Online Reading and Language Arts for K-6th Grade {Essential Skills Advantage Review}

Do you have children who enjoy playing games online? Want to use that enjoyment to give them an edge in Language Arts and Reading?

Language Arts was my favorite class in elementary and middle school, but a few of my children have a strong preference for other subjects. When I told them about Essential Skills Advantage, an online Reading and Language Arts program for grades K-6th (providing remedial work for those in higher grades), they had mixed feelings: one was excited, one was curious, and the other simply agreed to go along for the ride. Fortunately, we were able to review their full year, complete Premium Plan, so had many opportunities to explore and learn!

During the review period, we experienced excitement, frustration, accomplishment, and most importantly, improved proficiency.

Essential Skills Advantage (ESA) offers a variety of topics, such as:

• Phonics
• Spelling
• Reading Comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Grammar and Mechanics and more

Topics covered depend on the specific grade a child is in. For example, Phonics is only covered in the K-3rd grade levels, but Reading Comprehension picks up in 4th grade. Activities become progressively difficult and sufficiently challenged my children’s abilities. In our home, we enjoyed the Kindergarten, 3rd, and 5th grade levels for about 30 minutes at at time (or more on days when they were super focused on an activity). Earning their marks and completing a level gave them a great sense of accomplishment.

Kindergarten

My Kindergartener has a severe articulation problem. His receptive skills are typical, so he understands everything we say, but we usually have a difficult time understanding him. His therapist encouraged us to use as much reinforcement as possible, and we wondered if hearing the reinforcement through the program would help strengthen this weak area. It was great to see that he could understand the program and could navigate it independently. Even though we didn’t see advances in his expressive speech, working through it was enough to give his therapist feedback, and she thought ESA sounded like a fantastic program for little ones.

Beginning activities were simple and covered things as sequence, sounds, and other uncomplicated phonics building activities, moving right into sight words and light reading exercises. He loved earning his three stars after an activity, and when he didn’t earn them, he could easily go back in and re-try it. Eventually he encountered activities that were too difficult for him to easily answer, which was great because it provided more challenge and proved that this is a program with which he can grow, and he loved feeling an ownership of learning.

As part of the Reading (Phonics) sections, parents will find an activity guide that explains the skill to be introduced, goals, and easy instructions for the teacher or parent.
This memory game above was a favorite of my son. He was so excited to see the final picture.

Screens such as the one above helped us to track progress, see which tasks were completed, and where extra help may be needed.

See the ladybug in the bottom left hand corner of the screen? Whenever we experienced a glitch, we clicked it to “report a bug” and a report was sent to the admins. We only had to use it once. This feature is just one of several small details that prove that the creators care about the subscriber’s experience and feedback.

Third Grade

My third grade daughter loved the program the most. This wasn’t her first experience with ESA though and was interested in what the third grade level would offer. While some may find it distracting, she enjoys the nature sounds in the background as she feels it gives the whole program an upbeat and pleasant ambiance. Personally, I found the nature sounds soothing. They reminded me of the sounds heard during the peaceful early morning hours.

The focus in 3rd grade is spelling and strengthening phonics. Since she was a late blooming reader, and ESA is doing an excellent job cementing her reading skills and preparing her to be a strong, independent reader.

Other topics include:

• synonyms and antonyms
• prefixes and suffixes
• parts of speech and more
• spelling using a variety of rules and more

Words in blue are clickable so that children who need assistance can hear it and learn new vocabulary.

While some activities required clicking the correct answer, I liked that others required the the student to type the word, reinforcing both spelling and keyboarding skills

Fifth Grade

I was most nervous about my 5th grader, who has a few learning difficulties. I was also most impressed by this grade level offerings, especially the reading comprehension activities. After trying a variety of other reading programs with him, I felt that ESA offered the perfect balance, enabling a child to experience challenging activities and attainable goals.

His level also included activities for:

• spelling
• grammar
• vocabulary

He clicked on the blue words to learn new vocabulary, and the questions were neither too difficult nor too easy.

As you can see in the image above, the correct answers are over a green line. When the student types in an answer, the line changes from blue to green when the answer is correct. This was especially helpful for my children since it taught them self-correction skills. If they typed in an answer and the line was still blue, they could review what they may have missed before hitting the enter key and submitting the answer.

Parent Portal

Within the parent portal, I set up the children’s accounts, user names, and passwords. From the portal, I could also check in on how they were doing in different subjects, what had been completed, and how many “marks” they had.

Cost and Discount Code:

The Premium Plan, which is what my family reviewed, usually costs $9.99 per month, per student. Before committing, a family may give it a free test-drive for 14 days.

If you’re on a tight budget, ESA has started a new sponsored version that is completely free. To learn more about this option, visit https://www.ESALearning.com. The biggest difference between the free program and the paid is that users will have sponsored ads and won’t have a few of the features from the Premium membership.

If you prefer an ad-free experience, ESA is currently offering a discount of 50% off the monthly membership fee, when you use code TOS50. This means that you’ll be able to get the full Premium Package for $4.99 a month, per student. The coupon code expires October 1st, 2014.

Every family needs to do what’s comfortable for their unique budget, but personally speaking after reviewing the program, I see a definite benefit of taking advantage of the discount and getting the full Premium Plan. The little touches, such as easily reporting a glitch, and their continual improvement of the programs, lets me know that they pay attention to detail, and I don’t want to miss out.

Bottom Line:

Having children with different learning abilities can make homeschooling difficult and some subjects harder to teach than others. Language Arts is one of those subjects in which my special needs learners struggle. What I appreciate the most about Essential Skills Advantage is that it takes a subject that can be intimidating to my young students and turns it into non-intimidating games, puzzles, and activities that build competency. ESA wins full marks in our household!

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