Training Wheels Alphabet Book

Book excerpt: English, with its strange combinations of vowels and consonants, including silent letters and other complications, is a very difficult language to learn to read and write, to the extent that 30 percent of US high school graduates lack proficiency in reading, and an estimated 40 million Americans above the age of fifteen are, to a distressing degree, illiterate. The Training Wheels Alphabet Book takes this scandalous clunker and makes it glide along as though on just twenty-six uncomplicated parts. A very special learning process employed can be described with six words: Trace/Check/Erase/Next and Easy/Speedy. Learners begin by tracing letters and words on transparent overlays—then erased in the same way for further use. This, in effect, repeats the tracing process, reinforcing learning and retention. Shouldn’t it mortify us to the core that so-called third world countries like Bolivia and Cuba are leaving us behind in terms of literacy, thanks mainly to the Spanish language’s nearly perfect spelling system? Use of The Training Wheels Alphabet Book will effectively close this gap. Let’s bridge it without delay!