We have been using the homer reading program to supplemental our home-school kindergarten for about a month now. So far it has been going great! We both absolutly love the homer program.
Why we love it:
I love it, as mom, because it makes learning fun! It goes right along with our home school kindergarten objective:
As I teach kindergarten the goal is to make learning fun; to inspire a life long learner and give a good foundation for math and reading.
If you don’t remember why I started the kindergarten objective, then you can refer back to this post to learn a little bit more about the process. Basically it keeps you grounded and on track throughout the year with an overall goal in mind.
My daughter loves the homer program because it is like playing a game! It even has tons of games which I will be showing you in the tour below!
Comparison to the other reading programs:
Abeka:
After about a week of having the homer program I did a comparison of the two programs we are currently using for reading (abeka and homer). So, far homer is still winning out for use even a month later BUT we are still using both every single day of school! If you want to read our initial review of the two side by side then you can check out that post here!
Chalk Preschool:
BUT we have also tried the ABC mouse program in the past as well as the free Chalk preschool program. Both of these are online school programs as well. Homer tops both of them in quality. BUT Chalk preschool is still a really great free resource for younger children (ages 3-5) who aren’t in kindergarten yet. It is really good for letters, colors, numbers, shapes, and days of the week. It is a super well rounded preschool program and just like a virtual school! You can check out our review of it here. If you are doing preschool in a virtual world this year you might as well try it out!
ABC Mouse:
We had a one year subscription for ABC mouse for preschool. For us homer reading takes the cake! It loads so much faster than ABC mouse, it is far less overwhelming for little kids. Sometimes with ABC mouse there was just TOO much going on. While it is great to have tons of options of things to do, sometimes when kids are small it is litterally just TOO much. I ended up doing the navigation of the app. BUT with Homer reading, the layout is much more simple. She can navigate it easily and doesn’t get distracted from the learning BUT it is still just the right amount of fun! You can see our ABC mouse review here.
Homer Reading Tour:
To start out the tour when you open up the app you will see the island, with the orange pathway button in the middle. This is what the app looks like on an android phone, by the way. You have some nice background music playing when it opens up. If you flip through this first gallery you can see the pathway which is blue with the square icons. We are currently working though the letters pathway which does each letter, the sound, and then then works with spelling small words that start and end with the letter. In this first gallery the last photo is of part of the games page! There are tons of fun games.
With this photo I have a close up of the different levels that your child goes through when they are doing the Homer program. Initially you do a little quiz that sets up your child’s account and where they should begin. Not every child begins in the same place. It is very customized. We have gone through the first few levels.
At the end of each lesson or game in their pathway the kids are given the option of what they want to do! They can draw, record, or be done and see what they unlocked. In the more recent days my daughter loves to see what she has unlocked. But she has tested out all of the features. Here are some of the drawing activities that are given. Some of them have prompts, like writing little words. Others are ideas of what to draw. It is kind of hard to draw on a little phone.
Thanks for stopping by today. We love homer reading it is such a great addition for teaching reading to kindergarten kids. It is really good for kids that phonics doesn’t come naturally to. I know for me, teach phonics doesn’t come as naturally as teaching numbers and math does. so I love little tools and tricks like these.
Thanks for stopping by today for this great Kindergarten tip!
Brie
PS: Need a few more kindergarten tips?
- Check out our kindergarten section we started this year!
- All about Kindergarten Math
- FREE Kindergarten Virtual Art Lesson
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