Review: MaxScholar

Reading has been a bit of a struggle for our youngest child, so I'm always on the look for books and programs to help strengthen his skills. I was please to see the free 12 month subscription of the  Reading Intervention Programs from MaxScholar up for review recently.  This program was created to help children that have learning disabilities, processing issues or just those that are struggling to read.  It is a multi-sensory approach based on a mix of  Orton-Gillingham and Lindamood-Bell as well as other comprehension and phonics strategies. This program is adaptable to a child's age and learning ability.   It was a simple process to open an account after the email we received from the company. The program is set up for the parent to have an account as well as the student. There are many sections available for your student to try. 

The first thing that Issac needed to do was the assessment. I've said it before and I'll shout it from the rooftops that I LOVE an assessment! Often times I go back and forth wondering what I need to work on with Issac or what level he is currently.  The assessment takes all the guess work out of it. We started with the phonics assessment and Issac did great. 

He then moved to the reading assessment.  At the end of each session you can view the report in the parent account to see how they did and what they need to work through. The one thing I wasn't quite sure on was if the assigned level was related to grade levels. My son is going into the 6th grade and I viewed this as he was on grade 5 reading level.  Here is a look at one part of the reading assessment.  

Issac spent most of his time in the reading section.  As I watched him move through the lessons they seemed very easy when I thought he was on level 5. After further inspection the lessons he was working through were kindergarten level. I didn't quite understand that if he was on level 5, but was able to go into my account and change the levels that I wanted him to work through. I bumped it up to 3-5 because I felt that would still offer him challenges as well as successes.  I want Issac to become a better reader and be more on level, but I also want there to be a balance and him not get too frustrated.  As the lessons moved on and the passages got longer he did get stressed.  All he could see was a long page of writing and couldn't seem to focus on just working in one section at a time. I liked that he was doing lots of work with finding the main idea, the topic and details in the text. This is not really something we have work on at all because I have been more focused on just getting him to read.  He liked that he was able to play the games to help strengthen his skills. It did frustrate him if he couldn't play the game due to a low score because he thought the games were there to help him. I explained that it was a reward for doing a job well done.  He also worked some in MAXWORDS. When questioned on the syllable rules he didn't have any idea what they were saying.  As we started moving through the lessons he quickly understood. The terminology was a little confusing for him at first, but after discussion then he caught on better.  

I think the part that he enjoyed and did best at was looking at the pictures and understanding what was going on there. I think that is due to many hours spent with his speech therapist doing this type of review.  He's always done better with the multi-sensory approach and I could see that continue with this program.  

I think one of my favorite parts is that I can go into my dashboard and try out things Issac is doing to see how the program works.  Here are a few of the sections that I tried out as well as two of Issac's favorites.   Issac was super excited to read about one of his favorites-LeBron James! In MAXVOCAB you can learn the definitions of words, how to use them in sentences as well as synonyms and antonyms.  There are also tons of materials for the teacher/parent to check out in order to understand the process and better help the student.  

All in all this program seems like a good fit for Issac. Like I mentioned previously the sections seemed a little long and that was stressful for him, but he tried focusing on one paragraph at a time. I do wish that based on the assessment it would have started him out at the exact place he needed, but I'm just not sure if I missed how to make that happen. All-in-all for my youngest the multi-sensory approach has always been best and I see that here with the Reading Intervention Programs that MaxScholar has produced. For more information check out their social media sites and as always I highly recommend reading what other crew members experienced in their time with the program.  

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