Institute of Reading DevelopmentReviews of readingprograms.org

This was a great reading class for my 4 year old. She can now sound out basic words and she is reading the Let’s Read book (one of the books that comes with the class registration) by herself!

As latina mom I had been dealing a lot with the lack of motivation to improve the reading skills for my kids. I used this program to encourage my girls to read more while she is enjoying. I recommend this program for color kids and low income families. This is a good investment.

My kid enjoyed the classes. Teacher was wonderful and helped my kid to show more interest in reading books.

Very educational and helpful! Great teaching. I improved my reading speed and comprehension significantly.

Great program for beginner readers! Enthusiastic instructors, great support material, my son really enjoyed it!

Wow! What an amazing program!! I wished it lasted longer! My 4 year old was so engaged in the on-line and in-class activities!! I loved learning new ways to engage her in books by doing dramatizations, identifying her favorite parts, and enhancing her vocabulary!! If you want to help your child increase their love for reading, this program is a MUST!!!

Complete waste of $371! Parents don't waste your money on this program! My son did not gain any help at all from the summer reading program. My son was struggling with reading comprehension and writing and the person on the phone from the program assured me that this program would help improve his reading comprehension and help him read more fluently and rapidly, and become a stronger and more confident writer. None of this resulted from this program unfortunately! I should have read the reviews online before signing up because, they describe completely the same situation and class style that my son later on described to me. First of all , there are too many kids in the class for your child to get the one on one attention that you supposedly pay for. The majority of the time in class they are reading silently which they can do at home obviously! No real interactive and engaging discussions on the books. Most of the questions in the workbook that are for in class activities were not even discussed or filled out! I tried to reach out to supervisor for a refund and only offered $65 back which is unacceptable! I will definitely not be recommending this program to any one else. In response to their reply: I am rejecting this response because: I did not choose to have different instructors for my child, I was forced to switch his classes to the USF campus classes because the teacher in his original class called out sick the day of class. To make up for this missed class his class was going to be extended another week which we would not be able to do since we had travel plans already set before the summer for that weekend, and I didn't want him to miss a class. I switched him to the USF class for his last 2 classes not knowing that there were going to be 2 different teachers those 2 weeks, because one of the teachers was moving away so they had a substitute for the last class. You would think that for the amount paid for this class they would have some backup plans in place to avoid these issues. I was told that I could either take $65 back for the class that his original teacher missed OR credit for him to take the class again or for my other son to take a class which I felt was completely useless since we had such a bad experience with this class, so I chose the $65 refund but would have preferred to get a full refund for the class. I would be open to getting the credit for my younger son to try the summer program next year, to see if our experience is any different. This program may be good in other areas in the U.S., that it is offered, but our experience with the classes offered in Brandon, FL was very disappointing.

My son has a developmental delay, so he took the class for entering kindergartners even though he is entering first grade. He enjoyed the class and the online lessons as well. As a parent, I found it very helpful to sit in the class with him and supervise the online lessons, as this helped me to reinforce the lessons at home. Overall, I'm very satisfied with this program. In five weeks my son went from not reading at all, to learning the concept of sounding out words and being able to recognize a handful of sight words.