TOS Review: Reading Kingdom

Reading Kingdom is an online program that teaches children 4-10 years old how to read and write to a third grade level. We recently had the opportunity to try out Reading Kingdom for review.

Created by Dr. Marion Blank, one of the world’s top experts in literacy, it’s the only system that teaches the six skills needed for reading and writing success.

To learn more about how the Reading Kingdom is fundamentally different from other reading programs read this.

Subscriptions are $19.99/month (cancel anytime) or $199.99/year. They also start you with a free 30 day trial. What really blew me away about this company is that they’re so passionate about promoting literacy that they offer a scholarship program. That’s dedication.

How it works:

The very first step in the program is keyboard and mouse training. In order to successfully use this program, it’s important that the child is comfortable using a mouse and knows where to find the letters on the keyboard. My four year old, Francesca, hadn’t had much practice on a computer so she started here.

She enjoyed working in this part of the program. Clicking on the picture it named greatly improved her control over the mouse.

My six year old, Katie, navigates around a computer with ease so she began with the skills survey. (This is important because the program is tailored to your child. In the beginning it stressed the importance of not assisting the child so that the program can accurately gauge your child’s knowledge.) She was placed in Level 1, and has been working her way through it. There are five levels in all.

          

After about a week in the Keyboard and Mouse Training, Francesca took the first Skills Survey and was placed in the Pre-Reading level to work on mastery of visual sequencing and letters on the keyboard. 

 

 

 What we thought:

This program was  frustrating for Francesca to use in the beginning. As a new computer user, the mechanics took some getting used to. However, she quickly caught on and is liking it much, much more now. I think that she will benefit the most from it, and we will continue using it indefinitely!!

The length of the lessons are just right. Also, I loved this program because the approach just makes sense to me. I’ve used only phonics based programs in the past, and it was really interesting to read about Dr. Blank’s philosophy. I’m excited to incorporate my newfound knowledge into our reading program!

To see what my fellow crewmembers thought, visit the Homeschool Crew Blog.

*As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I received an extremely generous one year subscription to Reading Kingdom in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are stated are my own, and are not influenced in any way by the free product or the extremely generous company.