Summary of Customer Ratings & Reviews
Overall Rating: 
4.3
23 out of 26 (88%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.
This Program is Amazing!
Review by: D. Bruce Cahilly II - Emporium, PA
Thursday, March 29, 2012
I would just like to say that this program is amazing in it's ability to maintain the attention of my daughter. We have tried many other resources to help my 3rd grader overcome her reading deficiencies, but this is the only program that has inspired her to work on her own!
The user interface is intuitive and appealing. The flow, and length of the lessons makes it easy for my daughter to stay focused. The visible goals also help motivate her to retry lessons that she does not pass the first time through.
We have only just begun the program(now on Chapter 2), but I am already seeing marked improvement in her abilities. When the improvements begin to show in her school grades, I will definitely recommend this product to my child's school!
One side note... I initially had some difficulty installing the program on my Win 7 64 bit system, but the dedicated and friendly help from your staff(you I believe) made the difficulties easily manageable.
The program now runs perfectly!
One programming note... I would like a little more control over the settings, primarily the score needed before progressing.
Thank you so much for this program. It has given me hope for my daughters reading future.
Two succussful students
Review by: Susan - Mountain View, CA
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Hello,
I have my own tutoring business and I have used the Reading Horizons-at-home program successfully with two students. One student was a eleven-year-old boy whose family recently moved here from Japan. Although he had some English in Japan, he needed help with the pronunciation of many words and with reading comprehension. The at-home program provided a significant reinforcement of our tutoring sessions. More importantly, the online Japanese resources that are part of the online program served as a valuable tool for him as he struggled to keep up with his schoolwork. In addition to our sessions, being able to listen to English words through his computer and seeing how the mouth forms sounds with the English Language Enhancement book helped this student make the successful transition to living in an English-speaking country.
My other student is a thirty-year-old gardener, Octavio, who wanted to learn how to read and write in English. With no more than a third grade education in Mexico, this hard-working man is raising a family of three from his gardening service business. He found that he was limited not only by being unable to read about gardening, but also by being unable to read notes and instructions from his customers. One customer, who was frustrated that she couldn’t leave Octavio notes, decided to sponsor him in my tutoring program.
Once a week I give Octavio a private, two-hour, tutoring session at a local public library. Octavio’s enthusiasm and commitment to mastering unfamiliar territory is a vital aspect of his success. The Reading Horizon program was a perfect supplement to individual instruction. From the very basics of learning the alphabet, to more complex concepts like adding suffixes to compound words with murmur diphthongs, Octavio has been able to use the software to independently navigate his way through the well- organized curriculum. The Student Workbook has provided essential reinforcements of concepts. Of particular importance is that the tone of instruction is geared towards an adult, not a child.
There have been several occasion that Octavio felt a need to re-visit some lessons, even though he had already completed the chapter. Octavio has told me that it is helpful that he can easily access completed chapters that help with pronunciation and the use of the schwa. The feature that allows him to listen to words pronounced correctly in English, coupled with the feature that gives him the option of listening to instructions in Spanish makes Reading Horizons the ideal tool for him.
One aspect of the program that has not captivated his interest as much as I had hoped is the online library. In all fairness, Octavio’s weekly homework schedule is pretty full and I assign him readings in real books. It is more important to me that he learns to enjoy reading for pleasure, rather than reading to try to master a quiz.
The proof of Octavio’s amazing progress was when he wrote a thank-you letter to his benefactor. She was so pleased that she had tears in her eyes after reading the letter! Additionally, he told me that he is looking into enrolling in an adult education program to work towards his high school equivalency degree!
Administratively, it has been pretty easy for me to navigate through reports and to check on students’ progress. When a I needed some tech support, I got immediate attention and the problem was quickly resolved. Having gone to Salt Lake City to be trained in the Discovering Phonics curriculum, I found it quite easy to use the Intermediate and Adult versions of the program. The RH staff is always polite and personable. Thank you for this opportunity to share my experience with Reading Horizons.
Sincerely,
Susan Desmond
Used for 3 years
Review by: Michelle Frank - Duvall, WA
Thursday, March 22, 2012
I have been using Reading Horizons software with my dyslexic son for 3 years now. He was basically illiterate after 3rd grade, so I started searching for a way to teach him how to read. I really love how user friendly the program is. I didn’t have to have a bunch of training before I was able to jump in and help my son. It is a very straight forward way to teach reading and spelling. I have also used Reading Horizons with my non-dyslexic children. I homeschool them, and it has been a very useful tool to teach my typical learners as well. My youngest daughter was having a little trouble with auditory processing, so she used the Reading Horizons program to overcome some of the difficulties she was having with some of the sounds. I am familiar with other programs, such as Wilson, Barton, Lindamood Bell, and Wired for Reading. I think there are pros and cons with them all, but I really like the user friendliness and accessibility of Reading Horizons. I think it is a really great product, so I recommend it to others whenever I get the chance.
Sincerely,
Michelle Frank