Reading is an important skill that young children often learn in school. However, because of the coronavirus outbreak, millions of children are now without the appropriate reading instruction they would usually get from school. Homeschooling is now the new normal, but many parents are lost with how to help their children improve their reading skills. Luckily, the best homeschool reading program can be accessed easily through a tablet or even smartphone.

Reading apps can help parents teach their children to read at home and improve their reading skills. There are tons of reading apps to choose from so sorting through all of them can be overwhelming. 

Which homeschool reading program is best?

Finding the right homeschool reading program can be difficult. With so many options out there, it can be difficult to know which apps actually work and which ones your child would best benefit from. The best way to pick reading apps is to first know what your child already knows, what they should know, and what they need to improve.

Your child’s teacher should be your primary contact and informant when it comes to maintaining their education right now. They know exactly the level your child is currently reading and know what they should be trying to achieve. Their teacher likely has some curriculum in place that you can build upon so make sure to ask them for their advice and work with them to build the best homeschool reading program that you can.

For the most part, the number of sight words and how quickly your child can read might be an indicator for their fluency and reading comprehension. These are the reading skills you want to target at home while your child is not able to be in school. Here are some of our favorite apps to use for your homeschool reading program: 

What is the best app to improve vocabulary?

Vocabulary is a huge part of being able to read. Increasing your child’s vocabulary will help them to read quicker and easier. Vocabulary building starts with sight words. Sight words are the most commonly used words in a language such as “he”, “and”, “stop”, etc.

A child’s bank of sight words should increase about 100 words each grade. So, by the end of first grade your child should be able to identify over 100 sight words and by second grade they should be able to identify over 200 sight words. At the end of third grade, they should be able to identify over 300 sight words!

Sight Words– The Sight Words app is great for children of any reading level to help increase their sight word and vocabulary knowledge. The app is available at different reading levels. Your child can learn and have fun at the same time as the app uses word games to facilitate learning.

What is the best app to improve fluency?

Improving vocabulary is just one step in improving reading. Your child should also be working on their fluency. Fluency is being able to read as naturally as possible. What does that mean? Basically, your child should be able to read in the same manner and speed that they talk. They should not be stopping frequently to identify or pronounce words.

Readability– This app is great for improving your child’s fluency because it offers them a model for reading and also gives them feedback to help them improve. Readability essentially acts like a private reading tutor for your child. The app uses A.I. and speech-recognition technology to help your child improve their reading. The app has a collection of original stories that is updated frequently to provide your child an endless supply of reading material.

Your child can choose to either have the app read the story to them as they follow along, or they can read the story aloud while the app listens to them. As they read, the app will identify errors they make and give them instant feedback for improvement. This app can help your child increase their fluency and in turn helps them improve their reading comprehension.

What is the best app to improve reading comprehension?

Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal of learning to read. Once your child is able to master this skill, they make the switch from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”.

Reading comprehension is an important reading skill that will help them all throughout school. It is essentially being able to understand a text and make connections to it to their prior knowledge and experiences.

With improving reading comprehension, your child is not only able to understand and analyze a text but they are also able to create their own stories and thoughts based on the text.

StoryKit- Your child will improve their reading comprehension and their creativity with four classic stories and fun illustrations. Once your child is done reading the stories they can then create their own edits and changes to the story such as adding their own narratives or illustrations.

Homeschooling your child during this time can be difficult and stressful. Using a homeschool reading program with apps can help them learn to read but also have fun and make actual improvements. Also, utilizing apps like Readability that give you progress reports can help you see if and how your child is improving. This can help you make sure your child is on track once they are able to go back to school.

Schools in 26 states have announced plans to close down for the year to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, and several additional states and territories also have recommended closures for the remainder of the school year. Ed Week reports that these closures (and potential closures) have affected more than 36 million students. Lessons have moved online and parents are taking on the role of classroom instructor. While some parents may only need to supervise learning, others have to create entire lesson plans without much guidance.

No matter what your child’s online learning lessons look like, parents should utilize homeschooling reading programs to ensure that children at all grade levels continue to progress in their literacy journey.

What should parents look for when researching homeschooling reading programs? Here are the key features of a great program:

• Leveled content that increases with difficulty as your child becomes more proficient
• Engaging stories
• Colorful illustrations
• Auditory feedback capabilities (e.g. a virtual tutor)
• Growth data for parents (reports should detail each child’s progress)
• A dual focus on both phonics and comprehension

Embrace the Teacher Role and Create a Learning Schedule

Parents who are now jumping into the new role of teacher may be a bit overwhelmed with the move to online learning. 

