Ooka Island - TOS Review
Review Day,Review Day!!!
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Today I am sharing with you a fun Online reading program for your PreK through 2nd grade student learning to read
OOKA ISLAND
Come and find adventure on Ooka Island where you journey through the Cave of Sounds, Skateboard down a mountain and climb backup the Alphabet mountain, make cakes for the elves, ride a sea-doo, search for the seashell words and much more.
Ooka Island is a fun, online adventure game full of color, fun music and lots of encouragement. An Early Reading Program that is a complete reading curriculum, it is downloadable straight to your computer, for your PreK to 2nd grader. NOTE: This is a very large program and will take a long time to download depending on your internet speed/access. We have fast internet and computer and the download time was 3 1/2 hours.
Once our download was complete set-up was easy. I set up the account under my name then the password is a picture button of your choosing. This makes it so easy for your child to login everytime without having to type a password. You are then taken to the avatar/game character creating screen.
Once in the program your child is guided by Zobot the Robot to each level of learning. My daughter was taken through many levels of letter sound recognition games. Each level built on top of another adding a new sound/sound combination to what she had already learned. Some of her favortie games are climbing Alphabet Mountain, finding the sound with a maginifying glass and Seashell sentences adn words. She seemed to really enjoy the pace at which these allowed her to work and learn, without any delays.
Her goal is to venture through 5 or 6 different games reinforcing the letter sounds/sound combinations she is praticing to gain a new underwater treasure - a new book. These books are stories of the adventures of Kayla and Jayden, with each book including the new and old letter sounds learned so far.
Her books are stored in the Popcorn Library where, once a book is found, the narrators read the book aloud to her a couple of times with a picture comprehension test at the end of the first reading and a Seashell sentence/word test at the end of the second.
Play with Purpose
There were times I found her a bit frustrated with the slowness of the progression of the actual games. There seemed to be too much lag time for her watching the mine car or sea-doo, for example, get from one sound/letter to another. She has enjoyed the learning part of the game but told me she found parts to be boring.
The narrators voices are very easy to understand and full of encouragment. Other rewards at the end of the games are stickers and points for successfully completing the levels and a short free play time. She is able purchase fun things at the Mist Mart with her money to add to her treehouse for free play. I was pleased with the games and the way they approach introducing recognition of the sounds then matching it with the letter and exposing her to those sounds through reading the books. I felt like she was learning a lot from them and the encouragement was expressed in a fun, upbeat manner.
Some of the issues that I had with the program was
- The game locked up a couple of times (not unusual for computer driven games from time to time) where we had to exit and restart the game
- The progression of the games was too slow for my daughter and as I watched I tended to agree with her. Since they were a bit slow this made getting to the end of the 5 or 6 games needed to complete the level, gain the rewards and get to free-time play.
- The free-time play does not seem to be long enough. Again my daughter felt frustrated working against the clock (a beachball timer).
- In our experience, if you exit a level before it is complete, when you get back into the game you have to start from the beginning. You also could not access the map independent from the levels. The only time you could go to the map was during free time.
The books that are read to your child online are available for purchase from the Ooka Island Store grouped together based on learning level. You can find them HERE.
I think your up-and-coming reader can really benefit from such a fun and colorful reading program. You can find out more about the Ooka Island HERE and purchase your own membership to Ooka Island HERE.
Ooka Island Pricing
You can use this Exclusive Launch Special Promo code to get an even greater deal!
Features Unique to Ooka Island:
An online, independent, reading curriculum that blends print concepts, phonemic awareness, phonics and language based reading. The Ooka Island Adventure ends with children reading at a 2.0 reading level.
85 leveled and sequenced Ooka Island books digitally embedded online. These books are also available in print to supplement the Ooka Island Adventure.
Progress reports and detailed dashboards available in real-time
Since the Ooka Island Adventure is connected online, the administrative, district, school, classroom and parent level can monitor every click of the mouse.
Adaptive learning. Each child goes through a unique learning path embedded with learning algorithms that guide the child through MacPhee’s reading matrix in the most effective way.
Currently available in English
The Ooka Island Adventure can be translated into any other phonetically based language.
From My Heart to Yours,
Mindy B.
Revelation 12:11
Disclaimer: I received this product free of charge for the purposes of sharing my honest opinion and review.
You can read more Reviews from my Crew Mates at The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew HERE
Sounds like a fun program!
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