A Stable Beginning: raise a reader

Showing posts with label raise a reader. Show all posts

Thursday, November 17, 2022

The Quest for the King's Crown ~ a TOS review

Disclaimer: I received a Complimentary copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.

Morning friends! I am excited to share with you a new book we received from Tyndale House Publishers and Focus on the Family, called The Quest for the King’s Crown. I've been reading this book aloud to my two youngest, McKenzie (13) and Micah (8) and we are hooked! Let me tell you a little more about it.

The Quest for the King’s Crown tells the story of four friends, Mike, Winnie, Ben, and Spence, who are known as The Last Chance Detectives. One day, the friends come across an ancient artifact whose treasure could unlock their wildest dreams. However, a mysterious break-in is threatening the dreams of the Last Chance Detectives all the while leaving the local sheriff puzzled as he tries to solve the case. With several twists and turns to the story will the four friends have what it takes to solve this heart-pounding mystery?

The Quest for the King’s Crown is the seventh book in The Last Chance Detectives series that is written for upper elementary-middle school, roughly 8-12 year old students. Don’t let this books position in the series stop you from reading it. The great thing is that you do not have to read the previous books to fully enjoy this story.

We found this book to be fast paced and filled with drama and excitement! The story easily kept our attention as the plot twisted and turned throughout each chapter. It is well written and Micah has added the previous six books to his Christmas wish list for his “something to read” gift category. Each book is affordable at just $7.99 for a softcover or $9.99 for an ebook. You can purchase the entire seven set series as well for $55.94.

I love being able to add quality Christian fiction books to our home library and I am pleased to say that The Quest for the King’s Crown has earned a spot on our jam-packed bookshelves. I definitely recommend The Last Chance Detectives series for anyone looking to provide wholesome fiction stories for their children. Don’t just take my word for it! Check out what twenty of my other CrewMates thought of this book by clicking the banner below.

Company ~ Focus on the Family

Product ~ The Quest for the King's Crown

Format ~ softcover book

Price ~ $7.99

Ages ~ 8-12 year olds

Find Tyndale House on these Social Media Links:

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http://astablebeginning.com

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Read to Learn with Reading Eggs ~ a TOS review

Disclaimer: I received a Complimentary copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family and I pray you, the reader, find them helpful on your homeschooling journey. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.

Hello friends! Over the course of the 14 years we have been homeschooling we have used a lot of curriculum when my kids were younger and learning to read. I have learned that what works for one child, may not necessarily work for another, but when it does it is great! We are no stranger to the world of Reading Eggs, the online learning site, having used the program with both Montana and McKenzie when they were younger. We have been working with the program over the last few weeks with Micah, my 8 year old third grader. He loves his morning computer time and logging into his Reading Eggs profile to complete the fun online learning games and activities.

Since everyone needs to learn to read, why not make the process fun and engaging? With Reading Eggs you can do just that! Reading Eggs offers online learning games and activities with Reading Eggs and Mathseedsto spice up the learning process. Micah is already a strong reader, so we used the program where they assessed him at for the Reading Eggspress program that is geared for 7-13 year olds. I found, that while Micah is a great reader, he sometimes struggled with the reading comprehension of some stories. I am glad that the Reading Eggs program pointed this out to me so that we could make sure we slowed down to get the concept done.

As I mentioned the Reading Eggs program provides a fun and interactive way to get kids to learn how to read and how to practice math with their Mathseeds program. By introducing beginner readers to the world of reading through interactive stories and games with fun characters your child will be soaring off into their reading adventures in no time!

Reading Eggs has five distinct components to the program including:

~ Reading Eggs Junior for children aged 2-4 years: Reading Eggs Junior is the perfect amount of stimulation for your young toddler who is just beginning their learning journey. With a huge library of read-aloud books, songs, alphabet games, and the all-important phonemic awareness activities your toddler will be engaged from day one.

~ Reading Eggs for children aged 3-7 years: With Reading Eggs your children aged 4-7 will learn everything from letter recognition, phonics, to reading early readers while using this program. To capture and hold a young child’s attention and make the reading experience multi-sensory there are also puzzles, games, and songs to make the process F-U-N! Not to mention the chance to win golden eggs and rewards to help the child progress toward the end goal and feel proud of themselves.

