I recently received the opportunity to review the Rime to Read program that is made up of 20 online books. It is designed for either early readers or students who are a bit remedial. I used the books with my 5 year old non-reader and my 3 year old preschooler.

These books are purchased online and then placed in your account. You can then read them online and take advantage of the fact you can click on words to hear the sounds on the repeating words (or rimes or word families). Or you can choose to print them out. My issue in that aspect if the fact you can only print them once. With 4 kids, I can say that 1 copy isn’t quite enough if I want them to be able to drag them around and read them. But since they are ran on just a click of the mouse, the kids can go through them with out you. That is always very helpful!

Now what about the books themselves? They are pretty good. They are organized by word families and one of the great things is it forms pattern. The down part is that they aren’t really in full sentences. So my 5 year old is a bit puzzled to make sense out of the books themselves. The 3 year old doesn’t have that problem. But overall I do think they are very helpful in teaching reading.

Then comes the hammer. At $45 you really have to evaluate how much you will use them. But I also have to disclose I am a huge cheapskate. I absolutely love the Bob Books and won’t buy them (I use the library;). That said I am not a great judge if you are getting a dollar to good value but I do like the system.

You can sign up to get a free book as a sample so go check it out and let me know what you think!