Learning upgrade opinions

Well after one week of playing with Learning Upgrade I am ready to spout my opinions.

Little Man and Baby Girl both tried the 'Reading Upgrade'.

In case you need to know, Little Man reads at around a 1st to 2nd grade level, though in age he is about kindergarten.  He has pretty impressive mouse skills. Though no computer speed.

Baby Girl is just starting to read and very young. She can barely use the mouse.

 Little Man found it started way to easy, and took way to long to get to anything worth him even reviewing.  He enjoyed the games, but they really were to easy.  In some ways though the program seems more designed for older children, the graphics, songs and games move quickly, flash brightly and seem designed more for a 2nd or 3rd grader than for a K-5 student, even though they do start off with 3 games focusing on just the letters A-I, then three more on the next set of letters and so on.  It would be a good review for 6-8 year old working on beginning reading.  even with his zooming through each game on the first try, Little Man still only made it to level 15 which is apparently the last level offered in the free trial.  So we really don't know if or when it would get hard enough for him.

Baby Girl found the basic naming letters from sounds, or naming picture cards from letters rather easy, she could even work the mouse for that part, but she simply can't read enough to use words to fill in the blanks of a sentence.  Nor could she work the mouse fast enough to read a word and click a moving picture.  She enjoyed the games she played, but due to her age, could not move beyond the 2nd level.

The program should come with an assessment to allow kids to skip through some of the 50 levels if they already know how to read.  It would also be helpful to have an option for some children to review all 26 letters without having the skills to read full sentences.

We will not be paying for the program.  For one thing the cost at nearly $50 for one student and only one program for only 6 months is astronomically unfordable.  Maybe if it were $50 for all family access any program I might consider it.  Prolly not though.  With the kids all having to start at level one and work their way up it would take far to much wasted time for Dude and Princess to get anywhere near work worthy of their skills.  And Baby Girl would be restricted to the first few levels for long enough to get bored.

We will however use the free demo pages for some occasional computer fun.  And I added a few of their songs from youtube to our educational playlists.  Always good to have plenty of songs for naptime.