Definitely not worth time/money for Dyslexic kids
My student has worked his way through to the last chapter in the Reading Horizons Elevate program. We are currently finishing up that last chapter. I have been very disappointed with the program and my student has made very little progress. He is 11 and struggles with dyslexia. There are so many bugs with the program itself - the system constantly has issues when the user types in words often not allowing the user to type at all. This requires you to restart the program a few times before it works again (THIS HAPPENS SO MANY TIMES AND IS INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING!). The system will ask the user to select a word and the user will select the correct word, however, the system will say that it is wrong and then show you the same answer as the correct answer. They system will also ask the user to spell words that have homophones (same pronunciation, different spelling - like sea/see, two/to/too, etc.) but it will not define they word they are to spell, so you have to just guess which one they are wanting. Additionally, the tests, quizzes, and practice portions of the program use a computer-generated voice that can be difficult to understand at times. I have reported all of these issues multiple times throughout our use of the program, and none have been fixed. Another issue I have with the program is that it focuses so much on decoding words instead of the repetition of actually learning words. I think decoding can help initially, but I can't say it has helped my student learn how to read any better. The lessons are so short with very little practice time. They give the same amount of emphasis and practice on basic skills as they do highly complex skills. I feel like they should have multiple lessons for some of those more complex skills that take a lot longer to learn. You also can't review the actual lesson without resetting the lesson - forcing the student to repeat it all over again. They have a quick review, but it is exactly that... it barely covers anything and there is no explanation as the the 'why' things are done that way. It only reviews the words covered in that lesson. The quizzes and tests also require the student to memorize what exactly each decoding skill is - and it will say which of these words fit decoding skill #1 - so the user has to memorize what each one is, which doesn't seem like an important thing to memorize, esp. for students who have difficulty with memorization. Also, there is a ridiculously difficult skill level jump between chapters 4 and 5. The words for chapter 5 are so much more difficult and it makes no sense how that difficulty level jumps so drastically, so quickly. The library options are very limited, and my student has had difficulty finding articles that are even remotely interesting - and I would have to agree with him on that. All-in-all, we spent 5 months working through this program, and my student's reading improved by 30% based on the initial baseline test. That also included A LOT of additional reading practice outside of this program that I believe was far more effective. I would definitely NOT recommend this program.
By Kristen G.