Mikaela is my daughter who I taught to read using Friends on the Block. We began after she learned to make all her phonetic sounds using Monkey Mouth cards and then learned the corresponding letter sounds by putting lower case letters on the back of the Monkey Mouth cards. We began Friends on the Block just before her 3rd birthday and she entered kindergarten as one of the top readers in her class. Her teacher was very surprised that a child with Down Syndrome was one of the best readers.