Supporting my children’s education at home is a big priority, but no easy undertaking when you have 3 kids working at 3 different grade levels. Time in the afternoon is limited, as we battle to fit in after school sports, playdates, arts and crafts projects and homework set by their school. So when I was asked to take a look at the Red Apple Reading, which is able to help support all 3 of my children in a fun and engaging way, I was excited to get started.
Red Apple Reading
We received a free 1 year membership in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Red Apple Reading is an interactive reading curriculum designed by teachers, to help your 3-9 year olds become successful and competent readers. It is split over 3 levels and is packed with over 1000 unique videos and engaging games to make learning fun. It teaches phonics, phonemic awareness, sight words, vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension. And includes a Report Dashboard to help you keep track of your child’s progress.
Level A Carnival Fun (4-5 year olds and pre-readers)
My daughter is just a few weeks into Junior Infants (Kindergarten) and she is learning letter sounds at a rapid pace. These were only briefly introduced at her preschool, so I am very keen to support her at home with this as much as possible.
Getting hands on with learning at home is a great way to make learning fun. We have been busy tracing letters in rice or flour and using a paintbrush to paint them with water and then chalking over them.
Like the majority of kids today, she is also keen to use technology to give her a helping hand at home. She has really been enjoying playing along with Ringmaster Ryan and his friends in the Red Apple Reading Carnival to learn letter sounds and letter formation.
There are then lots more activities to help work on initial and final sounds, building 3 letter words, rhyming, patterns, sight words and more, which we are looking forward to working on over the coming weeks and month.
Level 2 Park Planet (5-7 year olds)
My 6 year old son Freddie has been working on Level 2. Professor Bookworm and his students are helping him to learn phonics and sight words in 50 different lessons using lots of different fun activities. Learning areas covered include short vowel sounds, word families, silent E and more.
He is really enjoying the bright and engaging graphics and keeps going until he has successfully completed each challenge.
Level 3 Island Adventures (6-9 year olds)
The great thing about Red Apple Reading for us is that it can help all 3 of my children.
My eldest son Liam is relishing the challenges set by Pirate Pete and his crew. He is currently working his way through the 75 lessons on the island that review basic skills and teach advanced phonic skills, vocabulary, comprehension and sight words.
Conclusions
All 3 of my children are enjoying working through their individual programmes at their own pace. My son’s are also loving stepping into help their little sister with her activities, when she needs it. She listens to them so much more than to me!
We use the programme on our family ipad and it is so simple to use and follow. We try as much as possible to sit down and use it together, but when I have to make a start on the dinner for example, it is intuitive enough for all 3 of them to carry on learning and using it by themselves for short bursts of time.
I would happily recommend this programme to anybody who is serious about helping turn their children into confident and competent readers.
Red Apple Reading are kindly offering readers of Crafty Kids at Home a generous 40% discount off any plan until October 20th 2016. Please quote the code CRAFTYKIDS when you order. If you are reading this post after this date, then please just drop them an email [email protected] and say that I sent you over. They will then provide you with an updated discount code.
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