MaxScholar Reading Intervention Programs {TOS REVIEW}

We have been using MaxScholar to practice all sort's of educational skills. We spent quite a bit of time using Max Reading and Max Phonics. This program used a different approach to what I have used so far with Captain. It uses the Orton Gillingham method and would be excellent for children with Dyslexia, learning disabilities, or ADHD. Captain doesn't have any of those things but we still found it useful to work on a different reading approach.

There are two programs offered K-2 and MaxGuru.

I was given a years subscription to MaxGuru this program includes MaxPhonics, MaxReading, Max Words, MaxMusic, MaxVocabs, MaxPlaces, and MaxBios.


When Captain logged in he came to the screen below;

Clicking on these tabs launched the programs or you could click just under here to go back to where you finished last time.

Although these are the main links there are some other tabs that Captain loved to work with underneath.

I will run you through each section so you can see how we used it.

MaxPhonics - This program is online so it's easily gives a multi sensory approach to reading. When you log in you can choose to work on individual letters, blends or digraphs. This was helpful for us as we didn't need to review letters at all and since we didn't spend a lot of time 'studying' blends or digraphs before Captain took off reading it was good to slow down and review some of this.

MaxReading - This program was a little different than we have used before. Captain can read at a very high level, and comprehend what he has read. We read from the King James Version of the Bible, he is reading the first Harry Potter book for fun, and he's seven. However, I really wanted to get a feel for a few different levels of this program. So we started with the first level. With this level the child picks a picture and then looks at it. After looking/ studying it for a while he went on to the comprehension questions. You can see an example of one of the pictures below.

Then the child clicks on a button that takes them to the comprehension questions - You can see an example below.

Captain thought these were OK. He didn't like that he couldn't really use his imagination. There is a wrong or right answer, and sometimes with pictures they can be interpreted in different ways.

Then we moved on to reading text. I posted an example below.

The words that are highlighted are clickable and have definitions and sentences to check for comprehension. After Captain read the text he clicked on the 'OK, Next' button. You are then taken to a highlighting exercise.

Captain found this a little restricting and of course you have to choose the same topics as the program so it was a little harder for him. He understood 'how' to do it, but really didn't see the reasoning behind it. He has always told me what he thought was the most important part of what he was important so he's used to the concept in practice - just not with a highlighter.

The next step is to create an outline of the chapter using your highlighted ideas, and progresses to writing practice. This progresses through various steps until you end up at games - Captain's favorite part.

MaxWords is the next program available. This shows up on the bottom row of buttons I showed earlier. It's the first choice on the bottom left hand side.

Captain liked this section. He studies Latin with his Nana and this section is all about building words. You build words by learning; roots, prefixes, suffixes, and sublication rules.

Here's an example of one of the exercises after you review a list of words.

MaxMusic is the next section. Although I liked the concept of this. We actually didn't recognize much of the music. Well except Taylor Swift - everyone knows here. Captain plays the piano and so had really high hopes that this would teach him how to play better or pick up a beat or something. It really reminded me of the game with the lights that you click on in turn to play. There also was some educational aspects with the song lyrics too.

MaxVocab helps you work on just what you think - vocabulary. You can work on any of the vocabulary from other sections and use them in sentences, listen to their meanings and really expand your vocabulary.

MaxPlaces it quite a fun program. You click on a city on the world map.

You read a passage about the city and use the highlighter just like in the reading section. You can then answer questions about what you read.

MaxBios is last but not least.

 You click on a category and then choose from another list. For example the 'Fascinating Men' section contains Bios on men from Albert Einstein to Norman Rockwell. I didn't like that their was a category for 'hip hop artists' but I guess that's important to some people right? I would have preferred 'classical composers' or 'amazing inventors'. None of the people below are in my top 10 people I want my child to know about category.

The main draw back to this program is the difference with being a home-educator and using this program as a teacher. In other programs I have used I have had the ability to change settings and have control over the program. As a home-educator I don't have access to any of those functions with this program. However, teacher accounts do. In my mind that's something that needs rectifying.

A lot of the content in this program is good and we found some good education tools in it. Captains favorite was the Maxwords section. You will have to click on my link below to see what others thought of the program. You can also read about the K-2 program.




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