Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Anyone use A to Z Learning sites?

Has anyone used these sites? Especially for Home School? They include Reading A to Z, Raz Kids, Vocabulary A to Z, Science A to Z, and Writing A to Z

My son's gifted used Reading A to Z and our local public used Raz Kids. They seem to offer lots of leveled breadth and I loved the audio book option for the books on Raz Kids. I liked the blank book writing prompts that have illustrations and you write the story.

My only negative in preview has been cost... nearly $100 for either of the reading PLUS 33.20 each for Writing or Vocabulary, and $75 for the Science. Not sure it's worth investing that much. They don't seem to have a single student home school friendly option.

I hope I'm missing something....

Learning A-Z�s resources for English language learners are highly effective for teaching content and promoting English language development. Learning A-Z provides the following:
Differentiated resources and instructional strategies to teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking to students at all levels of English language acquisition
Access to grade-level-appropriate content, including a wide variety of content-area-related leveled readers to promote academic success
Vocabulary-based resources to develop students� social and academic language that incorporates best practices for scaffolding instruction
Formative assessments to enable instructors to monitor progress and determine the instruction needed to increase language proficiency
Motivating technology in the form of interactive texts and projectiles to directly engage students in language learning

Our school systems uses Raz-Kids. My twins (6.5) just started using it last week. They love it. Their teacher assigned them to read books at a particular level, but they are also able to go to the "book room" and choose books from other levels when they are using the web site at home. They enjoy earning points in order to furnish their rocket. When they miss a question in the comprehension quizzes, the report identifies the topic of the question (main idea, compare and contrast, etc.) It seems like a good program.

Yes - Raz Kids is a decent ELA resource. We had exactly the same experience with Raz Kids as momoftwins above. It was useful at some point. The particular pluses are that it has elements of a game and it is completely automated and the child can move at the child's own pace. You should try it. ($100 / 12 months (?) looks reasonable.)

I considered their other offerings (e. g., Reading A Z, Vocabulary) but decided against them. I found vocabulary.com instead, which DC enjoys (also completely automated).

Another ELA resource is Michael Clay Thompson which provides a complete ELA curriculum and has rave reviews among homeschoolers. MCT:
1) more expensive
2) you have to actually teach the child
3) some materials are more useful than others
4) you have to determine at which level to start before you buy the materials.
(We are not using MCT because of #2 above, but you are homeschooling - so it should not be a problem.)

Thanks for the responses so far... We are home schooling but his achievement in reading (he's one of those 99.9 kids on the WIAT)and language arts testing is well beyond grade-level and he finds instruction a bit onerous. We've been letting him fly through standards to find his place. His public school tested him with the 2nd grade end of yr test in K and he outscored the 2nd graders. So we started with third but he is Dysgraphic so learning writing conventions takes creativity.

Basically we need a broad program he can dig through as fast as he wants, choosing his own level. I'm afraid nothing will last a whole year so I am a little cautious on price.