Did parents hate Reading A-Z?

[Anonymous]

I'm a teacher who used Reading A-Z a lot for distance learning with my ESOL students, and I really think it went well from my perspective.

I had great participation from many of my students, and adequate participation from most of them (over 1st grade). I thought that my parents and students liked it overall.

I always asked them to read at least two books out loud to me (recorded) and I listened to every recording (or at least every other recording) and sent back notes or comments; sometimes I made a Screencastify video just for that one student to review how to decode certain words or how to find the answer to certain types of questions.

I also was able to assign Science books to the students and have them work with vocabulary words like photosynthesis, stamin, pistil, etc. when they were studying plants in their Science class.

So... I thought it was a decent program to use. But I read many negative comments about Reading A-Z from parents here, so I was wondering what you did not like about it. Is it just that it was being assigned instead of direct instruction from a teacher?

[Anonymous]

We thought it was fine. My kid is dyslexic and would listen first before reading.

[Anonymous]

I had a first grader. She is a strong reader and it was set to level S books by her teacher. She is good at reading fiction at that level, but didnt have the background knowledge to read the assigned non fiction texts, and she had zero interest in the available options which are aimed at older students. She hated it.

It was also much more difficult for her to read on our old desktop computer than it is on paper. She also had issues using a mouse, so I had to sit there and supervise the whole time. It was a fail for us.

She does much better with self choosing non-fiction books from the library, where she picks books that she is interested in reading and can curl up on her bed or in a cozy chair to read independently.

[Anonymous]

We didn't hate it. But the books available tended to be less interesting to our kids than the books available on Epic or at our local library. As soon as I got an Epic subscription, my kids were thrilled to ditch RAZ Kids.

My older two, who can actually read, didn't seem to mind doing RAZ assignments for their teachers. They just didn't ever go on RAZ for fun, unlike Epic.

[Anonymous]

My kid (rising 2nd grader) liked it at first, but then grew really bored with it. I don't know if it's because he outgrew the level it was set to, or just that the books available are pretty boring. He loves Epic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a first grader. She is a strong reader and it was set to level S books by her teacher. She is good at reading fiction at that level, but didnt have the background knowledge to read the assigned non fiction texts, and she had zero interest in the available options which are aimed at older students. She hated it.

OP here -- that's good feedback for me. I don't think I've ever had an ESOL student reach level S before! For sure if they are that high in ES they'd be exiting our program (or able to handle general classroom assignments).

[Anonymous]

Tell me more about Epic. Did your teachers have an account or did you sign your kids up yourself?

[Anonymous]

DP- I think our school had a subscription. I could see my third grade som’s friends’ comments in his google drive stream. They loved Epic. No idea how it would work for other grade levels.

[Anonymous]

Our school had a subscription to Epic that we were given access to when schools closed (we continue to have access over the summer). I'm not sure if this is typical or because of the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

DS just finished K and we really like it. Short books for someone learning to read and we also like the comprehension questions at the end. We also like the levels and how user friendly it was. I think it’s good for beginner readers.

[Anonymous]

My son just clicked through to get the coins. Worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son just clicked through to get the coins. Worthless.

Did his teacher have him read out loud and record it, or do any of the running records or assessments?

[Anonymous]

I signed up for a free account as a parent this spring, just to have lots of leveled options for my kindergartener to read. I had her do a few of them, but we both just found them boring. Since she seemed to be doing fine (reading independently at around level K now), I went back to just letting her read more high-interest hard-copy books we have. Plus, she loves Epic. If she were struggling, I might have found Reading A-Z useful. I have a reading specialist degree, so I could have implemented something structured for my daughter but just didn’t find it necessary at this time. However, it does look like a great tool for providing reading instruction and feedback remotely. It’s probably what I would choose to use with a class.

[Anonymous]

My kids used EPIC during spring DL and enjoyed it. The teacher had an account and gave every kid a separate login. Each student had books assigned exactly to their level. The teacher also read books to the students by using an online book through EPIC and sharing her screen. Sharing the screen is a thousand times more effective than a teacher trying to read a book in their hands over a video.

[Anonymous]

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