Learning A-Z and RAZ Kids

Once upon a time, many years ago, my youngest son was struggling to learn to read.  In retrospect, I think it was simply a case of finding the block corner and any opportunity for imaginary or active play far more interesting than the storybooks in his classroom, but he was a bit behind his classmates, and his teachers were becoming concerned.  So, during the summer between first and second grade, his teachers encouraged us to read to him A LOT, and work with a series of leveled readers that could be found online using the website Reading A-Z.   This is such a fantastic resource.

So I printed out dozens of these little books, according to his level:

And chose titles I thought he might find interesting:

And we read and read.  I read to him, then he read to me.  

As small children respond well to bribes, I decided bribes would be part of the summer strategy.  (Please don't judge... it worked for us.)  When the little guy had read 15 titles aloud to me a few times, we went to a local store and picked out a "playmobil guy".  He accumulated quite an army of these little guys that summer, which are still in his room nearly 10 years later.  I still believe that Reading A-Z paired with a whole lot of Dr. Seuss and The Gruffalo, were the secret to becoming a much more fluent and confident reader that summer.

Ten years later, Reading A-Z has evolved, and has an option called RAZ-kids.com.  Not all the titles are online, but there are dozens of options at each level.  We use this program with our 1st through 5th graders at Holy Trinity.  The program works on both computers, and iPads.  If you are using it on an iPad, you must download an App... which is a bit confusing because it is called Learning A-Z... but the icon looks like this in the App Store:

The leveled reading books are now online, with quizzes to test comprehension.  The teachers have assigned levels to all our current students:

Or, there is an "on your own" tab, with more titles available.  It is possible to have the book read-aloud to you, or read it to yourself:

And the kids are motivated to earn points to be able to play games on the Raz Rocket page:

While I love the online option, I would encourage the paper books as well.  It's great to curl up with your child and have the back-and-forth exchange.  And shopping for Playmobil guys remains one of my fondest memories with this kid - who is now taller than me and routinely inhaling 500 page books.  So it all worked out in the end :)