Allsaid & Dunn, LLC The Magic Stories Review

My family had the privilege of trying The Magic Stories from Allsaid & Dunn, LLC, publishers of The Reading Game and authors of the Wordly Wise series for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

The Magic Stories are 6 downloadable PDFs that each have a thought-provoking story with good morals and character built into the plots. These are about 20 pages long, are typed in a larger font that is easily read, and should be read in sequential order. These stories have black and white drawings and sketches that can be colored by the child as well.

Each story comes with a set of "Naughty 40" word flash cards and four worksheets. The "Naughty 40" are words that kids have difficulty reading. They can be printed and cut out for use. The exercises in the worksheets include: maze, finish the sentence, imagine, and finish the story.

There are optional worksheets on the website for free to download available under the “Free Resources” section of their website. The Instructions for The Magic Stories will tell you what to do with this set to optimally teach your child with it. The Pre & Post Sight Word Assessment Worksheets help determine whether your child is familiar with the "Naughty 40" words from each story. This tests vocabulary acquisition growth. You check mark if your child recognizes the word, can read in a sentence & understands the meaning of the word. This is done before reading the story and after. If your child needs more help you can use the flash cards to work on these more. There are also Running Record Evaluation Worksheets for each book that is a 100 word section of each story to test your child's reading fluency.

This set develops comprehension, writing skills, creative writing, perception, reasoning, and memory recall. This supplemental reading program is recommended for 2nd/3rd grade reading level. These can be used as a follow up to The Reading Game, but the game is not a prerequisite. These are optimized for iPad or computer screen and can easily be printed on standard 8.5" x 11" paper or cards.

Titles of The Magic Stories:

1. The Magic Hole
2. The Magic Ax
3. The Magic Joke
4. The Magic Hotdog
5. The Magic Boots
6. The Magic Box

Teela doing the worksheets for The Magic Stories.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
My daughter Teela is in 4th grade and my daughter Zari is in 1st grade this year. I knew that my daughter Teela would be too advanced in her reading to really benefit from this completely, but I also thought she might enjoy reading the stories and possibly doing the activities. Zari is not reading too much yet as she is just beginning reading, so I had Teela read the stories out loud to her so that she could enjoy them as well. These stories are well written and have a great moral ending to each one. For example: The Magic Ax is about a boy that learns the value of hard work and The Magic Joke shares with us that it is better to end a war than win a war. These could be printed, but we decided to just have Teela read them from the computer. We very much enjoyed reading these stories. My favorite was The Magic Ax, Teela's favorite was The Magic Hotdog, and Zari's was The Magic Boots.

The "Naughty 40" word flash cards have the word and a sentence with the word in it on them. These are words a typical 2nd - 3rd grader might have trouble reading because of how they are spelled or because they don't follow the rules. Each story has a set of 40 of these words and these are listed at the end of each story. The flash cards are in their own PDFs for printing out easily. We used these decks very little at this point because Teela was already well versed with reading these words and Zari still had trouble reading most the words in the stories by herself. We will probably utilize these at a later point when Zari is in 2nd or 3rd grade and feels more independent at reading more words.

The worksheets were also in their own PDFs. These we printed out and had Teela do each one after she read each story. She liked doing these and thought the activities were fun. I liked that they made her recall the story and tested her comprehension of it.

I would recommend these to those who like fun stories and are 2nd - 3rd grade reading level...although I enjoyed them as well. I believe that those grades would benefit most from the complete package. These are a great supplemental reading program for homeschool setting.

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• Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReadingGame/ 
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• Hashtags: #hsreviews #goodmorals #character #childrenstories

BUY IT
Purchase The Magic Stories set for $16.95 or the stories individually for $3.95. My readers a 25% discount should they choose to order The Magic Stories.  To receive the discount, enter “raisingreaders” in the coupon box upon checkout.

