We were recently assigned to do a review of Kids Email Safe Email for Kids, and given a one-year subscription. I wasn’t at all sure we needed it, because when my children wanted to email someone I just let them use my gmail account. We were put on the review team, however, so I signed the four up who are in school this year. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the results, and may just end up paying for this service after our year ends.

Kids Email was started in 2009 as a safe way for children to email. Parents have the control over what happens with the child’s account; there are many settings you can tweak so that your child can only use it the way you want them to. All incoming and outgoing messages can be sent to your inbox, and you can set it so that only letters from approved senders are visible to your child (you have to approve a person the first time they send something). You can also set particular times or days when the program can be accessed, if you wish. There is also a filter watching for bad language. We had to laugh at one email that Mr. Imagination got from a cousin. The cousin was listing the baby animals on their farm, and one item in the list was 250 CENSORED. We knew from the context that it was chicks, and of course we knew it was the kind of chicks we approve of, but I was happy to see how the filter works.

Here is what I see when one of the boys gets an email from someone I haven’t previously approved:

One feature that my boys have loved playing with is the ability to draw pictures. They use the computer mouse, and can choose the size of line or dot they want, and the color, and draw whatever they want to. That is good eye/hand coordination! When they are finished, they simply attach the picture to the email they have written. I have heard some complaints that there aren’t enough colors, but otherwise they are very happy with that part of this email.

Here are a couple of the pictures they have come up with. This was at the beginning; they are getting a little more skillful now.

The boys also like that they can choose the background for their inbox. There are a number of pictures to choose from; I think all of them chose either the wolves or the horses. For girls, there are some princess-type pictures, too. These just make it more fun!

Another thing I really like about it is that it gives some of the boys a lot of practice in typing. They do typing courses, but this forces them to make up what they are typing as they go, rather than copying. I type what the younger ones dictate, but the older ones have to do it themselves, and then I help correct spelling so that the recipient can understand what they get! One problem we have run into, though, is that there doesn’t seem to be an autosave function. I might be missing something (it’s not unlikely), but if the page is accidentally reloaded, everything that has been typed so far is gone. Once, I was helping someone send an email that took a long time to write, and the internet blinked off, which it often does here. The email was lost. That usually brings tears of frustration, even if I help them redo the letter.

This program also grows with the children. When they are young, their address is @kidsemail.org, but when they are a bit older, you have the option of changing to @kmail.org, if they want a more adult-looking address. Children who use the kidsemail.org address have the option to have an incoming email read aloud to them. This worked the first time or two that we tried it, but after that it didn’t; probably my old computer was the problem. I like the idea—it’s another way to get children to practice reading as they follow along!

Overall, I am very happy with Kids Email. This is one review product that I didn’t think we needed, but I’m now glad we got it. Because of this, I have incorporated writing an email a week into each of their schedules, which is something I had wanted to do but never got around to doing. So, Grandma, aunts, and cousins get to hear from my children a little more! On the other hand, some of my boys aren’t too happy about it. They would rather not have to type something out of their heads, but rely on me to write letters when they want them sent.

Sometimes we end up with products to review that I wasn’t very excited about. Reading Kingdom was one of those; my hesitation was because it is an online program, and I don’t like my younger children to have a lot of screen time. We were assigned to this review, however, so I had Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination use it every day as part of their schoolwork. I’m still not sure what I think of it!

Reading Kingdom claims to teach reading by immersion, the way young children learn to talk. Rather than only teaching sounds, as phonics does, Reading Kingdom also teaches sequencing, writing, meaning, grammar and comprehension. The course is made up of a series of stories. Each story is introduced by first teaching each word. A variety of methods are used to teach the word, including showing several words with blanks and the child has to choose which one can turn into the desired word. After all the words in the story have been mastered, both on its own and in a sentence, the child gets to read a book on the screen. Here is an example of one activity, this one teaching the word “they.” Also on this screenshot you can see a couple of other features that enhance the program. The number in the yellow box is the number of points earned so far; each 20,000 points advances the child to the next level. The reward isn’t much, but they enjoy seeing what happens next when they open their passport. 2/15 indicates how many parts they have done out of the total in the session; this session has 15 parts, and he is on the second one.

Children are supposed to use this program four days a week or more for best results. My boys have averaged 3.6 days and 4.4 times a week—yes, they have those numbers on the dashboard where we go every day to access the lessons! It is recommended to only do one or two sessions per day (in the lower levels, only one word is taught in a session), but there is a way to override this if you want your child to do more. A couple of times, I allowed my boys to do up to four sessions, with breaks in between, but most of the time they did just one or two, depending on time. They did enjoy this; I don’t very often let them play games on the computer, so this was a game they were allowed to do and that made it fun. One problem Mr. Imagination had was that the screen moved on too fast for him, but after I got into the settings and changed it to move slower, he could handle the lessons much better. The default speed was just right for Mr. Sweetie.

I have thought of some pros and cons for Reading Kingdom:

Pros: Children can do this program with very little input from an adult. It is set up so that they can do it completely independently. Using this program helps children learn to spell and use the keyboard at the same time they are learning to read.

Cons: Children are expected to figure out without being told when to use a capital letter to begin a sentence, and when to use the correct punctuation. The punctuation wasn’t too hard for my boys to pick up, but the capitalization was a major frustration for them. Many times I had to rescue someone who was crying because he kept hitting the right key and it wasn’t accepted! Also, teaching reading by immersion, while it works for some children, will not work for others. I have had children who could only learn something if it was specifically told to them—they could not figure things out from context clues.

I asked the little boys what they think of it. Mr. Imagination said, “I like every single bit of it except the aliens.” These “aliens” are pictures that appear every so often. I’m guessing they are included to appeal to children who play a lot of video games, but I could sure do without them! Most of the pictures are alright, though. Mr. Sweetie said, “I have learned to spell a few words, but didn’t learn much about reading.”

I really haven’t decided yet whether Reading Kingdom will help my boys or not. I had Mr. Sweetie use a reading fluency test when he began using the course and again after five weeks of using it, and there was really no difference in the two tests. They are enjoying it, however, so I will let them continue doing it. It’s better than most computer games I’ve seen!

The same company has also developed a program called ASD Reading, which is for children on the autism spectrum. If you have a child like that, you may want to look into this program.