Improving Children's Reading via Online Programs: A Review of Dyslexia Gold

Our three children have been using the various programs available through Dyslexia Gold for the past several weeks. Dyslexia Gold offers several different options for schools and families. We were provided with a family license and a lifetime subscription to Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle for this review so all three of our children have been able to work on specific areas to improve their reading.

What is Dyslexia Gold? 

Dyslexia Gold helps children who are struggling with reading—whether or not they have Dyslexia. There are several programs that are designed to improve your child's reading. According to Dyslexia Gold there are four skills needed for reading:

1. Eye control
2. Phonological awareness
3. Phonics
4. Spelling

Two of the programs focus upon building these skills. Because children who are poor readers and/or are dyslexic often have trouble focusing both eyes on the same point and tracking across the page, Engaging Eyes was designed with 8 easy games. Tracking is not something that is tested at a regular vision test so it can often be missed. By regularly playing vision games, children can build their eye muscles and work on not skipping letters, words, or lines and more. 

In order to work on phonological awareness, Dyslexia Gold offers Fluency Builder which helps recognize that words have more than one sound. The example provided on the Dyslexia Gold site is that of the word 'goat.' It has three sounds 'g-oa-t' but often struggling readers do not recognize this fact. So in Fluency Builder, children practice sounding out words in numerous ways to build these skills. (Please see the screenshots below.) 

In spelling the words, each sound is on its own card. After the correct cards are placed, the sound is repeated out loud
by the program. When the whole word is spelled correctly, the word is said out loud.

The third online program is Spelling Tutor which improves spelling of 1,000 of the most common words. Spelling Tutor requires students to have a pencil and paper to write down sentences dictated to them. They then work on writing and rewriting the words they have spelled wrong. It is completely tailored to your child as they correct the words they have spelled wrong. For example, our six-year-old has used Spelling Tutor and has had trouble spelling 'phone,' 'called,' and other words. He has written them on numerous days and the spelling of the words are repeated on a set schedule. Once he has correctly spelled the word 7 times in a row over 21 days, he is deemed to be able to spell it correctly. 

Here our son is asked to write the word "would" as this is one of the words he previously spelled incorrectly.

The fourth program is Times Table Tutor. It teaches up to 12 x 12 at your child's own pace without timing or competition. The multiplication table is taught in three ways: concrete, pictorial, and abstract. Each session is rather long as it reviews the entire times table multiple times requesting that the child work faster and faster.

Note: Dyslexia Gold is a British-based company, so be aware that there are different spelling versions available (UK and American) as well as different pronunciations (English, American, Scottish, and Australian). 

How Did We Use Dyslexia Gold? 

Our three children were each instructed to work on different parts based upon their needs and age. Our teen primarily worked on Engaging Eyes, our four-year-old (the program is recommended ages 5+) worked on Fluency Builder, and our six-year-old primarily focused upon Fluency Builder but has also spent time working on Spelling Tutor and Times Table Tutor. Both of our younger children have spent time using Engaging Eyes.

Our Teen 

Our teen suffered a concussion in November 2017 during an ice hockey game and as part of clearing him to rejoin his hockey team, we needed to see a  vision therapist/optometrist for a special vision test. Through some of the vision tests, we were told he was having trouble tracking while reading. The doctor recommended more reading (30 minute sustained reading) or additional (and very expensive) visits. I saw the opportunity to review Dyslexia Gold, specifically Engaging Eyes, as a perfect way for our teen to work on tracking.

When our teen first started using Engaging Eyes, I frequently checked in with him to make sure Engaging Eyes was not causing headaches or vision problems. He never seemed to have any headaches from doing the vision training. The only problem he has run across is that sometimes when looking away from the screen during Target Practice, he finds his eyes would lose focus and he had trouble being able to hit the targets. This has happened less and less as time as progressed.

I also asked him if he felt there was any improvement in his vision. Without a trip to a vision therapist we can't know for sure but he does feel that there is an improvement. It is hard to quantify but things are a bit easier for him than before starting Engaging Eyes. He finds reading to be an easier task.

This is the Engaging Eyes report children see at the end of the day's activity. 

Our Six-Year-Old 

In reviewing Dyslexia Gold, I wished our six-year-old son to work on improving his reading as well introduce him to spelling and multiplication (mostly because he wanted to see what the Times Table Tutor was like after his older brother checked it out). He did spend the majority of the review period working on the lessons in Fluency Builder with several spelling lessons and multiplication lessons spread throughout the time. 

I find that Fluency Builder has greatly helped our younger son read more fluently out loud. Part of the lessons for him have been reading a non-fiction story aloud twice for fluency and timing for words per minute. I have noticed, sitting with him, that he is reading more clearly. 

We focused upon Fluency Builder with our younger son because the first spelling lesson with Spelling Tutor left him frustrated and in tears, so we took a break from it. I had no problems taking a break since this was his first experience with trying to spell words all by himself. We have now worked through several more lessons and he understands what is expected of him and can work pretty much independently. 

In addition to writing the sentences and words on paper, our son also typed the words on the computer.

