Our family is blessed to be reviewing several products through the The Old Schoolhouse’s Homeschool Crew program, including Rime to Read, a beginning reading program based on rimes. I wasn’t familiar with the word “rime,” but I now know that it means word families such as Pat, cat, and sat.
Rime to Read consists of twenty early readers which can be read online or printed. The first book is free, and the remainder can be purchased as a set or in individual packages of four books each. Four-book vowel sets are $9.99; the complete twenty-volume set is $44.99.
When read online, the books appear in two page spreads. The left sides contain lists of color-coded pattern/rime words and the story is on the right. A cumulative list of pattern and sight words is at the end of each book.
Book one contains words like Pat, cat, rat, and bat. By the time you reach book twenty, your child is reading words containing each of the five vowel sounds. Rime to Read is a cumulative program and the books should be read consecutively, no more than one per day.
My seven-year-old son has been reading the books online and enjoys them. I haven’t printed them because he thinks it’s such a treat to do school on the computer. The layout is child-friendly, with clickable arrows that allow you to move forward or backward within the books. Click on any of the color-coded words to hear it pronounced.
The only problem we’ve encountered is when viewing the list of all twenty books: ideally it should show which books my son has or hasn’t read, even saying things like “read 8 pages.” The list is not always accurate, however my son always knows exactly where he is on the list, so it hasn’t been a problem.
Rime to Read is not only a good program for beginning readers, it helps them learn basic computer skills, too, as they navigate the site. Read the FAQs here.