The new school day is an adjustment for many parents, and it’s completely normal to not feel completely at ease. Depending on your district, parents may have more or less ownership of their child’s learning journey. However, all parents need to take the reins during this time; parents will ultimately need to ensure that all the work is complete and that the child stays on track. Creating a school schedule is a great way to keep kids on track with all assignments—including reading!

Even if your child’s school assigns reading assignments, homeschooling reading programs may be used to expand enrichment and, hopefully, increase a child’s reading proficiency. Create a time in the schedule for children to work on reading enrichment programs like Readability.

How to Use Homeschooling Reading Programs

Programs like Readability are extremely easy to use. Parents need to download the app and either sign up for a free trial (it’s seven days) or pay for a subscription. Once the app is downloaded, the reading journey begins. Readability will adjust content to ensure that lessons aren’t too easy or too difficult. Books will begin at your child’s baseline level and slowly increase in difficulty as your child shows mastery.

Your child may have difficulty with phonics, comprehension or both. Readability can help your child improve in all areas of reading; an integrated AI tutor provides auditory feedback to guide pronunciation and comprehension. The tutor will gently correct any mistakes and ask your child questions about the story.

Ideally, parents should work with younger children to ensure that they are engaged in lessons. Unsupervised lessons—especially when working on a mobile device—might mean the child could become distracted with other apps (like games).

Even when parents supervise lessons, they may wonder about the effectiveness of the program. How do you know if the program is helping to increase a child’s proficiency? The Parent Dashboard shows key data about the child’s progress and also helps parents understand how long the child has engaged with the program. If a child isn’t reading enough, parents will know!

Should Online Programs Take the Place of Books?

Children may find that they are more engaged in stories through apps like Readability. Today’s kids thrive on technology; most of them don’t remember a day without a gadget!

While online programs are a great way to ensure that kids increase proficiency—and provide parents with the data to back up this progress—don’t shun physical books! The more a child reads, the better they will become at reading. Let them read old books, new books, easy books…encourage them to read whatever interests them.

Parents also should read to young children as much as possible. Not only is reading together a great bonding experience, but it helps encourage a joy of reading. The more a child likes to read, the more they will read. Studies have shown that reading five books a day to a young child allows them to enter kindergarten with a more than one million word advantage over peers whose parents never read to them.  

What Should a Reading Schedule Look Like?

Every parent may have a different school schedule established for online learning, or maybe the school has established this schedule. Many kids are engaged in Zoom meetings via their district, and this helps students maintain a physical presence with peers and their educators.

Every parent’s online learning schedule for their children may be unique. Many parents also are working from home, and this may mean that schedules need to be flexible so that parents can carve out the time to provide additional instruction and guidance. Your child’s virtual learning environment may be broken up into hourly chunks for each subject throughout the day, or perhaps your child prefers to sit down and work until everything is complete.

How you schedule time for homeschooling reading programs depends on both the parents’ schedule and a child’s learning preferences. Some kids need multiple breaks, but others can work for hours at a time without issue. In addition, parents may only have time in the evening to help a child with online lessons or schoolwork. Create a schedule that works for your family’s unique needs during this time.

Interested in trying out Readability to see if a homeschooling reading program is right for your child? Sign up for a free seven-day trial today!

Many people wrongly believe that children don’t start reading until they reach the first grade or higher. And while, in some cases, this may be true, children can definitely start reading or at least learning to read before this stage, and they definitely should.

To set your child up for a successful future, start teaching basic reading comprehension skills as soon as possible, ideally even before they enter kindergarten.

This isn’t to say, of course, that your four year old should be reading novels, but they should ideally know the alphabet and, even more importantly, the sounds that each letter makes or can make. If you can instill your child with that basic knowledge prior to kindergarten, learning all of the other grade-level reading comprehension skills shouldn’t prove too difficult.

Play Games

At kindergarten or pre-kindergarten age, children have very short attention spans.To teach them anything, you’ll have to first get their attention and their focus. Thankfully, that’s not too hard to do if you understand how the four to five-year-old brain is wired.

Children at this age want instant rewards. They are impatient but curious. One of the best ways to appeal to them and to start teaching them reading comprehension in the process is to play some fun games.

Games that use cards, colorful parts, or other eye-catching items are ideal for kids at this level. That’s why flashcards work so well. You could create your own “flashcards” with pictures on one card and words on another and have your child match them up appropriately.

You could also try a fun dice game, where beginning sounds are on one die and finishing sounds are on another die. By playing this type of game together, your child can learn how some letters work together to form actual words and how others form “nonsense words.”  With both real and non-real words, your child will learn to blend sounds and will also start to understand the basic composition of some of the most common words in the English language.

