MaxScholar for reading improvement -- my REVIEW

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

MaxScholar Orton-Gillingham Software is a reading enhancement / improvement online program for readers (and pre-readers) of all ages. It touches many aspects of the reading experience, including phonics, vocabulary, comprehension, word roots and parts of speech, and more. The MaxScholar website and app are to be used by both the learner and the educator. The learner's work and progress are made available to the teacher through easy to read reports, graphs, and recommendations. 

As a student enters the MaxScholar program, his or her teacher can determine where they ought to begin. For many students, that might be at the phonics assessment. My children are high school aged and they are quite fluent readers, so we did not opt into the phonics assessment--this can be easily set on the teacher dashboard. 

There are seven main sections within which the student may learn. There are MAXPHONICS, MAXREADING, MAXWORDS, MAXMUSIC, MAXVOCAB, MAXPLACES, AND MAXBIOS.
Students should have their volume on so that they can hear the audible prompts and instructions for each segment. I'll tell you about a few of the sets so that you can get a taste of the program. :) 
Maxreading, as you might assume, allows a student to choose a topic to read about, with topics which will interest them according to their set grade level.  The passage for reading begins with a segment of maxvocab which highlights vocabulary words for that chapter; the student may click on each of the highlighted words to learn its meaning, its context, and any synonyms and antonyms which will help in the word's understanding. 

Next the student moves on to reading the passage closely and carefully, followed by a highlighting exercise in which the student highlights the topic, the main idea, and important details. This is corrected by the program so that the student can see what they actually were supposed to be. 

Next the student has the opportunity to make an outline of the passage, followed by a writing exercise in which the student is given a choice of different prompts to answer. There are comprehension questions which follow this segment, and if the student's score is at least a C+ they are allowed to play some games (which tie in to the reading segment). 

Okay, so that was the MAXREADING section. Let me now tell you abit about the MAXWORDS section. This area enables students to learn to break words apart into syllables (which helps with spelling, as well!), gives them spelling rules to follow, familiarizes them with prefixes and suffixes, and teaches Latin and Greek word roots. 

Each of these sections has multiple exercises and practice points for students to learn in these areas and to succeed in these areas as well. The audible instructions that accompany each part help the student to understand what exactly they are asked to do.
The MAXMUSIC section allows users to choose a musical artist and to use the lyrics of one of their songs to practice skills such as parts of speech (though my daughter got a bit frustrated here, as being verbs and helping verbs are apparently not included as "verbs") :) 

Other sections within the MaxScholar program include MAXPLACES and MAXBIOS which enable students to learn about other places or people as they read texts, highlight, and check their comprehension with questions. 
SO--if you are looking for a program to help out your struggling reader at any age, this may be something you want to look into! It seemed very easy for us to navigate through the program on the learner's side of things, and with the teacher's access it also was easy to view the student's progress. We did notice a few typos in several places, but they did not detract from the program. One thing that I really appreciated is the audible instructions on each step of the program. 
If you'd like to read more reviews of the MaxScholar program, please click on the link below!