REVIEW: MaxScholar Orton-Gillingham Software by MaxScholar

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

My youngest child doesn’t have any reading difficulties, but I’m providing an informative review of the MaxScholar Orton-Gillingham Software by MaxScholar for you to help you learn more about it and find out if it might be a good fit for your student(s).

WHAT IS IT?:

The MaxScholar Orton-Gillingham Software is an online reading intervention program designed to improve reading skills, language, and performance skills in children through a variety of multi-sensory online activities.  It is also aimed at helping children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia.

This software bundles together an assortment of phonics and reading programs.  The program can be accessed on any device, and there are even apps available!

A MaxGuru Pack subscription gives one child twelve months of access and includes MaxPhonics, MaxReading, MaxWords, MaxMusic, MaxPlaces, MaxBios, and MaxVocab for $279/year.  You can try out the program in a 15-day trial for FREE.

MY IMPRESSION:

In the teacher dashboard, I can view student progress, reports, set up my students, access corresponding materials, and there is a video instruction section that is coming soon.  I actually got to view these videos outside of the website, and users should find them quite helpful.  Many things work by default settings, but there are also many things you can manually adjust as the teacher, such as who takes what placement test, or what grade level to be placed in.  For instance, if you choose PK-2 grade level, the student will only see MaxPhonics and MaxReading.  For grades 3 and up, all of the areas of the program will be visible and accessible to the student.

MaxPhonics includes four modules:  Pre-K, Alphabet, Blends, and Digraphs.  It also includes games.  A tutorial takes you through how to navigate the program the first time you enter it.

You choose a group of letters to practice, and visual, tactile, and auditory practice options are offered.  You can see the letter, watch it being drawn and trace it with your finger if you choose, and listen to words that may or may not start with the given letter sound and select the correct images on the screen.  This is in module 1, the Pre-K level.  It appears that the modules progress as each activity is completed, so that you would automatically move on to the next level.

In MaxReading, you can choose to read a recommended chapter, or you can directly choose the level that you want to work with from 1-12.  There are also games to play. 

When I selected level 12 and a chapter within that level, it asked me to read the selection and highlight things like the topic, main idea, and important details.  Then the program quickly grades your highlighting and shows you the best answer side-by-side with yours, along with your score.  Next, it walked me through creating an outline from my previous highlighting.  Then it asked me to do my choice of writing activity:  a summary, open-ended question, or general question.  If I chose to do a summary, it allowed me to reference the outline I had just created to write my summary.  The other two options allowed me to reference the full article with my previous highlighting in tact.  The last step had me answer a series of five comprehension questions about the chapter.  Then it gave me a final chapter score and said I’d scored well enough to unlock the games!  It let me choose from Hangman, Definitions, or Word Search.

In MaxWords, you can select from five areas of study:  CLOVER (syllabication), Spelling Rules, Prefixes & Suffixes, Latin Roots, or Greek Roots.

These areas each have a number of activities and quizzes to help you learn and practice within each learning segment.  There’s a lot of material to cover here!

In MaxMusic, you can pick an artist or play a game.  When you choose an artist, you can then select one of their songs.  The lyrics appear on the screen.  You have the opportunity to read the words, and then you’re asked to identify a part of speech like the verbs.  The program grades your responses and shows you the correct responses.  Next, it shows you the lyrics with some missing words, only indicating the part of speech that belongs there.  When you click on the part of speech, a drop-down menu gives you several possible answers for what the missing word(s) might be.  You select all of your responses, and the program grades it for you.  This is a great activity to test both your grammar and memory skills!  I found it to be a lot of fun personally.  It’s an effective way to sharpen your ability to recall details and also practice identifying parts of speech.  What’s more, there are a lot of artists and songs to choose from so the activity appeals to a wide audience.  In the games section of MaxMusic, you can choose from two games:  Pair the Sound (in which you play a memory match game with letter sounds) or MaxGuitar (in which you use a mixture of timing and coordination to strike the corresponding arrow keys as the symbol passes over a timing bar).  The program gives you a rating score at the end of each game.

In MaxVocab, you can use the online dictionary or play games.  In the dictionary, you can choose a level and topic, just like you did with the reading chapters in MaxReading.  The program then gives you a list of related words as you might see them in a dictionary.  You can click on the definition, see the word used in a sentence, or view synonyms and antonyms for the word.

In the games section, you can again play Hangman, Definitions, or Word Search.  The hangman game gives you a definition to help you figure out the word.  The definitions game has you match a set of words with the definitions by clicking and dragging them together.  The word search game has you click on the first and last letter of each of the listed words that you locate in the puzzle in order to highlight them.

In MaxPlaces, you select a city from the map.  Then you are prompted to read an article about that city with the option to highlight important text in various colors.  Next, you are asked a series of comprehension questions, and you only get once chance to get them right.  At the end of the quiz, you are given a grade with a goal of scoring at least 60% correctly before moving on.

In MaxBios, you can choose from seven categories of important and influential figures and read theirl biographies:  Entertainment, Fascinating Men, Old School Musicians, Hip-Hop Artists, Amazing Women, Business, and Star Athletes. 

Once you select a category, you can select a famous person/group from the list.  Then, just like in MaxPlaces, you can highlight important details in the text of the biography before being asked to answer comprehension questions in a single attempt.

Wow!  What I learned by going through the various areas of this program myself is that there is no specific targeted age range persay, because there is material here for all ages.  The program is so rich with content and potential benefit to students that really any student would find benefit for using the program!  I honestly think that even an adult or college-aged student would benefit from the skills practice with word roots, reading comprehension, finding key details in a reading selection, writing an outline, and summarizing a reading selection as a writing assignment.  These are skills that anyone would benefit from practicing.  I feel like this is not a program that just touches the surface of usefulness, but instead, can deeply enhance reading/writing skills of users of all ages.  There is truly a vast amount of content available in the program, and the learning opportunities abound.  When I initially explored the website before signing up for review, I really did not get a nearly adequate impression of all the site has to offer.  For that reason, I would highly encourage you to give the 15-day free trial some consideration so you can try it out for yourself and get a chance to see all of the valuable and extensive content it offers for your student(s).

Check out what other Crew members have to say about this program by clicking the banner below.