ASD Reading Review

Caty has had some delay in reading and spelling due to her learning disabilities.  She loves computer programs for learning, so I was very excited to get the opportunity try out ASD Reading from the creators of Reading Kingdom.

The ASD Reading program from Dr. Marion Blank helps students who are struggling with reading to catch up.  It can be used with any child who is on the spectrum that is struggling.  They can be verbal or non-verbal and experience benefits from ASD Reading.  

If you are not sure if ASD Reading is a good fit for your student, ASD Reading has a PDF file that parents can download to see if this will work for your child.  You can start this program as early as 4 years old, if your child is ready for using computer/tablet technology.  You can sit with them.

Upon the finish of using ASD Reading, your student should be at a 3rd grade reading level.  It takes students roughly 12 - 18 months to complete the program, depending on their skill levels at the start and how much time they spend on ASD Reading.  But ASD Reading includes so many more skills than just reading.  Students are also learning several other important skills such as decoding and even writing skills.  

Caty has been using the program for a few weeks now.  She wasn't a fan of the initial placement test.  But I reminded her that it was checking where she was at.  Caty has learned reading well, but needs help with decoding and spelling skills.  This has created issues in her her writing skills, as we try to advance to more upper elementary activities with her.  Her spelling has not been progressing well, and even her letter writing skills are a struggle.  I wasn't sure if ASD Reading would actually help with these areas.  But it was definitely worth it to try, to help her with her frustration levels on writing simple sentences even.

After the initial test, Caty was fine.  She loves earning her points, and I am very shocked at how fast she is flying through the program.  Lesson length is perfect for her attention span on most days.  In fact, there are days where she will sit and work on three to four lessons at a time.  She just props her feet up and starts "playing".

I had stopped her simple sentence writing with Caty the last couple months.  She had been struggling so bad, and the frustration was too much for both of us.  Last week, I pulled out her simple 2nd grade Sentence Writing book.  One of the next activities was to take a list of adjectives and create a short story about a make-believe pet.  This would have sent Caty into a fit a few weeks ago.  She would have been screaming that she could not make sentences.  But surprisingly (and even to HER own surprise), she was able to write a simple paragraph using the adjectives provided!!!  

ASD Reading has definitely given her more confidence in her reading and sentence writing areas.  She has been picking up more books to read, and I'm not fighting with her to work on her reading challenges that I give to all of the kids!!  

I know that Dr. Marion Blank has created a proven program.  But I do not completely understand how the questions that Caty was answering was helping her to improve reading and writing skills.  I am definitely not an expert, so as a parent I am grateful that ASD Reading does provide progress reports to parents to show us "non-experts" how their student is doing.  I can check this report randomly to see how far she has worked in the program, and what level she is currently on.  And also check to see if she has been skipping work on her to-do list...lol

We will keep working our way through ASD Reading.  Since I am already seeing Caty make a good amount of progress in the past few weeks.  I encourage you to check out ASD Reading if you have a student who is struggling with reading and writing.  You can try it for 30 days at no charge to find out if it's a good fit for your student.

Several members of the Homeschool Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out ASD Reading and also the reading program from Reading Kingdom.  Click on the link below to see how they used these programs in their homes.