“We're about 5 lessons in with our 4 1/2 yr old and have so far been fairly impressed. Reading is a high priority in our family (e.g. weekly trips to the library, nightly family book readings) so our children have had a good amount of exposure to the alphabet and letter sounds already, but having a structured program that aligns with our educational philosophy is helping us take a more consistent approach to teaching reading. We had a proud parent moment just last week when our daughter was (without any prompting or help) attempting to sound out a word to write it down.
One of the big features I was drawn to was giving a child the chance to start reading after learning just a few key letters (helping to show purpose and build enthusiasm for reading early on). Another feature is very limited writing exercises (which requires a totally different skill set, so I'm glad that my child's reading education does not have to be hampered by their writing ability).
One feature I had pause about initially was the way letters (except vowels) are assigned exactly one sound (what about "c" and "y"? I thought), but after seeing how the alternate sounds are taught as exceptions later on, I actually think this method will work out well--keeping it simple early on and training kids to see that there will always be an ever-growing number of exceptions to the rule that you just have to learn as you come to them.”
“This program really helped with blending the sounds of the alphabet. My daughter was reading the first level books after just 2 weeks. We are in our 3rd week and things are going great! I totally recommend this program.”
“We get my son every other week and each night we had him he read a few books each night. By the 6th week of reading he was into the green books and is reading them faster and has more confidence. I have recommended this program to a few other moms that have kids that need a little help reading. I'm so proud of how far he has come thanks to this program.”
“I was hoping for a little higher quality student workbook. Overall, we are having success. I do supplement a few more activities like searching for the letter we are working on in a passage (both uppercase and lowercase).”
