This summer we have been spending some time using an on-line subscription program called Reading Kingdom.  I am using the program with my daughter Anna.  She is a struggling reader and is finally making progress after lots of tears and very difficult work.    She still needs lots of work, and I think Reading Kingdom is going to help long term.

Anna enjoys Reading Kingdom even though it sometimes frustrates her when she is asked to enter the same word several times.  Her keyboarding skills are poor, so that is what she working on right now.  If you start Reading Kingdom with poor keyboarding skills they give you lots of practice in that area.  Actually, the very first thing your child will do is take an assessment so that the program will know where he or she should start.  I have to admit that Anna hated the assessment.  Once we got past that part she has been happy playing with the program.

You can choose between an onscreen keyboard that you click with a mouse and the actual physical keyboard.  We chose the onscreen keyboard which might be a little tricky for some.  The actual instructions for what to type are oral which is wonderful!  I have struggled with several programs in the past in which the instructions are written and must be read.  This just doesn’t work for a struggling reader!  I love the fact that she is learning where letters are located on the keyboard too.  Yesterday she started to ask me, and then remembered on her own so I know this is starting to click.  Isn’t it exciting when that happens?

One of the things I really like in Reading Kingdom are the student reports.  I can quickly and easily see which sections Anna has started, how much she has completed (percentage), and how well she is doing.  The code (shown above) is very simple so that I can see where Anna is at a glance.  This is important because I don’t often have time to sit down with her while she is doing Reading Kingdom work.

Reading Kingdom takes a different approach then most reading curriculums in that they do not focus on phoncis, or whole language, or even a simple combination of the two.  Instead, Reading Kingdom focuses on teaching six skills considered essential to excellence in both reading and writing.  These skills are shown in the chart above.  I think the broader focus of this program is very important, especially for the struggling reader who is less likely to pick up sequencing and comprehension skills (for instance) on their own.

The price for a Reading Kingdom subscription is $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year and takes between 15 and 30 minutes per session.  Additional students are discounted.  I received a one year subscription.

My Bottom Line: We started Reading Kingdom during the summer and did not use it as often as I would have liked.   We started school on Tuesday, and of the three days we have done school this week, Anna asked to play Reading Kingdom on two days.  She enjoys the computer time and the independence that she has from using the keyboard on her own.  I can tell that she is learning and I am excited to see how far Reading Kingdom will take her in the next year.  I am seriously considering a subscription for my younger son.

Disclaimer:  I received a subscription to Reading Kingdom at no cost to me in exchange for an honest review on my blog through the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Here you have my honest review.

Imagine having access to over 4000 educational videos with subtitles at your fingertips. Does that interest you?  I was fascinated with the concept and have been enjoying our membership with Zane Education.

When you have a gold membership and log in to your account at the Zane website, you  find a list of every video on the website and those that you have already watched are clearly marked.  This is so handy!  The list is very, very long so using the category selections was very handy.  If I wanted to watch a video with my younger kids, I would first narrow the list down to just those videos appropriate for elementary aged children. I then found it much easier to scan for the desired subject and choose the next video we wanted to watch.

While we have enjoyed our Zane Education membership and will continue to enjoy it; I found a few things disconcerting.  The fact that the videos cannot be enlarged on the computer screen was especially frustrating for all of us.  It makes reading subtitles extra difficult.  The buttons which show up in each video but are unusable were also distracting to us.  These are present because of the software used to create the videos.  Also, being a Creation Science minded family, we are disappointed in the amount of unnecessary evolutionary and humanistic content.  Fortunately, the accompanying book Christian Home Learning Guide is an excellent resource to help Christian parents use Zane Education.

The cost for Zane Education Gold Membership is $197.89 per year.  Other subscription options are available, including the option to subscribe to all of the videos for a certain topic.  Zane has videos for all ages covering just about every subject imaginable.

I did find that my daughter was very focused on trying to read along while listening which is the entire premise of Zane Education — offering subtitled videos to help students improve reading skills and comprehension.  In our case, that method works. We enjoyed having short videos to watch to supplement nearly every subject.  For instance, we watched all of the elementary level videos on community in conjunction with our studies in Who Is My Neighbor.  They were a great complement.

My Bottom Line:  We will continue to use and enjoy the Zane Education videos for the length of our membership, but we are unlikely to have the money for a renewal of this product.

Bonus:  Zane Education is offering my readers a free 30 day Silver membership AND a free copy of the ebook Christian Home Learning Guide (through August 20, 2012).  Please see this post for instructions.  Zane is also offering one of my lucky winners a free Gold Membership in this $700 grand prize giveaway.

Disclaimer:  A one-year gold membership was provided to me in exchange for an honest review on my blog as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Here you have my honest review.

Outside of the basics, very few subjects are required in our homeschool. Once Bible, history, reading, writing, math and science are finished, my children have some freedom in choosing the subjects that will round out their education. Except in the case of swim lessons and typing lessons. Those two subjects are also non-negotiable.

