REVIEW: Failure Free Reading Home Edition

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew.

I didn’t have a student in need of reading help, but I was interested in taking a look at this unique program called Failure Free Reading Home Edition.

WHAT IS IT?:

Failure Free Reading Home Edition is an online program that offers children and adults the chance to improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, beginning right where they are. This is achieved through a simple online diagnosis/placement test and a series of interactive activities that enrich your student’s skills beyond their current level.

This program is available for just $39.95/month per student, and you can cancel at any time.  This gives you the flexibility to use the product for as short or long a period of time as is necessary to reach your reading goals.

HOW IT WORKS:

When you first log in to the website, you are shown a home screen that gives you the option to Enroll, Diagnose, or Instruct a student, or to view Reports.

First, you want to enroll your student(s).  Since I wasn’t having a student use the program, I enrolled myself as the student.  Once you’ve done this, you can go ahead and find the correct placement for your student by clicking on Diagnose.  In this section, you are asked to read a series of sentences and rate how easy or difficult the wording was for you to read and understand.  You are also asked a series of questions that have you place the correct vocabulary words in the context of the given sentences.

At the end of the assessment, you will be given a diagnosis that reveals a placement level.  It will look something like this.

The next time your student logs in, they will be taken to the home screen to launch their next lesson.  Here you can download some written materials to go along with the online lesson.

In the downloadable materials, you can get an illustrated reader.

You can download the teacher’s manual.

You can also download workbook pages that include written activities like Reading Application, Silent Reading, and Reinforcement Activities.

When the student launches their lesson, it will begin with a short video highlighting the new vocabulary words that will be introduced in that lesson. 

After viewing the video, they can launch the lesson and begin their assignments based on the level where they were placed in the diagnosis assessment.

The first activity involves the program reading aloud a new vocabulary word to the student, followed by its synonyms and definition. Then it uses the word in the context of a sentence.  Then it asks the student to determine if the word is being used in the correct context of a yes or no question.  The student is given immediate feedback as to whether they answered correctly.  Then it repeats the word one more time and spells it out on the screen one letter at a time before proceeding to an empty box where the student is asked to type out the word with the correct spelling.  Again, immediate feedback is given.  The activity repeats with each word in the new word list until completed, saving the student’s work after each word.  When the student completes all of the words, then lesson ends, and a message pops up indicating the student is finished with the lesson and should talk to their teacher before continuing.

The next activity is a unit review.  Here, the student begins by dragging the word to the side to reveal its synonym.  This continues with each word in the word list.

Next, the student is asked to drag the vocabulary word onto its matching synonym from a list of possible synonyms.  This repeats until the word list is completed.

Then the student is asked to drag the word aside to reveal its synonym as well as its definition.  This is repeated until the word list is completed.

Then just like in the previous activity, the student is asked to drag the vocabulary word over to match its synonym and definition, one at a time, until the word list is completed.

The next screen shows all of the vocabulary words being used in correct sentence context as part of a cohesive paragraph.  The student has the option to click on any of the highlighted vocabulary words to be reminded of their synonyms and definitions.  They can also click at the top to have the paragraph read aloud to them.

Next, the student must choose the correct vocabulary word to go into each sentence of the paragraph until the paragraph is complete.

Once the paragraph has been completed, the student is asked a series of comprehension questions about the paragraph to ensure they truly understood the meaning of what was stated.  Immediate feedback is provided.

Once the student has completed this review, they again receive a message that the activity is complete, and they should speak to their teacher before continuing.  Then the student is taken to a Short Answer Q&A.  These questions are answered independently in complete sentences.

After completing this activity, the student again receives the message that the lesson has ended, and they must talk to their teacher before continuing.  This completes the entire lesson, and the student will next move on to a new lesson that begins with the video introducing new vocabulary words.

At any time, the teacher can log in and review a student’s progress, showing how they scored in each lesson.

I actually liked this program a lot.  Personally, I thought it was rather fun to use, and it didn’t take up too much time.  It put the same material in front of the student in various ways for adequate reinforcement of the word list, and it had enough interactivity to keep the student engaged in the material rather than simply having them watch boring instructional videos. 

I have a 13-year old child with ADHD, and he tends to get bored and distracted easily, making it difficult to find an appropriate match to meet his instructional needs.  However, I think a program like this would work well for him.  The lessons aren’t too long, and you could easily separate a lesson from a unit review to split up the work across the course of a couple of school days.  We would probably do the initial lesson one day and the review on a second day, either working on it twice a week to give us a pace of one lesson per week, or on each of our four school days to give us a pace of two lessons per week.  I would feel very comfortable using this program to build and reinforce my son’s vocabulary and improve his reading comprehension.

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