I am really happy that what he is learning is being retained. The information our son read during Fluency Builder also stuck with him. For example, while we were talking about galaxies and space during lunch, he shared what he learned about reading about Astronauts on Fluency Builder.

At the end of reading the passage twice, our son answered three multiple choice questions.

There has been an improvement in reading speed for our younger son. He went from 110 words per minute in mid-April to 174 words per minute in late May. He will be tested again in mid-July.

Our six-year-old has had trouble completing the Target Practice with Engaging Eyes. He has trouble focusing upon the targets and has seemed to stall and not made much more progress. He has worked on using Whack an Alien just like his sister. We will revisit Engaging Eyes again in the near future with both of them.

Using the 3D glasses for the Target Practice in Engaging Eyes.

Our Daughter 

Even though our four-year-old is just one year shy of the recommended age, I saw her using Fluency Builder as the perfect opportunity to teach her reading. She has been wanting to learn how to read for almost a year but as her style of learning is very different than her brother's, I thought perhaps this program would help her build strong skills. 

During Fluency Builder she works through several different types of activities: 

• Hearing sounds
• Building words
• Sorting by sound

Sometimes words would be sorted by sound and sometimes by spelling.

• Finding words
• Swapping letters
• Reading speed (as our daughter only knows letters, she is not tested on this each lesson) 

Our daughter is reading words and sentences now. Even before we moved beyond some of the early lessons on Fluency Builder, she was recognizing and reading words. She is currently on level 37 of 50 of the easy level. As she completes more and more of the recaps, she seems to have an even better grasp of the words and sounds. 

My Thoughts 

Overall, I have been very happy with how the programs offered by Dyslexia Gold have fit into our homeschool. I feel that all three of our children will be stronger readers for having used the online programs. However I do have a few thoughts based upon some things that we have come across since April.

As Dyslexia Gold is an online program from the United Kingdom, we did have some problems with pronunciation of words and images used that confused our children (chips aka French fries, football aka soccer ball, torch aka flashlight, rugby player). Even with changing the pronunciation to American there were times that things were hard to understand based upon it being a computer program reading the words and saying sounds aloud.

We also had trouble with one of the Fluency Builder activities because we could not always understand the two words being said. In this activity, two words would be said (such as dad and did) and you would be asked which sound (first, second, or third) changed. In some of instances, the words said were difficult to hear (to make out the distinct differences). Fortunately, this activity was not part of every lesson.

Our younger children do not always like repeating exercises a second time during Fluency Builder. For example, when completing finding words, they are asked to complete each set twice. While I understand the importance of repeating the exercise, this often elicited groans from them.

Finding the words was one of the activities that was often repeated twice.

Sometimes during this activity, words would not disappear even if they had already been found and clicked.
This led to confusion for both of our younger children at times.

I do wish there was a bit more information in the reports and that I could find all of my children's information together rather than having to log in for each one separately. I could also see the reports presented at the end of each lesson as being discouraging for some children.

There were some days when our son or daughter would finish with very low percentages.
For some children, I could see them reacting negatively to this information.

Even though we have had few hiccups and difficulties with Dyslexia Gold, our family will continue to use the programs for each child that work best for them. We will probably hold off on using Times Table Tutor for a while for our two younger children but we will continue to work with Fluency Builder with both younger children. And our teen will continue to use the Engaging Eyes program as part of his regular homeschooling regime.

I would recommend you check out Dyslexia Gold if you have a struggling reader in your home. 

Want to Learn More about Dyslexia Gold? 

Website – Facebook 

Would you like to see how other members of the Crew used Dyslexia Gold in their homeschool? Please be sure to visit to read their reviews. 

Reviewing Reading Kingdom: An Online Program with the Tools to Turn Kids into Successful Readers

I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew. 

Our four-year-old son has always been interested in reading, so I jumped at the chance to review Reading Kingdom—which is an online grades K-3 reading program using "Phonics-PLUS." Reading Kingdom contains a placement test as well as reading and writing lessons divided into five levels. Each level takes approximately 10-15 weeks to complete depending on the number of sessions completed each day.

As the Reading Kingdom states "to ensure success, a child should use the program at least 4 days a week," we set out to do lessons each day. With the only exception occurring over Easter Weekend, we have been able to use Reading Kingdom with only occasional one day breaks every four days or so. Our son enjoys his 'program' so much that he was disheartened when we took a day off for his sister's birthday party.

During the placement test, parents are told to offer no assistance (which is hard!) but very important to make sure that the adaptive program knows exactly what your child knows and does not know. During the initial placement test, Reading Kingdom goes over how to type capital letters and how you navigate through the program.

In the beginning, our son seemed to struggle because he was learning a new skill—using the keyboard. He had very limited experience using a mouse and almost no experience typing on a keyboard prior to starting the review of Reading Kingdom. He was very disappointed after the first lesson or two but after he learned how to type – and I adjusted the response time to give him more time before the program prompted him with the correct answer, he began to thoroughly enjoy working each day. We have also taken advantage of the "Getting to Know the Mouse and Keyboard" training exercises on several occasions.

