Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Online Read Alouds

Homeschool Review Crew

One More Story

We love read alouds in our house.  If you’ve followed my posts for long, you know that we’re always reading books out loud as a family and books are a central part of our homeschool and our home.  Online read alouds are new to us though.  We’ve recently been utilizing One More Story for reading books online.  

Through the Homeschool Review Crew, we received a one-year subscription to One More Story and their online read alouds. 

About the Program

To access One More Story you go to their website.  This can be used on any device that allows you to access the internet such as a phone/tablet/or laptop.  For our ease of use it was easiest to bring it up on the tablet that the kids use for their school.  There is an app that you can download through iPhone or iPad devices. 

Each account gets a login.  That login can be used up to twice at the same time on different devices to allow more than one child to enjoy the program at once. 

This is more than just an audiobook as the actual picturebook is also there for viewing pleasure.  It can be used where the entire book is just read aloud or where the words are lit up as the story reads them.  This is how we like to use it so that children are picking up some sight words on their own as they read through books.  Another option is the I Can Read it which allows the child to read through the book on their own.

The website is easy to navigate so that once you log your child in they can go through all of the 87 books on their own and choose which they wish to read. 

Narrators

Let’s chat who is reading the books.  I can’t give you one name.  There are over 30 different voices reading these books.  They’re not all the same and they don’t all have the same accents either so you’re getting exposed to hearing and understanding a variety of voices. 

I Can Read

In the I Can Read mode if the child finds a word that they can’t read or don’t understand they can simply click on that word which will tell them what the word is.  

All music and narration is automatically off in the I Can Read mode so that there are less distractions for the child who is reading.  

What happens after they click that word?  Well, it’s not forgotten.  It gets added to a My Word List which consists of all the words that are clicked on that a child doesn’t know.  They can go to this list and practice words until they know them.  Once the word is known it can be moved off the My Word List and onto the Learned Word List.  What a sense of accomplishment!

This program can be used by homeschool parents and school teachers alike.  In the school section the cost is determined by the number of students and there is a teacher’s corner where teacher’s can see and check up on progress.  

Our Thoughts

My kids have been loving this online read alouds experience.  I have mainly been having some of my struggling readers who have not quite grasped reading yet use this program.  They get to click on the books and have them read to them while also following the light up words to see which word is being said.  This has been a particularly helpful resource for my child with dyslexia.  She struggles with reading or even looking at things left to right and instead wants to start in the middle and then right and then left so seeing the words light up as they are said is helpful. 

I am a huge lover of reading and can often be found with several books I’m reading at once.  I want to raise readers and feel that reading aloud to children helps to accomplish that as well as having children seeing you read books.  This program is a great way to encourage a love of reading in children who struggle to learn to read. 

Honest Moment

When we were first offered this review I honestly didn’t think we wanted it.  I thought we wouldn’t use it that often as so many of my children are reading on their own and the ones that aren’t aren’t even close to reading on their own due to age or learning delays.  But it has proven to be a wonderful asset to my child who struggles with reading due to dyslexia.  She’s ten and half the time can’t remember half her letters.  The other half of the time the letters get all jumbled up together and reading progress doesn’t happen quickly. 

Enter One More Story!  It really has helped her see how to read from left to right and make those words and letters stay in place.  I have noticed some improvement with her reading and I love that!  I highly recommend this to everyone now. 

Learn More

You can learn more about One More Story and what other reviewers thought by reading all of the reviews that are linked up.  They can be found on the Main Blog Post on the Homeschool Review Crew Blog. 

One More Story can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.