Typing has become a more significant need now that my children are 13 and 11, and I knew it was time. We needed something. The only thing we have tried in the past was a computer game, and with no accountability built in that was a colossal failure. I think typing games are great once you know how to type and are actually motivated to improve your typing speed. These games do not work for beginners.

Recently we were privileged to review a typing curriculum titled Keyboarding for the Christian School. Both of my older children were not happy with this new review product. Apparently, phone size keyboards are going to take over the world in the next five years and keyboarding will not be a necessary skill when they enter the job market. Personally, I think that is a bit of a stretch. So even though my children continued to balk, I made them start learning how to type using Keyboarding for the Christian School.

After several weeks of typing lessons, I have to admit to you that typing is not going to become their favorite subject any time soon. That’s okay. I don’t remember enjoying my typing class in junior high either, but it is for their own good. And I am so glad today that I persevered and learned to type.

After breaking down the basics (letters, numbers, punctuation) of typing into bite size chunks for lessons that last about ten minutes each day, Keyboarding for the Christian Schools teaches important formatting skills such as the paragraph, the essay, the letter, short stories, bibliography, columns and headers (to name a few). All while using the Bible and other Christian materials as the words being typed. I love this! I don’t have to worry that my children are typing paragraphs about the Big Bang Theory, rebellion against parents, or any other social propaganda. My job as the teacher is to simply observe my children and make sure they are using proper fingering as they type, and make sure they are not learning bad habits or bad posture that will slow them down later.

My Bottom Line: I think Keyboarding for the Christian School is a simple, no-frills, easy to use, and logical method of learning to type. It is certainly working for us and I have already seen some improvement with my children. If you are looking for a more traditional, non-game based typing curriculum, Keyboarding for the Christian School (grades 6 and up) will fit your needs perfectly. At $15.95 for a pdf, the price is right too. You can also purchase an elementary version (K-5) in large font or regular font for $12.95.

Use this coupon code! 20 percent off code: SUMMER2012 Expiration: 8-29-12

Disclaimer: I received Keyboarding for the Christian School at no cost to me in exchange for an honest review as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew. Here you have my honest review. Read what other’s have to say about Keyboarding for the Christian School.

The first time my son opened IXL Math and started practicing math, he said, “I actually learned something I didn’t know.  If I had seen this on the test I would not have known what they were talking about even though I really knew how to work the problem.”  I thought that was a fascinating insight from my eleven-year-old.  The only problem we have with our current math curriculum is that our children don’t learn the correct terminology or see word problems that mimic standardized testing.  IXL Math fixes that problem and makes a great addition to our math program.

I have two children who are using IXL Math successfully right now.  One is my eight-year-old Anna who struggles to read.  She really benefits from the fact that the questions have audio clips.  I am so thankful for that feature.  On the website, it says that the audio clips are only through 1st grade.   I only have one laptop that will work for math right now and I have actually had the two children arguing over who got to use IXL Math first.  While Anna enjoys working the math problems, she is a little put out that the prizes are not more interesting.  Every time she works for a specified length of time, she gets a gold medal and gets to reveal another prize on the prize board.  It’s a little like putting a stamp on a collection card.  Each prize revealed is a picture of an animal or some other object.

The second child I have using IXL Math is my 11 year-old-son Jonathan.  Jonathan really enjoys IXL Math and is old enough he doesn’t really care about the prize system.  He thinks it is goofy, but that doesn’t affect his attitude about using the program.  He has actually revealed enough prizes to replace his avatar and make it a little more “cool.”  It’s just not a big deal to him like it is to Anna.  He is excited to actually be learning new things and is stretching himself now and picking topics he hasn’t covered in our regular curriculum (like comparing numbers up to billions).

One thing I really like about this online math program is the fact that  you have access to all of the levels for each child (prek through pre-algebra).  Each level has over 100 topics, and altogether you will find over 2000 topics!  So if your child wants to work ahead of his grade level he can.  It actually took me a little while to figure out where my kids should be, but eventually I just started letting them pick what to work on.  As long as they are working at or above grade level, they can pick any of the topics they want.  The prize board does help students choose what to work on, because if you hover over an unrevealed prize it tells you exactly what you have to master in order to reveal that prize.

Something else I really like:  the reports for Mom and Dad.  Each week, I get an email telling me how long my child worked (how many minutes) and what my child worked on. If I need more information, I can log into my Mom account and see several different reports showing me exactly what each child worked on and where he/she needs improvement.  I can also print award certificates from this section.

I tried using IXL Math with my six year old son, but he really struggles to use the laptop mouse and does not enjoy using the curriculum.  I think this is because of his age (he just turned six) and I definitely think this would work better for him if we had a handheld mouse instead of a trackpad.

My Bottom Line:  Pricing for family memberships starts at $9.95/month or $79/year. Each additional child costs$2/month or $20/year.  While my children are enjoying IXL Math I have not decided yet if I will renew our membership at that cost.  As we reach the end of our subscription I will get input from my children and make a decision.  My son is already lobbying for a continued subscription.

Disclaimer:  I received a six-month subscription to IXL Math for three children at no cost to me in exchange for an honest review on my blog as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Here you have my honest review.