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Reading Eggs Online Learning Games Review

My family had the privilege of trying the online learning games from Reading Eggs for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Reading Eggs is an online program that helps kids learn better literacy through reading lessons, activities, and ebooks. Reading Eggs is made up of  5 different kids learning programs: Reading Eggs JR for ages 2-4, Reading Eggs for ages 4-5, Reading Eggs for ages 6-7, Reading Eggspress for ages 7-13, and Mathseeds for ages 3-9. These self-paced educational games are recommended for kids ages 2 to 13. They are created by a team of qualified teachers, educational writers, animators and web developers. These online reading programs will engage your child or student to keep learning.

Student Menu

Reading Eggs JR is a brand new online reading game that teaches toddlers ages 2 to 4 words, sounds, and letters. These pre-reading skills are the first step to literacy. This has games, videos, and e-books to help motivate the younger child.

Reading Eggs is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 3 to 7. There are two parts: the lessons for ages 3 to 5 and the lessons for ages 6 to 7. The first teaches phonics, sight words, and essential reading skills needed to get ready for school. The second part gives the child practice with bonus activities and lessons that teach spelling, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.

Reading Eggspress is an online reading game that teaches kids ages 7 to 13, grades 1 to 6. This game continues the online learning from previous Reading Eggs lessons. This teaches structured comprehension, vocabulary, spelling and grammar with live games, an online library, and more!

Mathseeds is an online math learning game that teaches kids ages 3 to 9. This program teaches early math skills. Great for beginners and young children in their first years of school.

Teela and Zari on Reading Eggs.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
I have two young daughters. Teela is 9 years old and Zari will be 7 on October 19th. They are in 4th and 1st grades. My daughter Teela has done Reading Eggs before in 2013 because we got a free trial to try it out back then. Teela has grown to love reading and is doing so roughly at a 6th grade reading level now. My daughter Zari hadn't tried Reading Eggs at all and is just starting to read. We hadn't tried the other programs that came with our subscription.

Reading Eggs Navigation

We received a six month subscription to Reading Eggs this time around. This included access to Reading Eggs Junior, Reading Eggs, and Reading Eggspress. We also got a six month subscription to MathSeeds. Both Teela and Zari worked on this educational game an average of three days per week since we got signed up.

Both started with a reading assessment to see where they needed to be. Since Teela had already done one in 2013 she needed to redo hers to see where she was now. They both started with Reading Eggs. I believe Teela made some mistakes on her assessment because she was trying to plow through it...so she was put at a lower level than she should have been. When she went on to the games in Reading Eggs at lesson 111, map 12 they gave her she said the games were boring and that she already knew this stuff. I agreed with her that she already knew it and asked her if she wanted to redo the assessment for a second time and she didn't. So, she just did the rest of the Reading Eggs games and then moved onto Reading Eggspress. Zari was placed in the right place. She started on lesson 41, map 5. There are 120 lessons total in Reading Eggs with about 6-14 games per lesson.

Reading Eggs Lesson Maps

Reading Eggs Lesson Map

• Step 1 Starting Out in the Zoo (Lessons 1-40, Map 1-4): For children ages 4-6 that have little to no reading skills. Children will learn first reading skills, including: learning sounds and names of the alphabet letters, reading their first sight words, and phonetics to read three letter words. Includes simple stories to read featuring Sam the Ant.
• Step 2 Beginning to Read in The Playground (Lessons 41-80, Map 5-8): Builds on skills learned in step 1 focusing on short vowel words and constructing reading skills. Children will learn more high frequency sight words, make word families, and read 40 more books that build vocabulary.
• Step 3 Building Confidence at the Theme Park (Lessons 81-120, Map 5-12): These lessons cover long vowels words and focus on reading for meaning, comprehension, and understanding of longer words and sentences.

Reading Eggs Lesson Parts Examples

Reading Eggs Lesson Parts Example

• Parts 1 & 2 The Main Lesson: interactive animations that are led by a character modeling the concepts. Students need to get 7 correct responses to move on.
• Part 3 Dot to Dot: Students learn correct letter formation with dot to dot.
• Part 4 Letter Recognition: builds letter recognition of upper and lower case letters.
• Part 5 Vocabulary: activities that build vocabulary to be able to read the books.
• Part 6 The e-book: electronic book with audio support so kids can read along.
• Part 7 The Egg Hatches: students are rewarded with creatures that hatch to add to their online collection.

