The Stepping Stones Together Reading Program
Review
We’ve been reading all summer, and we’re gearing up to head back to school. One of our reading adventures was with Stepping Stones Together. This unique program lends a hand to parents in teaching their children to master fundamental reading skills using an easy-to-use and reasonably priced online reading activities program. It’s geared for children ages 3-7 years, depending on when your child is ready to read.
Stepping Stones Together was developed by Dr. Erika Burton, who, like me, was teaching her daughter to read the summer after she finished Kindergarten.
Stepping Stones Together aims to empower parents with the tools and resources to take an active role in their child’s reading skills, foster the love of reading, and provide a positive bonding experience for even the time-challenged parents! Stepping Stones Together understands the importance of high-frequency words, text illustration support, coloring books, spacing, and incentive programs. It utilizes them all to help parents teach a child to read in 60 days!
Stepping Stones Together has a selection of 30 books and high-interest-themed stories from our beginning reading library, comprising three difficulty levels with over 100 reading comprehension questions designed to build your child’s reading comprehension skills and thinking, reading fluency, speaking, and writing abilities. Parents can create a profile for their children, picking out their interests and hobbies. These choices will then narrow down the library of online books appropriate for the child’s reading level.
Each book can be printed out. The books are black and white, giving children the ability to utilize the book as a coloring book, giving it an interactive appeal. You and your child can monitor progress with the daily incentive charts. Just like in school, there’s a writing sheet where the child can take an idea and draw a picture and write about it. Stepping Stones Together also has a section with practice games and entertaining activities. One of the most valuable resources is the sight word charts that can be printed out and help the child practice these words that are the core of reading.
How Stepping Stones Works:
- Set aside 15 -20 minutes a day. Success and repetition is the key for success
- Select one of the many stories at your child’s appropriate level. There are 3 levels of stories and all stories have high-interest themes such as sports, fairies, etc. Every story can be read online and/or downloaded & printed out for your child to keep and color. Each story can be customized for your child, has printable flashcards for review, and fun games.
- Repeat the story until your child has mastered the ability to read the story aloud, along
- Complete the daily writing activity that goes along with the story and reviews flashcards daily as well
- When your child has mastered a story, you can check the “completed” box & you can move on to
the next story. - Once all of the stories in your current level have been completed, the next level of books will become
available
Along with the tremendous story selection, some other great benefits for members are:
* Incentive chart: for parent/child to record their daily progress
* Daily writing practice sheet
* Access to the flashcards, which correspond to each book
* Access to “Additional Practice,” which includes explanations of a variety of games to play
* The five-step instructions to complete the daily program
Stepping Stones Together Offers TWO Affordable Membership Options:
$19.99 for the 60-day program–with access for 90 days or 2. $39.99 for a full-year membership
The Divine Miss M was excited to use the Stepping Stones Together.
She learned from her Kindergarten Reading Skills, so she had a foundation.
We selected a book and walked through the book together.
We looked at the pictures along the way and tried to predict the story.
We then read the book together.
The Divine Miss M recognized her sight words and used the pictures to help her.
Then she accepted the challenge to read it all on her own.
There have been a lot of fun moments using the Stepping Stones Together.
I found a lot of positives in the program.
I love being active in my child’s learning and the opportunity this role provides to create a bond between us.
I found a lot of the same lessons my child was doing in school, and I believe Stepping Stones Together creates a strong foundation for her tools of learning.
Unfortunately, I cannot speak about the rewards system and daily activities.
We didn’t have the opportunity to experience this aspect of the program.
There is the ability to view a demo book before you purchase the program on the Stepping Stone Together homepage!
If you like what you see, you can register for your membership through the Stepping Stones Together Website.
Disclosure: This is a MamaBuzz review. The company gave me these items at no charge in exchange for a fair and honest review. The ideas and opinions expressed are my own. I was not paid nor compensated in any other way.