Ooka Island Review

Ooka Island is a learn to read online game for 3-7 year olds .
Hmmmm..... sounds interesting!

From their website:  "The Ooka Island Learn-to-Read Adventure offers adaptive instruction, a narrated e-Reader, and real-time progress reports. Young learners play and learn in a safe, 3D virtual world and take part in a heroic quest!

The program features an adaptive learning algorithm called READirectTM and ensures skill mastery in the five foundations of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Here is the Ooka-mazing news!

5 year olds are breaking into reading after just 8 hours

4 year olds are breaking into reading after 13 hours

Children that complete the program are reading at the 2nd Grade level"

Pricing varies from:
$19.95/monthly,  $99.95/Semi-Annual, $149.95/Annual for up to 4 Homeschool Students.
$12.95/monthly,  $69.95/Semi-Annual, $124.95/Annual for 1 Homeschool Student
And as a special for Homeschool Circus readers, save 30% by clicking through this link to order!
Our Experience:
Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of computer/online reading programs.  I guess I'm just old-school in that I'd much rather curl up with a real book and work through it with my emergent readers.  However, I'm always willing to try new things.
In our 'jaunt' through Ooka Island, we did see quite a few places: Alphabet Mountain, Cake Factory, Cave of Sounds,  Popcorn Factory and Bubbly Troubly seeing the variety of the five foundations displayed. 
The company does well in introducing letter and word sounds while encouraging the child to interact with the program.  I really liked that about every 20 minutes of game play, children visit the Popcorn Library where the e-books are kept. The chosen e-book is read two times followed by comprehension activities which are bright, interactive, and entertaining.  I also like that there's a wide reading range in the program so the child isn't 'done with it all' in a short time frame.
As a bonus, the ebooks used in the program are available to purchase AND parents can keep track of their child's progress in the Ooka Island Lighthouse.
Ooka Island was just ok. My 3 year old Nip Napper is a little young for this and would rather be on the move bringing joy and havoc to the world around him.  I think we will revisit this at a later time.

This post written and property of Homeschool Circus and can be found at: www.upatdawnreadytowork.com.