Of course, no matter what game you’re playing, it’s vital that you provide instruction and talk through each exercise to help your child identify key concepts from the game. Also, don’t expect your child to play for long. Those short attention spans mean that you can likely only play a game with desired results for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, but don’t give up. Every little bit of practice helps!

Read Together

Never underestimate the power of reading to and with your kindergarten-age child. Allow your child to pick stories at the library that interest them. Then, read these books together- and not just at bedtime when your child is sleepy.

Instead, pick a time each day to read a book together and then discuss it after. For best results, read the book yourself beforehand and come up with some basic comprehension questions to ask your child after you’ve read. Think of those “reporter questions:” who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Work with your child to uncover who the main characters in the story are, what happened to them, when it happened, where it happened, why it happened, and what it might mean or want to teach us, and how, exactly, it happened and in what order.

Your child may have trouble with some of these questions, but if you go back through the book together and point out key details, they’ll quickly start to understand how stories come together and make up a comprehensive whole, which is the entire basis of reading comprehension.

Discover New Words

While reading a story and understanding what is happening within it is definitely part of reading comprehension, you can’t expect your child to do that if they don’t know the meaning of half of the words that they’re reading. Thus, also devote plenty of time to learning and understanding new words

When you come across a word in a story or even out in the world that you think your child may not know, ask them. Ask them what the word means. If they don’t know, ask them what they think it means and why. Give them the real meaning when needed, and when possible, explain how the word is strung and formed together. 

The word “firefighter” is a perfect example. It means someone who fights or fends off fires. When you show your child how these two meanings come together, this will spark higher-level cognitive reasoning and better reading and word comprehension, all while increasing your child’s vocabulary, which also contributes to better reading comprehension.

Get Outside Help with Reading Comprehension Apps

Finally, remember that you are not alone as you work with your child. To start with, your child’s teachers or future teachers will prove to be a great resource. They are the main ones doing the work to help your child build reading comprehension, and anything you do at home is just going above and beyond what your child is already learning at school.

Furthermore, there are many great online resources and apps, such as Readability, that fully understand how the young brain works and that are developed on those principles. This app, in particular, is great at encouraging children to read, making reading fun, and helping to build age and reading-level appropriate skills that will carry your child to a lifetime of success. 

Try this app and take advantage of other resources, and before you know it, your child’s reading skills will blossom in major ways.

The summer is a special time that many kids anticipate for months in advance. It’s the idea of freedom, sunshine, adventures, and all the exciting things that could be happening soon.

But, when you are homeschooling, your activities need to grab their attention. So, it helps if you have a fun way to introduce homeschool summer reading and combine reading with other activities.

Homeschooling isn’t easy, and during the summer it can often seem like a lot like time is spent trying to think of things to do that are educational and enjoyable. After all, the weather is nice and kids want to be outside.

Many children also find it difficult to focus or to entertain themselves at this time of year. They look to parents and carers for ideas of what to do next, what to study next, and what to read next. This is why structured homeschool summer reading makes so much sense.

When approached in the right way, reading can be a great way to keep them entertained and expand their minds at the same time. But, it is better if it isn’t enforced reading and not set up in a boring way.

Make your family want to read this summer, exploring the outdoors, different worlds, and entire universes through books. Since COVID-19, many more are staying home to protect their families and a lot have had to turn to home-schooling.

This makes reading the perfect hobby to introduce during the summer vacation. If you can get them to love it, it could become a lifetime hobby as well.

Create a Reading Adventure

The key to making this fun is how it is introduced and connecting reading with other benefits in the real world. Make a game out of the action of reading and what they read.

To do this, you could make a racetrack, bingo boards, a ladder challenge or similar to track their progress. Each level can have fun challenges for reading and even prizes.

The challenges can be an entire book, the number of pages read, type of stories read, places in stories, what stories are about and much more. You could even set information or skills as challenges.

Scavenger Hunting Through Books

Once you have your game boards setup, in addition to the main reading challenges, consider setting a scavenger hunt for the books.

Choose a lot of common items that are normally in stories and the world in general, so that it isn’t too difficult for them to collect a lot of items. Then add a few double or triple point items that are going to be more difficult to find.

This will not only work as an encouragement to get them reading, but also to make for exciting moments in normal parts of the stories as they stumble upon another item in the scavenger hunt.

At the end of the hunt, place a prize or money so they feel rewarded for their efforts.

Endless Opportunities

There are so many ways that this can be approached. Just look for fun twists and challenges that can be combined with reading.