~ Fast Phonics for children aged 5-10: Most beginning readers need a little bit more practice with phonics when learning to read, so the creators created Fast Phonics to focus on building phonics instruction. The Fast Phonics program helps children to learn the 44 sounds of the English language. The program moves quickly but helps to reinforce reading and spelling skills.

~ Reading Eggspress for children aged 7-13: Do you have an older child or want to continue on the reading journey? No problem! Reading Eggspress {a sister part of the Reading Eggs World} is geared towards older children, aged 7-13, to encourage fluent reading. Using real books for reading this program is jam packed with hundreds of interactive reading activities and games to encourage fluent reading!

~ Mathseeds for children aged 3-9 years: Mathseeds teaches kids 3-9 the core math and problem solving skills needed to be successful. Through highly interactive lessons, Mathseeds keeps kids interested in completing math skills. Mathseeds is also available to play on a tablet so you can take the learning on the go if you have internet connection.

For this review we received a 12- month subscription and Micah has been enjoying it from the start! He has focused all of his time in the Reading Eggspress program. He typically spends 20 minutes each morning while I am working with his older sister. The lessons are engaging and fun so it keeps him interested.

We will definitely continue using the program for the rest of our subscription. All in all, we highly recommend Reading Eggs for anyone looking for a fun and exciting reading or math supplement. Be sure to click the banner below and read what 20 of my CrewMates thought of this program from Reading Eggs.

Company ~ Reading Eggs

Product ~ Reading Eggs

Format ~ online reading curriculum

Ages ~ preschool through age 13

Find Reading Eggs on these Social Media Links:

https://astablebeginning.com

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Book review: The Imagination Station's Islands and Enemies from Tyndale ~ a TOS review

Morning friends! I am so excited to share with you the newest book from Tyndale's The Imagination Station series called Islands and Enemies. You may be familiar with the Adventures in Odyssey audiobooks, but did you also know they have a chapter book series as well? My son Micah who is 8 and a rising 3rd grader has enjoyed reading book. Let me tell you about it.

Tyndale published their first Imagination Station book in Summer of 2010 and there began the adventures of two cousins Patrick and Beth as they travel through time back to the past. Along the way the kids explore a specific historical event while Biblical truths are highlighted. So far this series that is a resource of Focus on the Family has sold over 1 million books!

In the newest book, Islands and Enemies, the 28th book in the series Patrick and Beth find themselves aboard The Victoria in 1521 with Captain-General Ferdinand Magellan and his crew. Unfortunately, the two cousins make a bad first impression with Magellan and they are accused of being witches. Once they reach the island miracles begin to happen and the crew must take sides and either stand with Magellan or try to overthrow him with outright mutiny.

Like the rest of the Imagination Station series this newest book is a fast-paced adventure that is an easy and exciting read. The Island and Enemies book includes 17 chapters and 147 pages. This book also includes black and white hand-drawn photos throughout.

Micah really enjoyed reading this book! He read the book independently as I scheduled it out over the course of a week. Once his read his assigned chapters each day, Micah would narrate back to me. The book can also be read aloud as a family read-aloud. The suggested reading level according to the Flesch-Kincaid method is 2.7 and it is recommended for ages 7 and up. In our opinion it is the perfect length for my son, who just turned 8 to read within a five-day school week.

I am in the process of purchasing the rest of the series for him to read because he is enjoying them so much. So far we have the first six books in addition to this one. All the books in this series can be purchased on the Tyndale website, Christian bookstores, and many online retailers too. I like that the books in the Imagination Station revolve around a real historical event so Micah is getting exposure to history events as well. These books and this series have earned a coveted spot on our overcrowded bookshelves right next to our Adventures in Odyssey books.

Don’t just take our word for it, be sure to check out what my CrewMates thought of the newest book in the Imagination Station series by clicking the banner below and reading their thoughts.

Company ~ Tyndale

Product ~ Islands and Enemies

Format ~ hardcover book

Price~ $9.99

Ages~ 7 years and up, 2.7 grade level on Flesch-Kincaid scale

Find Tyndale on these Social Media sites:

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Pinterest

YouTube

https://astablebeginning.com

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Literature Guides from Progeny Press

Now that you have been in school for a few weeks, are you looking to incorporate literature guides into your homeschool routine? If you have been around the blog for long then you know our family has a fond affection towards good books. I try to fill our bookshelves full of good books as well as check them out from the local library.