There are many different ways in which children are taught reading and writing using Reading Kingdom. For example, in Reading and Writing Level One, children are taught new words through Pick the Picture, Detect and Select, and the reading of books. Reading Kingdom provides Sample Lessons which further explain how children are taught in levels 1 through 5.

Reading Kingdom provides four simple questions to see if your child is ready to use their program:

1. "Can your student regularly sit and carry out school-like activities for 15 minutes at a time?" 
2. "Does your student consistently speak in sentences?" 
3. "Can your student match shapes?"
4. "Can your student hold crayons or magic markers to create drawings?" 

For more detailed information you can download "How is the Reading Kingdom different from other reading programs?" which provides a thorough explanation of how Reading Kingdom works and why it is better than other programs available. This PDF is available on the page "Why it works" and it goes through the six skills that your child will work on while using Reading Kingdom.

Since reading requires six skills, Reading Kingdom focuses upon all six using Dr. Marion Blank's "Phonics-PLUS" system. The six skills that Reading Kingdom focuses upon are:

1. Sequencing (letter order)
2. Writing
3. Sounds (the program uses activities like 'bit blends' and 'orthographic phonemics' to teach phonology) 
4. Meaning (semantics; learning the correct meaning of the word from context)
5. Grammar (syntax) 
6. Comprehension (text)

These 6 skills will help your child learn to read more easily. Reading Kingdom does not just focus on memorizing words but teaches words that can be used in "meaningful sentences" by your child. Children are taught spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and context before they are presented with a book. At the end of each of our son's lessons, there is a book that uses all the words that they have worked on the previous several days.

How We Use Reading Kingdom

Each day, our four-year-old completes at least one day's lesson of Reading Kingdom online. We start on the screen that lists our son's progress. As you can see from the screen capture, it states how many days per week your child has been using Reading Kingdom, as well as the link to change how your child interacts with the program and the response time.

From this screen, you can also click on the individual parts of the level for a further breakdown to see how your child has progressed and the performance as rated by Reading Kingdom.

One of the activities—Find and Fill—is choosing the correct word that can become the focus word (or "word of the day" as my son calls it). In this instance, our son needed to choose the word that could become 'swim.' He then is asked to type in the correct missing letters.

Another activity—Detect and Select—that our son completes within the Reading Kingdom program requires him to choose the word as it appears in text. In this photograph, the word he had to choose was 'not.' 

There are also parts of the daily lesson—Pick the Picture—that require our son to correctly select a picture of the focus word and then type it. In this case, the word was "plane." If your child gets stuck on a letter, the program offers prompting to aid them in their spelling.

There is also a student report feature which I haven't really used a lot as I feel like all the information is available to me on the dashboard screen. It is something that can be emailed so if you are having them complete the work elsewhere (e.g., at a grandparent's house), you can have the information reported to you without having to log into Reading Kingdom at home.

I shared a short video of our son using Reading Kingdom on A Mom's Quest to Teach's Instagram. 

Great Features / What We Like

• Ability to adjust the response time necessary 
• The additional keyboard and mouse training 
• The variety of ways that the vocabulary is introduced and taught 
• Each day's lessons are brief—which is perfect for our four-year-old's attention 
• The Passport book that gets new features every 20,000 points (Our son just loves seeing what will happen each day and eagerly calls over everyone in the house as he opens it.) 
• It is adaptive—one of the words Reading Kingdom asked our son to spell was 'toys'—since he spelled it correctly on the first slide, the lesson skipped through several slides for the word 'toys.'
• The words being taught are ones that help build real sentences (Our son has even taken to typing his own sentences on my laptop using the words he has learned.) 
• If necessary, your child can redo a lesson or skip a lesson or level 
• Has a unique way for helping children type capital letters—they can tap the shift key prior to the letter rather than holding shift and the letter key (there were a few occasions when there were some problems with the program recognizing the capital letter) 
• Bright colorful images
• Cute animation 
• Clear speaking voice instructing our son what to do 
• Opportunity to pause during the lesson (for 12 minutes)

Few Problems We Had Using the Program 

• Did not always recognize the use of shift and letter keys to capitalize a letter 
• There were times when we needed to reload or refresh the page 
• Sometimes the voice instructions would start prior to the lesson actually starting—refreshing the page fixed this problem 

Final Thoughts 

I highly recommend taking a look at the Reading Kingdom website to learn more information. There is even a 30-day free trial if you want to try the online program for yourself!

We have only used the program on my laptop but Reading Kingdom states it works on any device with an Internet connection—including Windows, Mac, iPad, Android, and Chromebooks. 

We have been very happy with Reading Kingdom and will continue to use it in our home to help our son grow in his reading, writing, and spelling. 

Other Options 

In addition to Reading Kingdom, there is also another program that may be of interest to you: ASD Reading. ASD Reading is a reading program designed for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ages 4-10 who may or may not already be reading. They offer a 30-day free trial if you want to try it for your child.

To Learn More 

To learn more about the Reading Kingdom, please visit the following sites:

Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

To read more reviews of the Reading Kingdom and ASD Reading, please visit the Homeschool Review Crew!