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I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Rosetta Stone. I received a product and a promotional item to thank me for participating.
The girl has always been interested in books and reading. She still pretends to read books silently to herself, but she can read a lot of sight words and is pretty good with basic — and some beyond-basic — words and books. 
While she’s doing great picking up words on her own and with what she’s learning at school, I think it’s great to reinforce reading skills in a lot of different ways. She reads signs when we’re in the car, we read a lot at home, and we look for games that can help with picking up reading skills.
When I heard about the Rosetta Stone Kids Reading Program, I thought it would be a great addition to what we’re already doing. It’s a program developed by Rosetta Stone with the literacy experts at Lexia Learning that includes 50 games and 600 different learning activities that build skills as the child learns. Your child sets the pace for how the challenges change based on how well they do with the game.
It’s aimed at children ages 3 to 7. For younger kids it focuses on skills like
- print awareness
- shape recognition
- early vocabulary development
- listening skills
For kindergarten-aged kids it works on
- letter names
- rhyming and sound awareness
- letter sounds and beginning phonics
- sight words
- early comprehension skills
For older kids it helps with
- advanced phonics
- spelling
- word meanings
- reading and comprehension
It’s available for desktop, laptop and mobile devices, which makes it great to use on the go (or doing the girl’s regular weekend iPad time).
Parent tools allow you to check your child’s progress so you can reinforce what they’re learning or what they might be having trouble with in the game if you want to.
The Girl’s Review
The girl has been playing with this app for a few weeks, and she seems to really like it. I think the challenges at the level where we started (level 6; the app helps you choose which level your child should be on based on their starting skills) are good for her. She definitely finds some of them easier than others, and she has played longer on the games she found easier.
Looking at the parent’s report, I see that she’s completed two of the games for the level she is on, and she got two and half out of three stars on those. She’s played less on ones she’s also doing less well on. So I know that we need to work a little more on sight words (as I watched her play I saw she was having trouble with things like there and where). But she’s doing great with vowel sounds.
She loves the fun little characters, known as the Lingos, and the blue one, Skippy, watches as you play and does a little butt-shaking dance when you finish a game, which is always good for a laugh.
There is a storyline involved, too, which makes it a little more fun. On her level she’s collecting keys to unlock a special toy box, and she gets keys as she completes the different activities.
My Review
I like that it seems to be a pretty engaging app that she goes back to without encouragement from me. I found it hard to hear sometimes and it took me a while to realize there was a question mark at the top of the screen that would allow you to hear the question again. It seems like it takes a long time to complete the activities to get the keys, but she hasn’t complained of being bored, so that’s a good thing.
I like that you can check their progress if you aren’t right beside them while they’re playing all the time, and that the program reacts to the child’s skill level. I wouldn’t completely rely on technology to help her learn to read, but as long as she’s enjoying it as part of the process I think we’ll keep using it.
Reading is such an important skill for future academic success, and with more than 47 percent of American children reading below grade level, we’re going to do all we can to make sure the girl continues to love reading and playing with words as Rosetta Stone Kids Reading allows her to do.
The program costs $19.99 a month or $99 a year, and you can try out the first level with a free trial to see if you and your child like it.
What are you doing or did you do to help your kids learn to read? I’d love to hear about it!