Have you ever checked out the literature guides from Progeny Press? We love adding Progeny Press guides to our Language Arts studies so we were excited to receive the Wagon Wheels Study Guide this time to review. For this review we received a downloadable interactive PDF copy of the study guide. In our family I have found that literature guides make reading even more enjoyable for my younger students.

Progeny Press has been a family owned and operated company since 1992. They produce high quality literature guides from a Christian worldview ranging from lower elementary years through high school. They literally have 100+ guides and add 3-6 new titles each year ranging from lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school, and high school. If you are looking for a literature guide, they have got you covered!

We also received the accompanying interactive study guide with our review. It has about 60 pages and includes a separate file with the answer key. The literature guide includes a wealth of information about Jackson, WY, the setting of the book as well as history of the Native Americans that lived in this region. With Bible work, map work, research ideas the guide ties into the story as a whole.

Wagon Wheels is an I Can Read, Level 3 Reading Rainbow book and is recommended for kids in grades 2 through 4. My son, Micah who is in 2nd grade, was able to read this book on his own. The Wagon Wheels story tells the true story of Ed Muldie and his three sons who leave Kentucky and live in a dugout home on the Kansas prairie in Nicodemus. The book has 4 chapters and describes their time during the travel and harsh winter where they were saved from starvation by the Osage Indians. Soon afterwards the father, Ed packs up and leaves Nicodemus and the boys in search of a better place to raise his boys. During that time the boys survive on their own and narrowly escape death from a prairie fire. As soon as a letter arrives from their father the boys pack up their belongings and make the 150-mile trip to their new home. Wagon Wheels is such a great story of perseverance and reliance on God during hard times. The suggested length of time for finishing a study guide is 8-10 weeks, however you can adjust this on your reading voracity. The first week is used to read the book and then each study guide takes the reader through two chapters of the novel at a time and focuses on several different literary concepts. Also included are several comprehension questions which ask the student to recall events from the book and analyze them. I love that each guide takes care to draw the student back to the Bible.

Check out the sample of the types of questions and information contained in the guides at the website. To make navigation on the website easier, literature guides are categorized by both genre and grade-level. The guides are extremely user-friendly and are currently available as a print version, CD in PDF format, and email as a PDF attachment.

We enjoyed our literature guide and have purchased and/or reviewed several guides in the past and will be purchasing more in the future. The new interactive format allows the student to type in the answers directly on their computer screen which is awesome! I also love that there is no limit on copying pages for use within our homeschool. Progeny Press Guides are economically priced from $10.99 to $27.99, Wagon Wheels sells for $11.99. Be sure to browse the online catalog for individual pricing on all the available guides.

Our family finds that literature guides make reading even more enjoyable! We give this guide 2 thumbs up and I look forward to adding more literature guides to our collection over the course of the school year. Be sure to check out what my Crewmates thought of this guide and the many other guides being reviewed, Cricket in Times Square Study Guide, Redwall Study Guide, and Frankenstein Study Guide.

Company ~ Progeny Press

Product ~ Wagon Wheels Study Guide

Format ~ E-guide

Price ~ $11.99

Ages ~ 2nd – 4th graders

Find Progeny Press on these Social Media Links:

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http://astablebeginning.com

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Wordless Wednesday

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Thursday, May 27, 2021

Caldecott Medal picture books with One More Story ~ a TOS review

Morning friends! Today I am excited to share with you a product that will change the way you share picture books with your children. We have a lot of picture books on our bookshelves and utilize them frequently in our daily learning. Reading aloud is so important when your children are young. Honestly, I still have my older children coming to listen to stories as I read aloud. Picture books are key educational tools for young children and One More Story with their online subscription takes this tool to the next level.

With our one-year subscription to the One More Story library I have been able to rest voice and allow the iOS app to read some of the best loved stories from books we love. The whole system is similar to an audio book but with the corresponding illustrations that go with it. So it is an audio and visual delight for your child! With over 87 books currently in the library you will find a variety of books to read including several Caldecott medal winners like The Snowy Day and Stellaluna.

The app is really simple to navigate! I simply downloaded the One More Story iOS app to our school iPad and my son, Micah (newly 7), took off to enjoying the stories. He especially likes to listen to the stories during his lunch time.

There are two options for reading including I Can Read It mode which allows older children to read the book to themselves or the Read Along mode which reads the book aloud to your child. In the Read Aloud mode each word is highlighted as it is read. This feature helps the developing reader connect the spoken word to the written word. I also like that there are different voices that read the books so it’s not the same voice over and over.

