ASD Reading Review

I was excited to get a chance to use ASD Reading with my 15 year old daughter. I received a one-year online subscription.

ASD Reading is for children ages 4 thru 15 that are on the Autism Spectrum. Having a 15 year old daughter on the Autism Spectrum that struggles in many areas I was intrigued by this program.

ASD Reading can be used with kids who are non-verbal or verbal. You can use ASD Reading if your child doesn’t have any reading skills, and those who don’t even know their letters. The only requirement is that they need to be able to sit down for a bit to work on the computer or tablet. It is recommended that you use Google Chrome for the best results; however I used Firefox and had no issues using the program. 

ASD Reading teaches a method created by Dr. Marion Blank. He uses what he calls the 6-SIM (Six Skill Integrated) they teach all the components of the words, including the vocabulary of the word. They claim that sequencing, motor skills, sounds, vocabulary meaning, grammar, and comprehension to help with reading. How the word is used in a sentence and how it relates to other words in that sentence. ASD Reading is going to teach reading, writing, and phonics with the ability to decode words. Grammar and comprehension also is taught in the program.

  The program is a good balance for children on the spectrum. I found that it wasn’t too distracting and yet it had enough of visuals to keep my daughter interested in the program. The pace seemed just right for my daughter. I have an older daughter who has recently recognized that some programs are extremely “babyish”, as she puts it. This one isn’t so bad according to my daughter.

It is recommended to use ASD Reading for younger kids 4 times a week and for older kids 5 times a week. The lessons took my daughter around 20 minutes. I feel that the time depends on your child. If you feel that they need a break you can pause the program for 12 minutes. They also recommend that you only do two sessions per day. If you want to do more than you can continue on with the lesson. 

At the end of each level you can print of diplomas. This is a nice feature if you have a child who thrives on rewards. This would have been great for my daughter when she was younger. Now she isn’t too concerned about getting rewarded in this particular method.

If your child doesn’t know how to use a mouse or keyboard then don’t worry as the lesson in the beginning will cover this. There is so much information on the website for you to read. I recommend you look it over to see if this is something that would work for your child. They do have a 30 day free trial.

How did I use this in my homeschool?

Once your account is set up and your logged in you have an opportunity to do some training activity for the mouse and keyboard. My daughter is very proficient with a mouse and keyboard so this part wasn’t an issue for her. We skipped and went onto the placement test or you can just start at level 1. I recommend that you do the placement test.

Each level so far seems to be based off of six books. The books have several activities. It seemed to focus on certain words. For example; one activity focused on the word frog. They would show you the word. Then you would have to click on the correct word with a group of words together. The next activity includes filling in missing letters from the word frog. Next it proceeded with the word frog in a sentence and filling in the blanks and then on to a reading activity. It went into the plural of frog also.

There is some repetition which I think is a good thing for kids on the spectrum. I like that it also builds upon itself slowly. The program slowly starts to add in punctuation. The activities have stayed similar in style up to this point.

I like that if you switch over to a tab on the screen you will see a comment pop up. If you have a child that likes to wander like mine on the computer at times this is a great reminder for them if you happen to not be by the computer at the time. Also as a parent I can hit pause if I feel she needs to step away for a few. The pause is for twelve minutes.

We varied on doing one or two lessons a day. It pretty much depended on how much I felt she could tolerate that particular day. I liked that I could work it around her each and every day according to her attention and tolerance that day. If you get stuck they will give you hints.

As a parent you can download a report that showed what her reading and writing level is, an overall score, date started and completed and the time spent on each lesson. It also showed words and the book she has finished. This is downloaded as an Excel file.

Another feature that I liked was that I had the option to adjust her response time. This is a nice feature that prevented a lot of frustrations for my daughter as she can be extremely slow at times. I can also adjust the age, ESL or ELL speaker, and whether I require mastery.

Overall, I think the lessons are engaging for my daughter. She thought that the lessons are fun. She likes that they don’t have too much going on in sound or graphics. She doesn’t get distracted using ASD Reading. It really showed me where my daughter is academically in several areas. This has changed a few of my plans for the coming year with her for school. Very helpful!

We will continue to work on this during the summer and next year.

  

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 Other reviews are also reviewing ASD Reading and Reading Kingdom. Stop by and see what they have to say.