Courtesy of Mama Buzz we received a monthly free membership to Stepping Stones Together, an online reading program site!
The Stepping Stones Together program focuses on popular children themed stories (such as fairies, dogs, dinosaurs), which utilize 220 high-frequency words and 95 nouns. Reading experts agree that children need to learn these words in order to become successful readers (such as: the, to, you, no, he , she, they). Studies indicate that these high-frequency words make up between 58-75% of all words in children’s books. This list is paramount for beginning readers to master in order to become successful in their reading ability. Early readers often reach frustration thresholds before learning how to read due to their struggle with high-frequency words.
Stepping Stones Together is a personalized beginning reading program consisting of:
They claim that in 90 days you can teach your child to reach using their program. At under $20 for 90 days, that seems like a pretty good bargain! The program is aimed at children from 3-7 yr of age. Your child does need to be able to recognize the alphabet letters out of order, in order to be ready for the program. They even have a great test to try on the site.
- A choice of 30 high interest themed stories from our beginning reading library, which is comprised of 3 difficulty levels (A, B and C).
- Over 100 reading comprehension questions designed to build your child’s reading comprehension skills, along with thinking, reading fluency, speaking and writing abilities. http://is.gd/crHRr-
- A daily writing program linked to your child’s daily reading to extend your child’s reading and writing abilities.
- Extension games that encourage your child to use their newly acquired reading skills as well as explore the benefits and joys connected with being a reader.
- A personalized behavior incentive chart for each series of stories to motivate your child to record their daily progress.
- A personalized certificate acknowledging their achievement after completing a leveled series every 10 days. Each reading series is comprised of 5 stories at a given level read twice. E-alerts to keep you on target with the program, which are directly linked to your personalized profile.
- Access to Blogs and Newsletters to provide you with current reading research tidbits and best practice tips to parents of new readers.
Review: As darling daughter is not at the level where she can recognize all the letters by themselves, she obviously isn't quite ready for the program, but it was interesting to see her trying to follow along and I was very amazed at how well she comprehended the stories and could relate them back to me, on the appropriate pages!
We reviewed books in Series A (beginner readers) and actually started on some in Series B for reading comprehension work. You can check out a demo book on the main page! Of all the books, daughter's favorites were:
- How Can Sara Help (Sara the fairy helps in the garden)
- Bella the Princess (Bella goes thru her day)
- Dylan the Dog (he talks, he sits at the table, he thinks and acts human)
- Dexter the Dinosaur- daughter's favorite- (Dexter's day)
Daughter adored the printable coloring pages and being able to make the characters her own (match the idea in her head). She also loved checking off all the books we'd completed (how we ended up in Series B- she wanted to finish more books!). I loved the questions at the end of the book as they really tested her reading comprehension! You can see book samples from every level on the gallery page on the site.The levels increase word usage and count, and expound on the idea per page. I love the progression- kids feel like they're reading 'older' book, boosting their self-esteem!
I am definitely keeping this site on my computer and signing back up in a few months, once daughter gets further along in learning the alphabet, so we can teach her to read using the Stepping Stones Method Program!
http://www.
Disclosure
/ Disclaimer: I received this preview, free of charge, from Stepping Stones, via Mama Buzz, for review purposes. No
compensation,
monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for
this post. Nor was I told how to review the program. Please keep in mind that our
experience may NOT be the same as yours, as everyone is different and
children learn at different levels.
