Reading Kingdom - ASD Reading Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Caty has had some delay in reading, spelling, and comprehension due to her learning disabilities.  She loves computer programs for learning, so I was very excited to get the opportunity to review 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.  ASD Reading has helped her with the decoding issues that she has been having.  Decoding issues cause her to struggle with writing and spelling. 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 decoding work struggle areas.  She has decided that she wants to write more, and I'm not fighting with her to work on her spelling.  

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

I would definitely recommend ASD Reading to parents if their student is struggling with learning delays.  Caty has continued to 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.

Memoria Press - First Start Reading Review

Teaching a child with a visual perception delay to read is a long and frustrating process for both the parent and child.  The parent get frustrated because the child cannot remember letter sounds which means they cannot put together the letter sounds to make their words.  I am struggling with this right now with Caty.  She cannot remember her letter sounds and it is making her so frustrated.  So we were excited to get a chance to review First Start Reading from Memoria Press.

First Start Reading ($42.95) was created for students in Preschool through 1st grade (depending on if you have a struggling reader).   It combines those crucial early handwriting skills with a traditional vowel-consonant approach reading program.   

When you buy the First Start Reading program, you receive four workbooks and a teachers guide.  Normally I don't purchase Teacher Guides.  I always just figure that I will pull it off somehow and save the money.  But I really did enjoy the Guide that comes with this set.  It lists out the full lesson and scripts it for me really well.  It made pre-planning each lesson super easy.  

You can see how the lesson is made to be brief, but have an impact on the child.  Each lesson has the "less is more" approach, which is a bonus for short-attention spans.  We even did fun things when it came to listening for sounds.  We would do stand up/sit down.  Jump for sounds, and clap for sounds.  It helped her focus on listening for the sounds in the words.

As you can see, the handwriting is included in each lesson.  This is from Book 1.  Each lesson introduces sounds, and shows the students how to take those sounds and make them into words.  Every lesson continues to build on top of the previous lesson.  

I like that the handwriting has traceable letters for the kids in the beginning. Caty struggles with letter formation.  So this helped her form letters of the words that she is learning to read.  

Many of the lessons and stories have areas for the kids to draw, which also helps with their fine motor skills.   But it also helped Caty to work on early comprehension skills.

You start out in Book A and work your way through lessons.  You are working for mastery, so if you child is still struggling you will want to spend extra time on the lesson they are struggling with.  In lessons where she does not need extra help, there was a couple lessons where she was able to do 2 lessons a day.  In lessons where she is struggling we are able to do some extra work.  There are four books in the First Start Reading series.  So depending on your student's abilities, this is a full year program.  

Lessons are short and last about 15 minutes for each one.  So this also helps for those with short attention spans (like Caty).   There is not a ton of extra books that you need to keep track of either.  Some reading programs have several early reader books that you must keep track of.  With First Start Reading, the sentences and stories that they read are in each lesson.  When we are traveling, this really helps out on the need to keep cut back on the amount of books that we carry.  So First Start Reading would also be great for those who are schooling on the road.

First Start Reading seems to be helping Caty with her reading struggles, because of the approach.  If you have a child that is struggling with a visual perception delay, I would recommend checking out First Start Reading for them.  It is not a miracle, and we are working on mastery very slowly.  But Caty has not gotten as frustrated using First Start Reading like she has with other programs.  So we will continue to chug along and see where this takes us.

Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out First Start Reading and New American Cursive from Memoria Press.  See how they used these products in their homes and how they worked for their families.  You can read them by visiting the blog in the link below.

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Another Monday not going as planned...

Well it's Monday and as the kids are pouring glasses of milk...I came to realize they drank all but 1/2 cup of milk over the weekend.  They ate all of the precious "pizza rolls" that Brayden must have right now in his diet and all of the pizza that Joey must have was gone also.  Now someone might ask and start pointing their fingers at the horrible diet I allow my children to eat, but please before judging me...remember my kids special needs.  I have to be grateful somedays if I can get food into Brayden, because over the summer he would go several hours without eating.  Did I mention we were also out of the popsicles that Caty will only eat because she is cutting a molar right now?

Anyway I decided to take the girls and run to the store, since my mom was already taking our car into town, I figured I might as well do it this morning.  The only problem is that it kind of messed up my inital plans to finish schoolwork first thing in the morning so the boys could veg out before basketball practice.  The other obstacle was I needed to entertain the girls in a therapy office waiting room while my mom was getting therapy.   I had been keeping tight control of my Monday mornings the past couple weeks, but lost control this morning.  I dread the return of the Out-of-control, since I am so trying to rein in the chaos in our life right now.

Since the decision to go was so last minute I ran around and got the girls ready.  Talked to the boys about what they should finish while I was gone and then gave them permission for "free time" video games if they finished.  And then I went into my reserves.  I knew I would have to keep the girls occupied for at least an hour at the therapy office.  So I grabbed Lydia's phonics lesson for today, a Fancy Nancy book and the matching butterfly wings and a new art game I had ordered from Scholastic book clubs.  Basically it was going to be a mini-Carschooling day!

We started out reading Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly.  I had found these cute butterfly outfits on clearance at Halloween.  The older people coming in for therapy thought the girls were just the cutest.

Then I pulled out a reserve item.  Something they hadn't played with yet.  I ordered this from a Scholastic Book order that Caty's teacher (she receives therapy in a group 2 times a week).  It's been put on the shelf.  When I pulled it out today, the kids fell in love!  It's from Alex Toys.

Pros:

• Bright and colorful
• Easy to understand and good storage tray
• The plastic tray that the card sits on could be used to "create" a personalized design.

Cons:

• The buttons do not snap into place and they are fairly large in size. 
• They could be a choking hazard though if a child likes to put stuff in their mouth.  
• Only 10 cards are included and I haven't found a way to purchase more.   

It did help out in occupying time today.  I would recommend this for kids up to 6, or any younger group trying to work on fine motor skills.

You can buy it from here, I found it on Amazon (and might I add a little cheaper than I paid).

We finished most of Lydia's phonics lesson.  Turns out when we are working on word syllables daily, instead of clapping the syllables, we are probably going to be jumping them.  She actually made it up to the point of her worksheet, we just ran out of time to finish it.  Another benefit of homeschooling, The Ability to adjust curriculum to benefit a student WITHOUT the hassel of getting permission from some higher up that doesn't even know who the child is!!

When I finally made it home, the grocery store was a nightmare---Caty had a meltdown and screamed most of the time and there was only 2 checkout lanes open,--I was very surprised to find out that they boys actually attempted to work independently on all assignments that did not have a "Do With Mom" tag in the box.  Yeah...maybe workboxes are gradually working!!!!!!