Ooka Island was born out of a program that was created by Dr Kay MacPhee, Spellread. Developed in the 90's, Spellread was a one-year, small-group reading intervention program that focuses on phonological automaticity and reading fluency while providing explicit comprehension and vocabulary instruction, as well as opportunities for writing. This program was rated at the top of over 150 programs of its kind. The only problem was that there was a gap in the availability to all the children that needed the program. The program was on the pricey side only available to the wealthy or those with government help. Dr MacPhee wanted every child who needed the help to have access to it.
With the help of Jim Barber and the technological advances since the 90's Ooka Island was born. This virtual island is a fun and exciting, interactive world for children Pre-k to 2nd grade. The goal of the island is to teach children to read fluently and well through fun and compelling reading instruction. You can take a virtual tour of the island at http://vimeo.com/57851852
I was very ecstatic when I hear that I was chosen to review this program. I want my children to be excellent readers, as any parent would. I don't think that you can ever read too much or have too much practice with reading in the early days of your schooling. At the Clubbhouse we limit how much screen time the caddies have with all the electronics of today. I wasn't crazy about it being a computer program, however I would rather the caddies playing educational games than surfing the web.
Ooka Island is a self contained program so the children play on the computer and the program accesses the internet, however they are not going on the web to load the game. There is no surfing time with the program.
The Ooka Island Adventure is an adaptive learn-to-read technology for Pre-K to 2nd Grade. The combination of the innovative features below make it a powerful tool to accelerate the reading development of emergent readers as they move along the path to fluent reading.
The island uses the Eye/Ear reading method revolving around the five following fundamentals of reading: phonemic awareness, phonetics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Readirect is the adaptive learning algorithm used that ensures skill mastery in reading for each student.
Every island has a light house don't they? Well I have not traveled to many islands in my day to see if that is a valid fact. However, I do know that the purpose of a light house is to guide mariners safely while traveling in dark and foggy waters. Ookalighthouse is the part that helps you to guide your children. It is the reporting area that tells you how your child is doing, monitoring and guiding them on their reading voyage. Some of the reports offered from the lighthouse are:
The Report
Reading comprehension
Accuracy Analysis
Book progress report
Ooka Island is not all virtual. They also have things like over 90 printed books (not ebooks) on 3 different reading levels, as well as printable worksheets and a map tracker to keep track of the books that you read.
The program is set up as three different sets. There is a school, tutor or homeschool option. Below I have listed the homeschool option, however you can check out the others at http://ookaisland.com/pricing-overview/
Homeschool pricing
One student monthly $19.95
yearly $149.95 (37% savings)
You can also take advantage of 30% off of either option when you click the link below
This is good until June 1st, 2013
Where can I find Ooka Island?
Where can I find Ooka Island?
Check them out on facebook
Great review! and,I love the lighthouse analogy.
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