For the I Can Read It mode the child focuses on the words on the screen. If they come across a word they don’t know, simply clicking on it will allow the program to read it aloud. This is a great feature for children who are reading independently but may need a little help from time to time.

One More Story has earned several distinguished awards for their educational reading program. There are three different subscription pricing available for access to this digital library for home use.

Overall, this is an excellent program that Micah has been enjoying tremendously. He uses it several times a week and frequently listens or reads the same story over and over again. I think a subscription to the One More Story digital library would make a perfect birthday, Christmas, or anytime gift for your favorite reader. Be sure to check out what my CrewMates think of this program by clicking the banner below to read their thoughts.

Company ~ One More Story

Product ~ One More Story

Format ~ online subscription

Price ~ monthly subscription, see above

Ages ~ elementary aged

Find One More Story on these Social Media Links:

Facebook ~ Twitter

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Building confidence in Reading with The Reading Game ~ a TOS review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC Regulations.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who struggled to learn to read. Many nights her Mama would stay up researching curriculum and how to implement reading strategies to get her girl to finally read. Then one day she was placed on the review for The Reading Game, 1st Edition, and her little girl began to take off reading with confidence! Said little girl is not so little anymore and is a voracious reader of all things, making this Mama a happy camper!

As a huge fan and proponent of gameschooling, I was thrilled to receive The Reading Game, 2nd Edition from Allsaid & Duun, LLC to use with my son, Micah, who is 6.5 and in the first grade. Thankfully he has never really struggled with reading or learning his sight words. Using this fun game he has gained so much confidence and fluency in his reading over the last six weeks.

The Reading Game which was created by Kenneth Hodkinson, the author of the popular vocabulary curriculum “Wordly Wise 3000” series. It is a fast-action memory card game that will get your kids’ reading from the very first lesson. The Reading Game is a supplemental learn-to-read program for beginning and/or struggling readers. This learning to read game also correlates with most standard curriculums and uses a whole language approach to learning to read, i.e. looking at whole words and memorizing them. It works well with the traditional phonics method of reading by learning to sound out the individual letters. The Reading Game also meets the criteria of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts, Foundational skills, and Reading skills needed for both kindergarten and first graders, if that’s something you look for in a learning to read curriculum.

The Reading Game comes with six black and white illustrated storybooks: Skunk, Snake, Bear, Penguins, Unicorn, and Zebra. It can be played with two or more players. Memory games are played in six stages for each book, learning five words in each stage. So by the end of your first book your student will be able to read 30 words. By the end of the entire game, your child will know how to read 180 words from the Dolch Pre-K through First Grade list and also words from the Fry List.

The complete game comes with:

 6 color-coded Memory word matching card game

 6 color-coded Captioned Picture Flashcards

 6 Storybooks

 Parent/Teacher Guide

 Plus Word Family Activities

To play the game you start out with the first ten red cards. These contain five matching sets of words. As in traditional Memory, flip over two cards and read the words without hesitation. Once your child has mastered reading the first set of cards, you more on to the next set of 10 words. Now, once this next set of words is mastered, pull out the red picture card labeled 1-2 and have your child read the caption under the picture. All of the words on this caption card are from the first two sets of word cards already mastered. If reading the caption card is easy for your child, move onto the third set of cards and proceed in the same manner as above for cards 1-2. Finally once all six sets of cards are read with mastery it is time to read the corresponding storybook. The back of each book includes a handy word list as well.

Game play should be done over the course of several days but each book follows the same method:

Memory game for card sets 1 – 2

Read the picture card for 1-2

Memory game for card sets 3-4

Read the picture card for 3-4

Memory game for card sets 5-6

Read the picture card for 5-6

Read the corresponding illustrated book

Overall, I am just as pleased with this new edition of The Reading Game as I am with the first edition I used back in 2011. The major difference that I can tell from each edition is the addition of the Captioned Pictured Flashcards to check for mastery.

I am so pleased with the way Micah is learning through play with this curriculum! I have already told several of my friends about it. Also, I am looking forward to Micah progressing into The Magic Stories curriculum, for grades 2-4, after he finishes Book 6 of The Reading Game. At the rate he is progressing we should be using the new program by mid-April.

Do you want to win a copy of The Reading Game for your student? Head over to the Homeschool Review Crew Blog to enter the giveaway to win one of 5 games! Also, definitely click the banner below to read my CrewMates thoughts on this educational game that builds confidence in reading.