{Review} MaxScholar Reading Intervention Programs

My family had the opportunity to review MaxScholar Reading Intervention Programs by MaxScholar.  We received a one year online subscription for two children and one teacher to use MaxGuru.  MaxScholar Reading Intervention Programs are available for PreK through 12th grade.

Included in MaxGuru are:

• MaxPhonics
• MaxReading
• MaxWords
• MaxMusic
• MaxVocab
• MaxPlaces
• MaxBios

On the parent’s dashboard I can check how Sweet Pea and Peanut are doing, MaxScholar News, Tutorials, and a contact form to contact MaxScholar.  For student reports I can choose the time frame that I want to check.  It will give me their reading level, pretest score, last login, overall scores, and detail scores per program.  It also shows where the children spent the most time in the program.  Sweet Pea spent time in every program while Peanut spent the majority of her time in MaxPhonics and MaxReading.

There was a placement exam that I found placed both of the girls higher than where they should have been.  One of the girls got the majority of the questions wrong (I didn’t expect her to get them right because they were all word questions designed for older children.) and she was placed in 5th grade reading.  MyMax does allow the teacher to adjust where the students are and I adjusted both girls to an appropriate level based on their abilities.

When students log into the program, they are given the choice of choosing a program or starting off where they last left off.  I really like that the kids are given an option on where they would like to start.

One of the first things SweetPea and I checked out together was  MaxMusic because she loves music.  We found that she didn’t know any of the artists or any of the songs.  She enjoys singing Christian songs and all of the songs are secular.  There are a few artists on the list that I would feel comfortable with her reading the lyrics but the majority of the others I would not.  Most of the artists/songs would appeal to older children.  Since the program goes down to PreK I would love to see more songs appropriate for younger children.   In the picture below you can see the artists available.

There are three games available for every artist’s song.  The student reads the segment of the lyrics (there is no option to have it read to the student for beginning or struggling readers) and then selects one of the three games; Identify, Fillers, and Piano.  In identify, the students will identify the verbs in the lyrics.  When the students think they are done they will click on done.  The student will be told how many they got wrong and they will see the correct answers highlighted to the right.  Depending on how many they get right will determine if they will earn any stars and how many.  If they miss too many they will be expected to try again.  The Fillers game asked the students to select a noun, verb , or adjective from the highlighted box.  Similar to the Identify game, the students will earn stars based on how many correct answers the get.  The piano is a great feature!  The students will play memory by clicking on the keys that were played for them.  They only click on a few at a time.  Once the segment of the song is complete, the piano will play that segment in it’s entirety.  MaxMusic does require Mozilla Firefox or Chrome to access the piano.

There are two additional music games that both Sweet Pea and Peanut enjoyed.  There is Pair the Sound and MaxGuitar.  In Pair the Sound you match sounds in a game of memory.  In MaxGuitar a song is selected and arrows go across the screen.  The student’s job is to click on the correct arrow as the arrow hits the time bar.

 

 

Max Phonics learn phonics based on the Orton Gillingham method.  Each lesson include visual, tactile, and auditory activities.  MaxPhonics is one of the areas that Peanut spent the majority of her time in.  She enjoyed the activities that were presented to her.  The sandbox does require Google Chrome for interactive writing but the program will let you know that you need the browser and give you the option of skipping this portion and moving on.  Some of the activities/games include listening to a word and entering the first letter of the word and looking at pictures & listening to their sound & selecting the pictures that start with the sound they are working on.  When you are through you get the option of moving on or repeating the activities.

MaxReading students are guided through various reading activities.  There are 13 levels, called chapters and they range from 0-12.  In chapter 0 the students look at pictures and then answers questions based on the questions.  Chapters 1 and 2 the students have the option of following along while the passage is read to them.  By the time they reach Chapter 3 they will be expected to be able to read the entire passage.  They dissect the passage by topic, main idea, and important details.  They will be expected to dissect the passage in other programs and is important that this section has been used before using some of the other MaxScholar programs.

In the following three sections, MaxWords, MaxPlaces, and MaxBios , I found these were designed more for older students.  Children in PreK through around 3rd grade may not be ready for the expectations of these sections.  In both MaxPlaces and MaxBios students are expected to read lengthy passages and dissect the passages like they learned in MaxReading and then answer comprehensive questions.  In MaxBios, students will read the biographies of famous musicians, famous athletes, and famous men & women and in MaxPlaces, students will read about over 50 cities around the world.  There are questions to be answered in both of these as well.  There is no assistance in reading the passages, so if the child needs help reading the passages, a parent will need to read it to them.  The comprehension questions only allow one time to answer the questions correctly.  MaxPlaces  does require Mozilla Firefox or Chrome for the interactive portion of this program.  Working in MaxWords the students will learn how to build words by learning their roots, prefixes, suffixes, and rules.

MaxVocab has a dictionary divided into 14 levels (K through grade 12 and an unassigned category).  Students learn definitions, how the word is used in a sentence, and the synonyms & antonyms.  They have two fun games to go along with the MaxVocab dictionary.  One of which Sweet Pea loves and that is hangman.  The other game is a definition game matching various definitions to their words.  Both games begin at level 2 & level 3 respectively.

This is a great program to supplement what your kids are learning during the year and something my two girls want to continue using.  I look forward to the girls being able to use more of the programs as their skills increase!

You can find MaxScholar at any of the following social media sites.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaxScholarLLC/?fref=nf
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxScholarLLC
Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/MaxScholarLLC/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Maxscholar/posts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2884620
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MaxScholarLLC

 

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