I have to admit, I was very excited when I saw my name on the TOS Homeschool Crew review list for the “Read, Write, Type” software from Talking Fingers. I had seen a bit about the software at an online homeschool conference and I wanted to learn more about it. We received an electronic version of the software. I had to set up a teacher (parent) account and a student account for Tornado Boy. I had some issues with the password on the student account. No matter what I tried, I could not reset it to allow Tornado Boy to start working. I emailed technical support and they were able to quickly reset it for me so that we could get to work.

My son is a proficient reader and very skilled with phonics, so my main goal with the software was that he learn how to type. He can write, but doesn’t really enjoy it. He does enjoy using the computer, so I figured that it would be helpful if he knew how to type since he might be more willing to create words, sentences and later stories on the computer. One of our biggest hurdles with this goal was that he didn’t know where the letters were on the keyboard and he would get frustrated while trying to “write” on the computer. He was translating the stories to me and I would type them. I wanted to be less of a middle man for him.

My initial reaction to the software was that the graphics were pretty rudimentary. The good news is that they didn’t bother Tornado Boy in the least. He really, really likes this program and asks to play it. There is an engaging storyline where the two hands (Lefty and Rightway) that you see above, engage the student to be their helper in defeating a villain named Vexor. Along the way, the student learns proper hand-positioning and then how to type different characters to progress in the story. Each letter is associated with a named character and the student learns where they “live” on the keyboard. They also participate in drills where the have to type the letter that corresponds with the sounds (phonics) that they are given. The student earns certificates every few letters. The children are also rewarded after each typing ‘victory’ with stories at the story tree.

The program grows in complexity as the children learn more letters and sounds. Eventually they’ll use their skills to create words and stories as part of the game. We haven’t gotten that far yet, though Tornado Boy is already learning to type some simple words like cat.

The Talking Fingers website has some reporting capabilities, so that you can see how your student is doing in the areas of typing, phonics and reading along the way. You can use the Talking Fingers website to see how Read, Write, Type correlates to your individual state’s standards. For our state, it matches up with many Kindergarten and First Grade standards. That seems to be about right. The website states that the program is for children 6-9; Tornado Boy is 5 and this program is a great fit for him. He is able to use the program with minimal guidance from me.

The Read, Write, Type Learning System costs $79 for the Home Edition on CD. It includes the lessons, games and challenges in the online game as well as a CD-ROM of additional challenges. You can print out 18 leveled stories from the website as well. I must note that the CD is NOT compatible with Windows 7 or MAC 10.6. Thankfully, there is the online program that we tested out and that can be used on Windows 7 without issue (that’s what I’m using). The licenses for the online product are per student and they start at $35. Each additional student up to 5 is discounted. You can check out a parent sample of the program, or a demo of the first 8 lessons for your child here. The program also contains aids for children who are learning English as a second language (ESL). If you have an older child, Talking Fingers also produces a reading and spelling program for 2nd and 3rd graders called Wordy Qwerty.

We really enjoyed being able to review this program and will definitely continue to use it. I’m very pleased with Tornado Boy’s typing progress and the phonics review has been good, too.

If you’d like to see what other TOS Review Crew members think of this product, you can visit our Crew blog.

Thanks so much for reading!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer: I am a member of The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew for 2010-2011 and receive free products and services in exchange for a thorough and honest review. Though I am compensated with free products, I am not compensated in the form of cash for my reviews. My reviews will always reflect my honest opinions, findings, beliefs and experiences with the products and services that I have received.

Tornado Boy has been having a blast. We’ve been on a bunch of playdates and he also had his first week of camp. He’s been enjoying the festivals, trying new things and getting out and about. I think we’ve hit every “sprayground” in town in the past two weeks. It’s nice that they’re not completely overrun busy since school isn’t out yet.

We’ve been pretty relaxed with our schooling while things are so crazy. We do like to fit in a bit of learning here and there while we’re out, though. I love these tile boards at our local playground. They’re great for playing with patterns.

We’ve been testing out a couple of programs here at home. I picked up a copy of Wordly Wise 3000, book 2 at our homeschool conference. I’d been to their website before, but I hadn’t used the books. I’m still on the fence about teaching spelling this year, but I really wanted to make sure that we’re working on vocabulary. I entered the word lists from the book into Spelling City so that we could play around with the words. Tornado Boy absolutely loved it and quickly learned the meanings of the first lesson’s words. Wordly Wise has much better definitions for the words, but Spelling City has a huge number of options to use with the words. You can create writing worksheets, play games, learn the spellings and take tests. I definitely think this will be a good fit for us this fall.

Another thing that we’ve been testing out is Time4Learning. The Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op has a $5 for one month trial right now. We’ve used it 3 or 4 times in the past couple of weeks and I really am liking the way that it works. It’s really what I wish Rusty and Rosy had been like. It’s got a good amount of flexibility for setting up lessons for the student. I typically sit with Tornado Boy as he works through the lessons. I was easily able to change his grade level after a few lessons. I also like that we can take a test for a level in advance to see if we need to cover the material or not. We can move on at will. I like the variety of topics and the characters are engaging. The only thing that I really don’t care for is the “playground” which is really just a bunch of websites like PBS Kids. You can set up the amount of time that the child can use the playground for, but I’d rather select the sites by hand that I want my child to use. I’m not sure if I want to pay $20/month for Time4Learning, but I may consider it if I find that we need to supplement our regular curriculum. Tornado Boy really likes it.

So anyway, we’re here, just crazy busy and having lots of fun!

©2012 One Little Room.... All Rights Reserved.