Homeschooling can be hard. Really hard. Throw in a housefull of wiggle worms, and you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Speaking from experience here!
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not always that way. Getting your kids excited about a hands-on history activity or a messy science experiment can be a piece of cake.
(Disclaimer- I received free access to this program and was compensated in exchange for writing an honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.)
But reading and spelling? Not so much. Sometimes I think my kids would rather clean their bedrooms than have to sit through yet another phonics lesson. (And if you ever saw their bedrooms, you’d know right away that cleaning is not their forte…)
Finally, we came across Nessy Reading and Spelling by Nessy Learning. My kids love it! We just spent the past two weeks on Easter break, and do you know what my kids spent a good portion of their time doing??
I’ll give you one guess…
And I don’t even mean just my Littles– the ones I originally intended to use this program with. From the very beginning, my Middles hounded me to add them to the account because they saw how much fun their younger siblings were having with it:
Easter vacation proved to be the perfect time for my older kids to get in on the action with Nessy, and that’s exactly what they did.
An Overview of Nessy Reading and Spelling:
Although this online educational resource was developed for children with reading challenges such as dyslexia (Download this free eBook on dyslexia, courtesy of Nessy Learning), Nessy Reading and Spelling can be used by all students, even those learning English as a second language.
Some highlights include:
- Fun and interactive reading and spelling placement tests to determine where each child should begin
- Geared for kids between the ages of 5-14 (although my 3 year old has been happily using it, as well)
- 100 independent learning lessons
- Over 300 animated supplemental videos
- Over 1000 printable worksheets
- Incentives for the children in the form of tokens that can be used at “Monkey Town”
- Out-of-the box approaches such as mnemonic-based spelling
My thoughts on Nessy Reading and Spelling:
Chances are, if you’ve visited this blog often, you’re well aware that I’m not a big fan of technology. So I’m always really careful about signing on for anything that is going to include computer-based learning.
Can I just tell you that I love Nessy??
Watching my kids be utterly delighted while working on their reading and spelling skills has really opened my eyes to the fact that online learning really can be a valuable resource.
Who would’ve thought that my kids would actually be arguing over who gets to do their reading lesson first? Not me! They usually argue over who gets to go last!
Unlike some other educational apps we’ve tried, Nessy is genuinely fun. The activities are colorful, original, and effective, and some of the videos are downright hilarious!
Monkey Town is a huge hit with my kids. Here’s how that works:
Each video that your child watches or activity that they complete rewards them with varying numbers of gold nuggets. These tokens aren’t just handed out haphazardly- they need to be earned. If there are too many wrong answers, the lesson must be repeated and passed in order to earn the nuggets. These nuggets can be used at an enchanting little place called Monkey Town, where your child can customize their monkey (their main Nessy character), visit little stores, and play games.
You might think that Monkey Town would be the main reason kids enjoy this program, but Nessy Learning has done a phenomenal job of keeping everything interesting and low-stress. My children don’t even view this is “school.” They don’t treat it as the burden to them that they often considered their workbooks.
Nessy Reading and Spelling has enabled my gloriously active children to realize that sit-down learning doesn’t have to be boring. It doesn’t have to stress them out. It can be engaging, funny, and effective all at the same time.
And it certainly beats cleaning their rooms.
Interested in using Nessy Reading and Spelling in your homeschool? Use this code: BLOG17 for 15% off!
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