You have no idea how much fun I have been having with my Discovery Scope. I received this precious item to review just a short six weeks ago, and we have been taking it with us on hikes and field trips everywhere. The very first day the Discovery Scope arrived, my daughter and her best friend spent the afternoon looking at various items with the scope and recording their observations in a Science notebook. They had so much fun and were quite amazed with the variety of detail they saw in mulch, dirt, flowers, sticks, leaves, bark and other found objects outside.

Can you believe that is the flower of a clover?  How beautiful this weed is from a new perspective!  I didn’t realize right away the versatility of this scope, in fact at first I wasn’t even sure how to get it focused. It was my eight-year old who first got the Discovery Scope to focus correctly.

When it first arrived, we were using the little plastic box that comes with the scope to view every loose item, but after talking to the vendors of Discovery Scope at a homeschool convention, I realized that inanimate objects could be clipped directly onto the clip included with my scope. We were able to get much better views with this method.

Several people have asked me if the Discovery Scope is a glorified magnifying glass. It is not. The Discovery Scope has 25X magnification and a mechanism for focusing through a tube to block out excess light. Magnifying glasses are at best 15X magnification, no focusing mechanism and cost $150.  Of course, 25X magnification is not nearly what you can see with a tabletop microscope, but the Discovery Scope is not meant to be a tabletop microscope….

The Discovery Scope is a portable, lightweight and handheld wide-field microscope. It is meant for taking with you everywhere you go to explore. And for that purpose it is indispensable.  We used an iPhone 4S to take pictures and video of objects seen through our Discovery Scope.  This took a bit of practice, and I have the following tips for you.

1. Use four hands.  You will have to borrow two hands from a child or friend and have them hold the base.  Do not have them hold the moveable clip.
2. Once your camera lens is centered on the Discovery Scope lens, tap your finger on your camera screen to focus the camera.
3. Use the clip for flowers, and the box for living beings.  Flowers do not photograph well inside the box.
4. Light is necessary, but too much light is overwhelming so don’t stand near a window or in a dark room.
5. Practice, it will take you a few times to get the hang of it.

This is my three-year-old looking at a slice of apricot.  We are having so fun much looking at all of nature from a new perspective. We have examined iron on the end of a magnet, the internals of many a flower, slices of food, and even videoed the tiny eyes of tiny living beings.

My Bottom Line: Every time MY Discovery Scope wonders off with an unsuspecting child, I start to panic. The cost of a replacement Discovery Scope is $40 and is appropriate for all ages.  I would buy a replacement in a heartbeat. My children are getting used to me saying “Come look at this, and help me take a picture.”  I give the Discovery Scope my highest recommendation.

Disclaimer:  I received the Discovery Scope at no cost to me in exchange for an honest review on my blog through the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  Here you have my honest review.  To see what my crewmates have to say about Discovery Scope, you can click the graphic below.

If your child could use some help with writing paragraphs or storytelling and you have an iPhone, iPod or iPad — StoryBuilder is a fun way to improve writing skills. In level one, a picture is presented with a series of four questions and your child gets to record her answers to each question! The instructions say “Answer the question about the picture. Be sure to use a complete sentence …” At the end of four questions, your child can play back the story and listen to herself tell the story! Then it is on to the next picture. In level two, the number of questions increases to seven and your child has to infer what happened before the picture and what might happen after the picture. In other words, the question and storybuilding gets just a little more difficult. In the final level (level three) children are presented with a picture and allowed to make up and record their own story without any question prompts.

This app can be customized in several different ways. You can have the questions displayed in red or with a clear background.  You can have a suggested start for each sentence displayed or you can turn that function off. You can enter your child’s name, and choose the level for them to work on. I started my daughter on level one and quickly advanced her to level two. Level two is perfect, and if I put her on level three, she just makes up a two sentence story and doesn’t actually build any skills. You can only have one child play this game at a time.

When I first got this app, I required my eight-year-old daughter to play with it because I needed to see how it worked for review purposes. She now plays the game for fun. She does get frustrated that each story only has one picture, but I think this is actually important for the inference skills being taught. My six-year-old and my three-year-old twins also enjoy playing the game on level one, and get the giggles when they hear their own voice telling the story at the end.  Don’t you just love toddler giggles?  I have to help the twins push the correct button, and remind my six-year-old to use full sentences. They sit on my lap with me and play the game with me. We’ve been having a lot of fun with this game!  I think they will eventually play this game on their own once they memorize the sequence of buttons to push.

My Bottom Line: This app is fun and teaches a very valuable skill. Kids love the fact that they get to record their own voice telling a story and listen to the story they told. The app is very easy for a child to figure out with minimal parent interaction. The instructions are presented in an illustrated video and questions are read aloud so even struggling readers can use the app. At just $5.99 in the iTunes App Store, I would buy this app for my children and will be looking at other apps from Mobile Education.

Disclaimer: The Storybuilder App was provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review on my blog as part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew. If you would like to see what my crewmates are saying about this and other Mobile Education Apps, click the graphic below.