Each summer kids across America begin their trip down the summer slide. No, not the fun playground equipment you think I am referring to, instead the summer slide I am talking about is the loss of retained information they learned that year.
It is proven that each fall children returning from summer vacation sadly lost nearly 40% of the information they had learned the previous school year. Summer can NOT be all about fun, playing and all nighters. Your brain needs to continue to learn, continue to exercise. Retention is key!
Each summer I urge parents to continue learning support. Participate in summer reading programs, play math games and work on math facts. Encourage your children to write letters to support handwriting, spelling and language skills.
This year I was approached by K5 Learning to review their site and services and I jumped at the chance!
K5 Learning is an online learning support program for summer learning, after school studying and home-school support. The program is geared towards kindergarten-grade 5 students. When I began the review process I enrolled MeMe to help me out and test the program with me. MeMe has a learning disability and is always eager to try new programs to aid her learning. We began by cruising around the website getting a feeling for the layout and the different options.
The website is easily navigable and visually appealing to both parent and child.
Next MeMe began the Reading and Math assessment. K5 provides both a reading and math assessment to determine areas of need and areas mastered. MeMe was hesitant after she read the disclaimer warning each assessment was 30 minutes in length. She was already feeling a little nervous but stuck it out. She sailed through the math tough she needed to stop and get scratch paper, pencil and eraser so she could work through some of the equations and problems. When she finished the math assessment she immediately jumped into the reading assessment.
The reading assessment began with MeMe frantically trying to figure out why the narration was not working. She began the assessment anyway, toughing it out. Minutes later a sigh of relief as she realized it was only a warm up and that now the narrator was there and the assessment had officially begun.
After her assessment her scores were emailed to me and from that point her online lessons were adapted to her needs and ability. From that point forward her lessons were catered and built around her ability.
One thing I absolutely loved about this program was the spelling feature. Other programs we have used did not have spelling unless personally uploaded by the parent. Using K5 you have two options. Words can be uploaded or generated using grade and ability level. With MeMe having a disability spelling is crucial to continue working on her language and phonics needs.
While I was logged in using the Parent feature of the site I was able to check MeMe’s progress, reports, scores and time spent on each assignment and lesson. I can also change spelling words and assign additional assignments.
Personally I love this program. The games were fun and kept MeMe engaged. There were no ads, or distracting pop ups interfering with lessons. The narration was at a steady speed and easily understood. The colors were great and I did not find any questionable material or references.
I highly recommend K5 program for both summer learning AND after school tutorials.
Check out the video K5 Learning made, a quick tutorial of the website, service and product.
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About Miranda Sherman
This looks like a very good program. As a mother and a teacher I always keep my kids learning active during the holidays so that they do not return to school in September all muddled in the head. This programs sounds like a good way to monitor and keep the brain cells active. I like it.
This is a great resource both for breaks from school and during the school year! What a great site!
At this time, I don’t have any friends/family who could use Xeric consulting. I love what they stand for, though!
Wow, I didn’t realize they loose 40% on the summer slide. Id like to have this for my daughter.
This looks like agreat program. I think we will try the their free trial
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