Online Dyslexia Help

Homeschool Review Crew

 

As part of the Homeschool Review Crew, we’ve recently received a lifetime subscription to Dyslexia Gold Full Bundle plus family license from Dyslexia Gold for some online dyslexia help.  While none of my children have been formally diagnosed with dyslexia it is a great resource for other things as well.  Read on below for more about the program and how it can be helpful. 

About the Program

While this program is a great source of online dyslexia help it is also much more.  This program can also help those who struggle with reading and spelling even without a diagnosis of dyslexia.  

How does this work?

The entire program is online.  A special set of glasses are required for one of the online activities as well but those are sent to you with your subscription.  

Each student should be working with the program daily or at least four days a week for intervals of 15 minutes.  This will bring out the best results.  

The programs found on the site are fluency builder, engaging eyes, and spelling tutor.

 

 

Fluency Builder

The fluency builder program works with phonics and your child.  There are fifty lessons within this section.  Three games within this section help to achieve teaching and improving the phonological deficit.

Those three games are:

• Phonics.  Each lesson covers a new sound or spelling.  The child listens to a new sound and then chooses what words have that sound in them.  It also helps with learning new words with being exposed to them over and over.  Part of this is choosing the words with that sound.
• Phonological Awareness.  This section is helping children to hear and identify the different sounds within a word.  So, they’re breaking it up into each phonetic sound and building awareness of how those sounds build on each other and can differ from word to word.
• Reading Passage.  Within each lesson is a reading passage that should be read by each student four times.  The recommendation is reading it twice the first day and twice the next day.  Another way to do this could be once each of four days that week.  There are words in here that your child may not know but you can click on any word to have it read out loud to your child.  These are non-fiction passages.  

Fluency builder used ten minutes a day is to improve reading speed, accuracy, and comprehension. 

Engaging Eyes

Engaging eyes is going to help with the eye strength.  My two children both complained that this made their eyes hurt.  This makes some sense as it is working the eyes and making them use muscles that maybe they’ve not been using before.

This is done through three games. 

• Target Practice.  This game uses 3D glasses.  Your child will have to hit the target by using arrows and such.  It makes both eyes work together to hit the target.  I thought this would be my son’s favorite thing but he didn’t like it as much as I thought he would due to it making him work his eyes leaving them feeling tired at the end. 
• Eye Tracking.  Here the eyes follow across the screen and track letters as if reading.  You simply let them know when the letter you’re searching for appears.  This one tended to bore my kids after a few minutes because it was repetitive.
• Whack an Alien.  The best according to the kids!  Whack that alien when he pops up.  No reading.  Two separate levels to let your child advance.  And of course it’s super fun to whack an alien but it’s also making your eyes work together and quickly. 
•  

 

Spelling Tutor

First things first.  This helps with spelling.  But the most important thing is you can change the spelling.  You’re going to want to do this if you’re in the US like us as this is a UK based program.  You can also change the pronunciation which will greatly help your child.  

Over 1000 words are used through this program so you’re sure to see improvement.  It’s based on the UK spelling curriculum so some of the words might not be ones that we use often in our own spelling programs but they’re all good words to know. 

The program is personalized and will change based on what is or is not correct.  It’s based on hearing, seeing, and writing so your child will be hearing the word, seeing the word, and writing the word. 

Times Table Tutor

This is a fun bit that my kids loved.  It’s based on Singapore math which we have never used.  Help with math is always fun and I didn’t realize until having special needs children just how much math and reading are interrelated.  

Works with them ten minutes a day to learn all their time’s tables up to 12 x 12.  I’ve found that not all math programs think this is important but as a math nerd myself I definitely say rock on times table tutor!

 

 

Our Thoughts

Probably our favorite part of the program was the spelling tutor. I expected my son to like the engaging eyes the most but he didn’t.  Partly because he said it hurt his eyes but I think the rest was that it was a bit repetitive and it took a while for the game to end.  

There are a few words that I’m not thrilled with.  I don’t see the need for them.  But they’re not harmful.  Things like attractive being matched with a girl in a red dress or champagne.  I think the program could do without those.  This is just personal preference and has nothing to do with the program as a whole or how well it works.

It’s a fast-paced program.  I don’t mean that you have to feel rushed but that you’re going to be getting into the game and then be saying wait it’s done?  My kids definitely wanted to do the games longer than it had them.

I have seen progress already.  My son at the beginning was moving his head whenever he was tracking but now just his eyes move which I feel is one of the goals.  He’s also reading without quite so much hesitation within books.

Overall I would recommend this.  I don’t think you need to have dyslexia to use and improve with this program.  It caused marked improvement with reading for my kids.  A major thing that I noticed is that they became more confident in their own abilities. 

A suggestion would be selling the glasses in massive packages though.  Ours was destroyed a few days ago so I’m on the search for a new pair. 

You can purchase the full bundle or individual programs.  I would say to get them all.  They’re all helpful and I can’t say hmm this one is better than that one.  

 

 

The only negatives that I can think of for this program is that the kids think it’s too short.  They’d rather have more game time of course since we don’t do games or anything online besides school.  Also, the fact that I can’t find packages of glasses on their site as we’d like to have extras of those on hand for when the baby gets her hands on them. 

Learn More

You can learn more about how you can find online dyslexia help and Dyslexia Gold by reading all of the reviews linked up on the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  While we all reviewed the same product you’ll be sure to find differing opinions and insights to the program.  Dyslexia Gold can also be found on Facebook.