The Reading Kingdom is an online program that teaches kids between the ages of four and ten years old to read and write to a third-grade standard. This reading program makes available six new skill models of reading methods that use elements of phonics and whole language to teach skills that make reading and writing easy and successful. The app was built to circumvent the problems of phonics and whole language.

Website: https://www.readingkingdom.com/

What Users Love About the App

“I would definitely advocate for this product, especially for the special education students who often are not able to learn phonics-based strategies for reading. There are very few research-based products that teach reading in a way that does not work on the foundation and premise of phonics.”

“I looked at two sample lessons dealing with letter identification and cloze sentences. It gave students an opportunity to work on keyboarding skills and practice letter recognition. There were great visuals for students to enhance their learning.”

“I really like the method it uses to consistently reinforce the learning of the ten main non-content words that occupy 60% of English reading and literature. What I have gained from my first interaction with the program is that one of the strengths of Reading Kingdom is how it utilizes 6 key areas of reading development in contrast to the one area(sound) that traditional phonics provides.”

“A new approach to reading that is not just phonics-based. The books use words that the students have already learned to encourage successful progress. Focusing on writing the words to help them learn.”

“I teach high school English, but my daughter is in kindergarten and I think she would do well with a program like this. Teaching reading is much more complicated than it seems- I know this first hand.”

What Users Dislike About the App

“The student page could look a little more kid-friendly instead of a page of boxes with lots of words that you have to scroll down to see. Especially if these students are non- or early-readers, the boxes full of descriptive sentences are a little overwhelming and hard to navigate.”

“I would love to have a teacher guide with a printable page scope and sequence of all the skills and when they are introduced and how to teach them and books that I could purchase for my class to teach during lessons instead of it being only on the computer. Doing both would be very powerful.”

“Make it much more affordable, especially if it is an individual teacher trying to implement it on my own in my classroom and the district or school has not adopted it.”

“I think it needs more for ESL learners. For instance, in the section that gives a picture clue to the word, it showed other items that may be confusing to the students. (i.e. for the word “pet” a polar bear popped up and then a picture of a cat in a pet bed.) The first, and maybe only, the picture should be the meaning of the word.”

“I am interested in seeing a more robust user interface for student participation – for students that are special needs, there would need to be a little more assignment completion reward incentives – a few series of online presentations to equip potently.’