With each reading program there are colorful graphics, characters, and designs to engage the student to keep going. There are fun games, videos, and e-books to also teach the concepts. The students are awarded golden eggs to be later used in the store to buy things for the house and avatar, etc. The navigation around the program is fairly simple. My daughters liked that they could change the look of their avatar, buy things in the shop with golden eggs they acquired through doing well in the lessons, and see their certificates in the My Awards section. I loved that I could see their progress at a glance.

Program Guides for Homeschoolers

Also, in the Parent Dashboard (the home page after signing in) under the menu that has "Bonus Material" you can find Program Guides for Homeschoolers. These are free and downloadable once logged in. These colorful, detailed week-by-week overviews help homeschooling parents to see learning outcomes for children in Kindergarten through 2nd Grade. Each guide contains a 36-week teaching and learning sequence for Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. These map out online lessons, books, quizzes, and assessments.

This is an excellent interactive game that teaches kids better reading skills. I definitely saw improvement in my daughter Zari's literacy skills. My girls loved Reading Eggs and I recommend it to anyone who homeschools or wants a reading supplement for their children or students.

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• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/readingeggsUSCA
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• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ABCReadingEggs
• Hashtags: #hsreviews #readingeggs #learntoread

BUY IT
My readers get 4 weeks FREE trial access to the program to try for themselves! This offer expires on November 30, 2017.

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Reading Kingdom Online Review

My daughters had the privilege of trying Reading Kingdom Online from Reading Kingdom for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Reading Kingdom Online is a program that teaches early readers, accelerated readers, and struggling readers (ages 4-10) how to read to a third grade level by teaching them the six areas of reading: Phonics/Phonology (Sounds), Sequencing (Order), Writing, Semantics (Meaning), Syntax (Grammar), and Comprehension. This successful, research based program is more complete than just teaching phonics for learning to read and write. This educational reading program will feel like a game to the student because of the fun graphics and sounds. It works online with any device (preferably with a mouse) that has an internet connection. Reading Kingdom adapts to every child as they "play the game" so that they will actually learn the content as they progress through the program.

Reading Kingdom Seeing Sequences

Reading Kingdom Online is made up of different parts to teach the six areas of reading:

• Seeing Sequences - an area of Reading Kingdom that teaches sequencing or letter order in words. The program shows the student a word and has them go from left to right on the screen (as they would if they were reading) to pick out letters out of a group of more letters by clicking on them with the mouse in the order seen in the word on the screen. Once the child gets more proficient in this the word will only stay for a few seconds on the screen and then disappear to challenge the child to memorize the letters in the proper order. The placement test will see if your child is ready to skip this section totally.
• Letter Land - an area of Reading Kingdom that teaches the student how to recognize and select letters (upper & lowercase letters and some punctuation) they are told to find and produce to enhance spelling and writing. This also effectively teaches them the layout of keys on the keyboard so they can have better typing/keyboarding skills later.
• Bit Blends - an area of Reading Kingdom that teaches the student phonology or sounds by providing a portion of the sound blend and requiring the student to finish the rest of the word.
• Orthographic Phonemics - an area of Reading Kingdom that teaches the student the system of our written language in which written symbols (graphemes: in this case letters) of words correspond to the phonology or sounds of letters. This is done by providing a portion of the letters in the words of whole sentences for the student to complete so that students learn sound patterns for words that might be difficult.
• Semantics - Semantics or meaning is taught in Reading Kingdom to emphasize that words are linked together on the basis of meaning, not sound and to show that context makes how you read and write the word, clear. This is taught by having the student look at the context of a sentence with missing words and pick the correct word for the ones missing out of a group of words to show the correct placement and meaning.
• Intensive High frequency Syntax System - Syntax or grammar is taught in Reading Kingdom by teaching non-content words which are 100 commonly used words and make up the majority of our written language. In Reading Kingdom the student will not only memorize these words, but gain the meaning of them because they are paired with graphics that illustrate the meaning. Students will be given: a non-content word, a sentence with context to type either the word into or all of the words with proper punctuation, and finally a graphic that illustrates the meaning of the word. This helps them be able read these words and understand the relationship between all the words they are reading.
• Intensive Word Teaching Method - Reading Kingdom uses this method to teach students words before reading books with four formats: spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and usage in context. After a student masters these they can successfully read and comprehend the program's 30 custom books.
• Comprehension Modeling Method - Reading Kingdom uses this method to teach comprehension by teaching the student how to create "main idea" summaries after they have read a story book from Reading Kingdom. They will be able to do this on their own when they master this skill.

