Reading Kingdom – Not Just Another Reading Program {Curriculum Review}

For the past several weeks, my second grader and I have been reviewing Reading Kingdom. This online reading program for kids in K-3 and was both easy to use and fun for my son. Most days he was asking to either get started with this program or to complete another lesson. Rarely do I have to say, “no more school work” but with this particular program it became a regular occurrence.

What Is Reading Kingdom?

This was a review that was easy for us to accept. Reading is one of those skills that we spend a lot of time working on in our homeschool. My now second grader was the first of my homeschooled students that I taught to read. I believe he does very well with is, but this gave us an opportunity to see how he was doing and look for potential weaknesses.

Plus, he really liked the idea of a review that was just for him and gave him some computer time like his older siblings.

I also really liked their approach to reading. Not just sight words and memorization. Not just phonics and sounding things out – which only works until you hit one of the thousands of exceptions.

No, Reading Kingdom uses a different approach they call Phonics Plus. To do this, they teach six different facets of reading at the same time. Sequencing, writing, sounds, meaning, grammar, and comprehension are all taught at the same time. Instead of reading sentences that don’t make a lot of sense just to teach a rule, reading is taught in the same way that reading will be used in the reading world.

 

The very first thing my son had to do for this program was to take an online assessment. It was very important that I not interfere or help him with this. The purpose of this assessment is to place students in the correct level of the program.

Still, it was not easy to not assist him. The assessment lasted about a half an hour and required reading, typing, and selecting the correct images. He can read well but is not super skilled on the keyboard or mouse.

But, he finished and was placed at the fourth of the five available levels in the program. We were feeling pretty good at this point.

Starting Something New

One of the things we did for this review was to pause our other entire Language Arts curriculum. I didn’t want anything interfering with this program and did now want to overload my son.

He had no problem accommodating this change.

Daily he would ask to work on the lessons. At first, they would take around 25 minutes to complete. As he became more familiar with the program and his computer skill improved though he was able to log in and work independently and complete a lesson is less time.

And even though to him it was fun and more like a game, he was working and learning, improving his reading and spelling skills.

Progress Check

Reading Kingdom recommends that students use the program an average of 4-days per week. This allows for retention of skills rather than simply completing a bunch of lessons.

It also allowed me to tell my son “no more today” because most days he wanted to do more than one!

Weekly I would check his progress report, a detailed explanation of how he was doing in each lesson

These reports made it easy for me to see how he was progressing through the program. However, I could tell just by watching and listening to him as he worked through each days lesson and word that he was learning and applying new skills.

Through a variety of activities, he was learning a new word with each lesson. Each lesson gave him the opportunity to see, read, and type the word as well as some variations of the word (such as plurals). This process of seeing, hearing, reading, and spelling out the word allowed him to learn them quickly and feel really good about his progress.

At the end of each lesson, we would check for his progress. My son is quite competitive in nature and he sure loved seeing “excellent performance” (represented by the gold trophy) on his daily check.

A Great Reading Program

Whether you are starting out with reading, or just wanting some assistance helping your early elementary student, Reading Kingdom is a fantastic resource. The program is written to children in a way they can understand and needs very little parental involvement or oversight.

Simply log your child into the program and let them work on the lesson for the day.

And, if you are like me, use the opportunity to fold some laundry quietly in the background to listen while they learn.

This program was easy to use, enjoyable for my son, and has really helped him increase both his reading and spelling skills. For us, Reading Kingdom is a program that we will continue using.