Learning Dynamics

Teach Your Child to Read

Homeschool Review Crew

Do you need to teach your child to read?  Not sure where to begin?  Our newest review through the Homeschool Review Crew, Learning Dynamics, is all about teaching your child to read in three short sessions per week.  We received a physical copy of the Learning Dynamics Reading Program to use at home.  Keep reading to learn more about the program and how it can be used to teach your child to read painlessly. 

About the Program

This program is a bit revolutionary in that it teaches reading using three days a week and only 15 minutes a day on those three days.  They have a money back guarantee within 30 days and say that your child will be reading within four weeks.  Is it too good to be true?  You be the judge!

We received within this program the following:

• Teaching manual 
• Online Training Videos
• over 50 books
• flashcards
• activities and workbooks
• music CD with letter and concept songs
• plus a super cute little box to store it all in

The cute little carry box is chock full of fun things to use with your child to help teach them to read.  It’s cute, compact, and fun.  Definitely not a boring way to learn to read.  The rewards are cute and colorful, the songs are catchy, and the stories are perfect for younger kiddos to keep them entertained while learning to read. 

Learning Dynamics has been around for over 17 years now within classrooms honing and fine-tuning their program.  Now it’s out there for us as homeschoolers to use and enjoy.  I can say that my daughter and I have been enjoying the program!

The only item that you will need to purchase for additional students is the student workbook as this is intended to be used with one student.  All the rest can be used with more than one though you might want to see about purchasing more rewards or coming up with your own if your child is prone to want to keep their own things!

How it Works

You’re going to spend 15 minutes a day for three days each week working on these materials.  It’s really simple.  You look at letters, do a page in the student book, sing some songs, and play some games, and before you know it your child is reading some simple words and then reading a simple book.

Too simple of an explanation?

Okay.  Let me try to expand a bit.  But it really is a simple program and doesn’t require me to gather a bunch of supplies and spend hours pouring over a teacher’s manual which is awesome!

A typical Lesson.

First, you have to gather supplies.  You will need the teacher manual, CD, student workbook, reward tokens, and cards.  And if you’re at the point to be reading you will need the book for the day as well.

One, show them the letter card to be worked on that day.  These have the upper case letter on one side and lower case on the other side.  Easy peasy.

Side note:  There are three sets of cards.  At the beginning of the lessons you’re only going to start with one set but add in the other two decks as you go along. 

The cute above deck is my favorite.  It shows cues to help them know what letter and sounds go together with the opposite side telling you how to help them with the letter sound.

Now you’re going to say the letter name and the sound.  Again, still simple.  

I’m showing the above teacher page for a reason. We do not like the name Dufus.  It is one of the few things in the book that I could find an objection to.  But I did want it to be a heads up. 

Time for the cuteness to begin!  You read them a small story that applies to the letter and uses the sound.  And yes I said cute.  Because they’re adorable and will have your child giggling.  They’re also short which is amazing for those attention spans. 

It is now time for the letter song.  These will be stuck in your brain forever.  You’re welcome.

Student workbook time!  These are short, painless, and again cute.  Plus all children love to color right?

Now you get to sing the song again(told you you’re never going to forget them now), do another fun activity if you want to, and repeat the letter and sounds.  Then depending on where you are in the program, you talk about the other letters and sounds you’ve learned or you do some reading together.

My kids love the optional activities.  Yes, kids.  While I’m using this program with one child the other two non-readers are learning too because they like to jump in for the activities and I’m okay with that.  A little no pressure letter fun is good for everyone.  

Our Thoughts

The lessons are short and relatively painless.  I would say they are painless but teaching a child to read can be painful if you don’t like listening to them sound things out.  Through my years there have definitely been a few that teaching them to read has been painful for me.  I wish I’d had this program!  I’ve tried all the big name recommended by all the other homeschool families books and honestly, I hated them!  They did not work for us. 

I needed something that was going to do more than have me point at a spot on a page.  Something that would be bright and keep someone with some ADD/ADHD/RAD from bouncing on to the next thing.  My biggest struggle with my kiddos who’ve had a rough start to life is that they have relatively no attention span and that is hard when you’re trying to do school.  Thankfully we homeschool, but I feel very sorry for public school teachers who have to deal with kids with these issues and my heart goes out to the kids themselves too. 

An Answer

Enter Learning Dynamics.  I have a just turned 9-year-old little girl who sometimes knows her letters and sometimes doesn’t.  Sometimes she can tell you what they say and sometimes she has no idea that a says ahh.  It is what it is.  She has some developmental issues that mean her mental age isn’t her physical age but I knew that this year she needed to learn how to read and we needed it to be something fun that would engage her brain.  

She really enjoyed how bright and bold it was.  The characters caught her eye and since she’s a hoarder, I mean pack rat, I mean a child who loves all the collectible things that minimalist moms want to throw away, she really loves the reward tokens!

A Negative and a Positive

That’s probably the only thing I didn’t like about the whole program.  Those tokens.  They’re cute and they’re neat and my daughter loves them but they make me shudder knowing I’m going to be finding them on the floor.  And then knowing she’s going to want them taped and taped and taped as they rip.  They are sturdier though so hopefully they’ll last longer than most of her little keepsakes.  At least until we finish the program.

So for our overall results.  My daughter loves the program.  I love the program.  She is making progress with remembering her letters and sounds and is even starting to blend letters together.  I feel like she is moving slow and we’ve had to redo some lessons.  By the number of weeks we’ve been at this, she should be reading some on her own but she isn’t yet.  I don’t think this is the fault of the program but more that she does have some special needs.  This program though is the best one I have found to work with her and her special needs.  

For my final thoughts, I recommend the program.  I will be using it this fall with my just turned six-year-old who also needs to learn to read.  She’s been watching me use it with her sister and is really excited to be able to use it on her own soon.  Again, the only piece you will have to buy is the student workbook.  Unless you have kids who are hard on the tokens and then you will need a new set of those.  I’m actually wondering about laminating them so they can be reused though. 

Learn More

Make sure to head over to the Main Blog Post on the Homeschool Review Crew to read all of the reviews for Learning Dynamics.  See what everyone else says about how it works to teach your child to read.  Someone is bound to have your teaching style or your child’s learning style so that you can see how it might work for your family.  Also, check them out on Facebook, YouTube, and  Instagram to learn more about the company.