Reading Kingdom Letter Land

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:

We got to use Reading Kingdom for a full year with 2 students. I used it about 3-4 times a week with my 4 year old daughter, Zari, and her 7 year old sister, Teela. Zari is not reading yet and doesn't know her letters very well. Teela is reading chapter books.

When we started the program with both girls it had them take an evaluation to see where they should be placed. Reading Kingdom is totally hands off except for the initial log in for the student. The program tells you to let them do it on their own and not to help them. This makes the assessment and adaption of the program more accurate. Teela was able to skip seeing sequences totally after the initial placement test and Zari was not, as I was expecting. The evaluation was spot on with assessing their skills.

In the beginning, I did notice some small things that my girls got frustrated with while they were doing the program. Early out there was a section where they were typing a string of letters and symbols on the keyboard that the program told them to type and when they had trouble finding some of them quick enough it would pop up a keyboard to show them where the keys were. When it popped up, it erased previous letters or symbols they had typed so they had to retype them. I was told that, "Unlike other reading programs, Reading Kingdom requires a more advanced degree of diligence." I know that both my daughters needed more keyboard practice so that they could understand where each key was. With more practice both of my daughters got better at this. In Letter Land there is a symbol, some kind of dash, that we didn't know which key it was supposed to be. They pressed the key above the p with the dash and the minus key by the numbers, but it didn't register as the correct key. We asked about this and were told the correct key to hit for this symbol was the space bar and that apparently my girls had missed the part before where the section talks about which keys would be used before the session. So, now you know if you get as confused as we were. My youngest daughter, Zari, had trouble with Reading Kingdom where it has her type lowercase letters and our keyboard only shows uppercase. She is just learning the correlation between uppercase and lowercase letters and doesn't have it down yet. I know this is a weak area for her and that I need to work with her more on this. Reading Kingdom does have an option before you start where you can choose to have the keyboard show on the screen for touch screens, so possibly that would help this problem. All in all, each of these, I believe, can be fixed by more practice or slight adjustment.

Reading Kingdom - Other Areas

Keeping track of progress in Reading Kingdom is easy. After log in I can view my daughters' progress. Reading Kingdom also sends me progress reports by email as well for each of my daughters. I love that it shows me exactly where they are in the program and how they are doing.

I am very pleased with how Reading Kingdom presents itself to my daughters. The fun graphics and sounds along with the learning makes it even more enjoyable. At first we hit a few bumps in the beginning when my daughters were first learning their way around the keyboard, but now they seem to have gotten past that. They love learning with this program and ask me every morning if they can "play" on Reading Kingdom.

Reading Kingdom Online is an excellent program to help children to learn to read. It is a more well rounded program than just teaching your child phonics. Both of my daughters seem to be learning a lot and advancing in reading and keyboarding skills. I highly recommend Reading Kingdom Online!

BUY IT
After your 30 day free trial, subscriptions to Reading Kingdom are $19.99/month , or $199.99 per year. Additional children in your family get 50% off ($9.99/month). You can cancel your subscription at any time. And if you sign up for a no-risk subscription right now, you can save 25%!