However, it is important that they have a vast library of suitable books and support for reading. With the right support, young ones needn’t feel overwhelmed, frustrated, or embarrassed.

This is where Readability comes into play. A huge and colorful library helps to keep kids interested. However, our AI is what most parents really love.

The AI provides 24/7 support for their reading, including correcting pronunciation, reading aloud, providing suggestions for the next book (level appropriate) and much more. This allows parents to take a break, while the learners continue to get support.

Not only that but with comprehension checking in an innovative and ‘chatty’ style verbal Q&A, children feel like they are chatting with an online tutor.

Readability features include:

• Approved by education experts
• Stories that are educational, but fun
• Colorful illustrations
• Level appropriate content suggested by interactive AI
• Interactive Voice-based Questions and Answers (IVQA™)
• Available 24/7/365
• Dashboard for parents
• Live reports on progress

The price is low, in fact, you’d likely pay more for only access to the library with many other reading apps. Parents get full reports including “accuracy, comprehension and daily time spent reading”.

As the app is mobile, it can be used in favorite places, the garden, park, or other places for an hour or two of reading out of the house.

Rewards for Achievements

The activities we set earlier help to make reading fun and lead to rewards. As parents can also see live progress and commitment, they can also reward effort and improvement as they see fit.

Never punish a reduction in performance, but instead aim to make a celebration of their achievements. If they have reduced their accuracy score in one week, consider rewarding them for their effort if they read more, or for working hard on comprehension checking.

Making homeschool summer reading fun can be a challenge, but we hope that with our app and the ideas in this article, your summer homeschool can be a bit more enjoyable this year.

The vast majority of schools in the U.S. are temporarily closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Kids will be at home for the foreseeable future, so many parents have decided to take over for teachers. But homeschooling is not as easy as it may seem. For starters, parents have to find the right tools to help them teach their children. There are a lot of options out there, especially when it comes to reading curriculum, but some are better than others. Here are the factors you should consider when searching for the best homeschool reading curriculum for your child:

• Your Child’s Learning Style
• Your Teaching Style
• Your Availability
• Your Budget
• Your Child’s Interests 

Your Child’s Learning Style

Every child learns differently. If you want your child to learn a lot from your homeschooling efforts, make sure you choose a curriculum that matches their learning style. Some of the most common types of learning styles include:

• Visual: Learns through pictures, images, and spatial understanding
• Auditory: Prefers listening to lectures and lessons
• Physical: Learns by getting hands-on experience rather than seeing or listening
• Solitary: Prefers to learn on their own with minimal interruptions and instruction

If you aren’t sure what your child’s learning style is, don’t be afraid to talk to them about it. Make sure they understand that there’s no right or wrong answer so they tell you the truth. 

Your Teaching Style

Homeschool reading curriculum won’t be effective if it doesn’t match your teaching style. That’s why it’s so crucial that you take the time to identify what type of teaching style you tend to use. Some of the most common styles include:

• Authority: Teaches by lecturing
• Demonstrator: Teaches by lecturing, but also includes demos, interactive activities, and multimedia presentations
• Delegator: Teaches by observing and encouraging peer-to-peer interaction or hands-on experience
• Facilitator: Encourages students to openly discuss topics and ask questions

Identifying your teaching style plays an important role in choosing the right curriculum. For example, if you are a facilitator, you may not be an effective teacher if you choose a curriculum that requires you to take on the authority teaching style.

Your Availability

Another factor to take into consideration is your availability. Parents who aren’t working may have a lot of time to dedicate to homeschooling, whereas parents who are working from home may not.

If you don’t have much time, it’s important to choose a homeschooling program that encourages your child to work independently. Hands-on homeschooling programs that require a lot of instruction will not suit parents who don’t have much time to spare.

Your Budget

The cost of homeschooling curriculum can vary widely. A reasonable estimate for curriculum is between $300 to $600 per child, but some intensive programs can cost upwards of $1,500 per child.

Since this is a temporary arrangement for parents who are homeschooling as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s important to calculate how much you are willing to spend so you don’t go over budget. If you want to keep costs low, it’s best to look for apps or inexpensive books that can provide you with enough material to make it through this trying time.

Your Child’s Interests

Make sure you also think about your child’s interests when picking the right homeschool reading curriculum. Kids who are just starting—or who are struggling— to read will not be motivated unless they are interested in what they are reading.

If your child loves nature and space, for example, look for a program with a wide variety of science-related reading materials. This is a great way to get your child excited about becoming a better reader.

Keep these factors in mind as you research different homeschooling curriculum choices. By considering each of these factors, you should be able to quickly narrow down your options and find the right curriculum that meets your family’s needs.

