Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons (1986)

The cheapest way to start a young child reading is a single book. Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox and Elaine Bruner adapted the DISTAR reading program for home use and wrote every one of its 100 lessons as a script: the parent reads the lines, the child answers, and a lesson fits into about 20 minutes. There are no flash cards, scissors or other materials to prepare, which is why it has stayed on homeschool shelves for decades. The drilled call-and-response style does not suit every child, and some families stop partway and move on to ordinary readers or a fuller program such as All About Reading. As a low-risk first step for a four- to six-year-old who seems ready, it is hard to beat.