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/readingkingdom
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WordsBright S is for Smiling Sunrise Book Review

My daughters Zari and Teela had the privilege of testing out WordsBright S is for Smiling Sunrise hardback book with audio CD, with MP3 available via download and Teacher's Guide to help me use this with my little ones. I received this free for this review to use in conjunction with my own homeschool curriculum. This is a Schoolhouse Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

WordsBright S is for Smiling Sunrise is a colorful hardback picture book that teaches the alphabet with rhyme, fun illustrations, and vocabulary words. This book isn't the typical "A is for Apple", "B is for Ball" ABC-book. It takes the learning one step further with a fair amount of complex and more interesting words to improve the English language and comprehension of the student while expanding their vocabulary. S is for Smiling Sunrise is perfect for a toddler, preschooler, kindergartner, and/or early reader. The bright eye-catching pictures and rhyme help hold the attention of the smaller children.

Teela and Zari enjoying the S is for Smiling Sunrise book together.

The S is for Smiling Sunrise book comes with an audio CD that takes the words in the book and makes them into sing-along rhymes to help follow along in the book and make it even more fun with song. Along with the book, this music CD is great to take on-the-go in the car, to Grandma's house, or left with a sitter. I wish; however, that the CD was actually a DVD...with the whole concept and song animated like they do with the first part of the preview on YouTube...



There are also parent and teacher guides that go above and beyond the book and CD to help you teach the child values and virtues that are very crucial in life. These values and virtues are interwoven within the book's pages to amplify essential moral and ethical principals. I love that they incorporate these important concepts in S is for Smiling Sunrise. In the guide it starts off with some general pre- or post-reading questions. Then for each letter of the alphabet it goes through and explains the concepts manifested in the book and CD in greater detail. It also poses questions to ask your child or student so it will become a more interactive thought process. Then it lays down the vocabulary words used and further activities you can do to enhance the learning experience.

My daughters love this book and CD. Teela, who is in first grade, enjoyed reading this to Zari, who is in preschool. My girls also liked singing along with the music CD. The new associations for the alphabet makes this book even more engaging. It isn't the boring repetitious ABC associations that we are used to. For example, B is for Breathe instead of for Ball and P is for Park and Playground instead of Pig, Parrot, or Pizza. This is a very refreshing change from the norm. The words virtue, patience, gratitude, wonder, etc. are also sprinkled throughout the text. These words encourage positive thoughts and behaviors to be learned for character development. S is for Smiling Sunrise is a great book and CD to teach growing minds beyond what is considered conventional learning. It is wonderful for parenting, preschool, and homeschool.  

TRY IT
To get a sneak peek you can look inside S is for Smiling Sunrise on the WordsBright website. You can also download the parent/teacher guides, a words poster, and a mp3 alphabet song for free.

BUY IT
S is for Smiling Sunrise hardcover book is around $14 to $17 depending upon where you purchase it. The WordsBright website has a list of places to buy the book.

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Reading Eggs FREE 5 Week Offer

All information is provided by USFamilyGuide.com and Reading Eggs. I am  receiving 3 months FREE for posting this promotion.

Reading Eggs is a program that focuses on a range of online reading lessons, activities, and ebooks for literacy skills suitable for kids ages 3 to 12. These have been produced by a highly qualified team of teachers, educational writers, animators and web developers. Since its launch in the US and Canada in 2011, Reading Eggs has logged on more than 500,000 members and given more than 15 million lessons in North America.

Readers of Eccentric Eclectic Woman receive a FREE Five-Week Trial Offer. No credit card required. This offer is good until 9/30 then Reading Eggs will go back to a two-week trial.

Sign up to get the offer and get lessons to teach your child: phonics, letter recognition, sight words, learning to read, vocabulary, online reading, spelling, and comprehension.

DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: Because I am posting about the Reading Eggs I am getting 3 months FREE. Thanks to USFamilyGuide.com for providing me this promotion information and free subscription. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for posting this promo.