Which Homeschool Reading Program is Best?

There are a number of different programs out there to choose from, but the best homeschool reading curriculum can be found on the Readability app. Using artificial intelligence and speech recognition technology, the app will listen to your child read and provide instant feedback and pronunciation correction.

The app also tests your child’s comprehension and keeps them engaged by asking questions about the text they’re reading. These features allow the Readability app to serve as a digital reading tutor for your child.

If you’re ready to help your child improve their reading skills, download the Readability app and start your free 7-day trial today.

The coronavirus outbreak has caused many schools to close and kids are now doing all of their learning at home. Parents might be struggling with this sudden shift to homeschooling. However, reading can easily be practiced at home simply by providing your child with lots of reading materials. With this classic 4th grade reading list homeschool can be easier for you and your child.  

How can I get my child to read at home?

Reading is a great way to keep your child learning at home without them even realizing it! Getting your child to read for fun can help them reduce their screen time while they are at home. However, some children might need a little more convincing to read for fun. Here are some tips to get your kids reading at home:

1. Read with them – Reading with your children not only creates a stronger bond with them, but you also give them a good model of reading. Children often follow their parents’ lead and if you show an enthusiasm for reading, they will too. 
2. Set reading goals – By creating concrete reading goals, you set your child up to want to accomplish something. You can also make these goals visual by creating a chart that shows how many books they’ve read and how many they aim to finish reading each week or month. 
3. Family movie night – Many classic books have been turned into movies. This can be a great motivator to get your children to read. As a family, choose a classic book to read together and when you have all finished the book, you can have a family movie night to watch the movie version of the book. This is a great way to help your child’s reading comprehension and enhance their imagination. 
4. Use books as rewards – A great way to motivate kids to read is to use books themselves as a motivator. Instead of rewarding your child with candy or more toys, you can instead let them choose a book to get as a reward for good behavior or good grades. When you put a value on books, your children will as well. 
5. Use a reading app– In order to get your kids reading, you should use a platform they are already familiar with like apps. Reading apps like Readability make reading fun and interactive for kids. Readability specifically creates original content and provides stories at different reading levels.

What can my fourth-grader read?

By fourth grade, your child should be able to read independently. They are now starting to transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”. They are using their reading skills to learn about new things. Most children by now have an expansive sight word knowledge, so the focus on vocabulary is mostly on spelling. Your child is able to read longer and more complex texts such as chapter books. They should also be able to:

• Context within a text to be able to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words.
• Use specific examples from a text to explain a character’s actions, thoughts, or motivation. 
• Understands and is able to explain different genres such as poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
• Make connections between the reading material and prior knowledge.
• Identify, compare, and contrast ideas and perspectives in a text.
• Read with accurate expression, pacing, and comprehension. 

What are the classic 4th-grade books? 

Fourth grade is a great time to be reading with your child. They are now able to read more complex and interesting texts. Here are some classic books to read with your fourth grader:

1. Charlotte’s Web – This classic children’s book is the perfect introduction to chapter books. The story of a girl and her beloved pet pig is great for those looking to share a childhood favorite with their children. 
2. Judy Blume– Judy Blume’s books are all classics for young readers. You likely grew up reading her books, so sharing her stories with your children can help with discussing the stories together. Blume even has a story about a fourth-grader. The Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing is a great story for your fourth grader to read. 
3. Diary of A Wimpy Kid – This relatively new classic shows your child how reading can not only be interesting but funny as well. 
4. The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe – The first novel in the classic Chronicles of Narnia series is a great intro to getting your child to read a series. This book is also a great way to enhance your child’s imagination and get them thinking about fantasy worlds filled with creativity. 
5. A Wrinkle in Time – Another fantasy classic, A Wrinkle in Time can transport your child to a new world that can help enhance their own creativity. 
6. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory – This fun classic incorporates moral lessons with fun and fantasy. You can incorporate your child’s love of candy with reading. 
7. Harry Potter Series – Once your child has tackled these other classics, you can get them to start reading the Harry Potter series. While this series is recommended for those in 5th or 6th grade, it could be a good challenge for your 4th grade to try something more advanced.

These classics are must-reads for every 4th grader and now is a perfect time to read them. If you want to provide even more reading materials for your 4th grader, using an app like Readability is a great way to give them never-ending reading material for them to work with.

Readability has a large library of original content at various reading levels and is constantly updating its library with more stories. Being at home for months is likely having an effect on your child’s learning. Giving them different opportunities to learn and have fun at the same time is essential to get them through this difficult and stressful time. Start your free trial today!