Reading Kingdom ~ A New TOS Review!

Both my son and my youngest daughter (who has struggled with reading) have been enjoying working through the online reading program called Reading Kingdom. This program was created by an expert on literacy, Dr. Marion Blank. Reading Kingdom is different from other learn to read programs because it uses a 6 skill model for teaching how to read.

Reading Kingdom was created for ages 4 - 10 and for students who have not yet started to read up to those who have and even for those still struggling to read fluently. The program teaches six skills to help teach reading without the need for memorizing a huge amount of rules. These skills include, sequencing, motor skills, sounds, meaning, grammar and comprehension, and incorporate phonics learning alongside whole language to help with both reading and writing.

At first your child takes a reading Skills Survey which helps customize the program for your child. They do not have to start at the beginning and move on from there. Instead they use this survey to assess where they should be and places the child at the right level for their particular reading skill level. It skips over areas a child shows they know already. At the end of five levels there is a Progress Check to assess if the skills have been mastered in reading and writing. If they pass they move forward, if not they will get a set of review activities to help bring the student to the current level.

There are also emails that come to the parent which report where your student is and if your child needs additional attention to an area they put that in the report as well. You can also log in to the program and see how your student is doing. If you want to read more about the inner working of the program I encourage you to go here -- it goes into much more detail then I could do it justice.

So we have been using this program with my 3rd grader and then also my struggling reader who is in 6/7th grade and they have really enjoyed this program and with them both at different places within the program they can see where each of them are at on the Dashboard.

The Dashboard you see when you first log on.

They like the colorful and engaging lessons. The lessons have fill-in-the-blanks, matching of letters and pictures, finding the missing letter or words, write the word, and even writing sentences with punctuation. My son wasn't in the habit of using punctuation so I know that is one of the reasons he was placed in Level One. My struggling reader was also placed in Level One, but further along in the Level. Now after they have been doing the program about 4 days a week they have gotten quite far in Level One and my daughter is about to progress to Level Two.

Passport for every 20,000 points with a little "reward"

I think the big thing I have seen since we've been using this program is that my son has started to really enjoy reading both on his own and with me. It's been quite remarkable to see the reading "light bulb" come on. He does get a bit frustrated when he feels he's repeating and doing words he felt he 'already knew', but I like the reinforcement. Each lesson takes them between 20 and 30 minutes to complete. I try to make sure they only do one lesson a day, but sometimes they like to do a second one.

I do feel that this has helped both of them and certainly for their confidence levels. We do plan on continuing Reading Kingdom throughout the summer and I'm certain I will see more improvement, especially for my son. There is another program called ASD Reading by this same company and I encourage you to check out the reviews for both programs by clicking the link below. You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.