The Princess (age 8/grade 3) is rapidly becoming our online subscription expert. She’s recently been checking out Reading Kingdom, a colorful, interactive program for reading up to grade 3. Students learn typing, letter sounds, spelling, and reading through activities in an incremental program.
She quickly discovered that it’s easy to use – no help from Mom needed. A beginner computer user would need some help until they’ve gotten used to how the program works (a few days to a few weeks), but then they should be able to proceed through the levels on their own.
Princess is a fluent reader, so I was concerned that the program would be too easy for her. Definitely was. Reading Kingom works wonderfully if your student is at the early reader end of the spectrum. If your student is already a fairly competent 2nd or 3rd grade reader, you’ll probably want to take a pass on this. (Unless you’d like them to brush up on typing skills – this is one area that Princess isn’t so skilled at, and there has been a measurable increase in her proficiency during her time spent using Reading Kingdom.)
Reading Kingdom is intended to be used as a supplement to your regular reading curriculum. When mine were initially learning to read, we used workbooks that worked through phonics in a progressive method. Reading Kingdom would have worked well for us as an additional approach that increased learning, but wasn’t repetitive or conflicting with our core learning.
Like most online programs, there’s very little prep needed – other then initial signup (and logging in, if your student isn’t comfortable with it) there’s nothing else for the parent to do, other then check back in to view progress.
The graphics are “pretty cute”, according to Princess. The controls are simple – your student won’t have any difficulty getting them to work. When your student first starts the program, you’re able to choose their level of keyboarding skill.
There was one facet of Reading Kingdom that annoyed her – she often has to wait for the program to be ready for her to go on. This doesn’t seem to be caused by a lag in the internet, rather it’s a built-in pause to allow the beginner student to catch up. It’s a good thing for students at the appropriate level – for one that is more confident, it could be bothersome.
Princess has done Nanowrimo these last two years, and done a signifant amount of typing in various computer programs over the years, so she’s fairly comfortable with the keyboard, though I wouldn’t consider her a “typist” at this point in time. Occasionally she would stumble over one of the activities where the task was to complete words by filling in the blanks. She often made mistakes on this activity, because it was more natural for her to type the complete word, rather then just the missing portions. This resulted in some frustration, because she knows what the answer is, she knows the mistake she is making, it’s just that the way that particular activity disagrees with her automatic response to it.
Princess tells me that she really appreciates the way that, when she messes up, Reading Kingdom shows her exactly where she messed up and how it expects her to respond. There’s no guessing, no trying to figure out what obscure detail they might have missed – it’s all very clear and to the point in its descriptions.
If you’re not sure where your student would fall on the beginner-advanced continuum, I’d recommend trying out Reading Kingdom anyways. By focusing on typing and whole words, Reading Kingdom gives a different perspective of learning to read, and chances are, your student will benefit from it.
Reading Kingdom is an online subscription service, priced at $19.99 per month. Additional children may be added for $9.99/month.A yearly subscription is also available at a discount. Reading Kingdom offers a generous 30-day free trial – plenty of time to see if Reading Kingdom is a good fit for your early or struggling reader.
To see what other crew members had to say about this product, check out the TOS Homeschool Crew blog post, Reading Kingdom.
**I received this product for free as a member of the 2010-11 The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew so that I could provide you with an honest review of it by our family.**
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[...] Each week, we’re featuring reviews of moms part of The Old Schoolhouse magazine’s review crew who are using the Reading Kingdom with their children. The crew was offered a free year subscription of the Reading Kingdom program to help us spread the word about the program. Click the their names to visit their blogs, and be sure to follow our Reading Kingdom Twitter list featuring some of our homeschooling parents. “Princess tells me that she really appreciates the way that, when she messes up, Reading Kingdom shows her exactly where she messed up and how it expects her to respond. There’s no guessing, no trying to figure out what obscure detail they might have missed – it’s all very clear and to the point in its descriptions.”Shawna Bradley [...]