart. I wonder if she would have had the same success without this prior knowledge? Who can say. The fact is, it worked for her.

The other factor was my ability to be adaptable to the script. There are some funny grammar quirks, as another reviewer pointed out, but I simply explained them away to my daughter as exactly that - by telling her these are "funny words". She was happy with that explanation and moved on. The important thing is she was sounding out words, which was the end goal.

If you're interested in hearing more about how I made this book work for me, I have written a post about it on my blog - http://watchamacallits.blogspot.com/2007/09/teach-your…n-100-easy.html

I personally found this book helpful in teaching my child phonics. My child was in kindergarten overseas in a non-english speaking country, and I didn't want her to fall behind when she returned to Australia. Whilst I didn't follow the book to the letter nor complete it, it taught me a lot about phonics and teaching children to read, and my child is now above average for her age in reading.

This book is rediculous. It suggests that you can teach a child the exceptions to grammar rules by making up a whole new set of rules for them to learn instead. It is hard for the student and hard for the teacher.
A much better option is Reading Reflex: The Foolproof Phono-Graphix Method for Teaching Your Child to Read by Carmen McGuinness, Geoffrey McGuinness.
This book has short 15 minute lessons that are very easy to teach and your child will enjoy them. My kids do.