All Aboard is an app for children learning to read that is based on our fifteen years of research into the neurology of the learn to read process. Everything on the app is built on that foundation.
One of the key things we have learned is that a low stress environment, fun and easy reading practice are key to progress. So you will find we use lots of games and our unique "trainertext" presentation of the text. The trainertext will allow your child to work out each word, rather than getting stuck (and stressed!).
You will see it working in just three or four sessions.
These are the three key pillars of reading:
1. Familiar with the sounds used in words (the “phonemes”) and the alphabet
2. Confident with blending sounds together to make words
3. Able to convert letter patterns into sounds
You will find that these skills start to flow naturally as your child walks the through the short daily sessions. They will hardly know they are in a learn to read environment, because it all just seems like a set of games. But those games are working on the three pillars all the time.
You should find your child is actually asking to learn to do reading practice each day. That may sound surprising, but give it a go to see what we mean!
All of the All Aboard lessons are completely free for any child to access.
We also have a library of books you can access on subscription, if you choose to. That is how we fund our development of All Aboard. There is no advertising on the app.
Each book is released when your child has become familiar with the letters and sounds of the words used in that book.
In this way, your child will be set up to succeed in each book reading session and you will see confidence building week by week. Without that careful scaffolding of your child’s success, reading practice can become very stressful for everyone.
Building that psychology of confidence is absolutely vital for a successful journey to strong reading, so we recommend that you reinforce it with constant praise of everything that your child gets right in each lesson too!
Your input in that way will make a huge difference. Teaching a child to read can be frustrating, but you want to do everything you can to avoid seeming frustrated or annoyed. Focus instead on how hard it is to learn to read! Imagine how you would feel learning to read Arabic text, for instance, and you will have a sense of what your child is dealing with.
The library will become available once your child has completed the first few lessons and is familiar with enough letters and sounds for the first book.
If your child has already done a bit of reading practice, the beginning of All Aboard will seem fairly basic, because we start with just a few letters. But it is much better to build solid than to build fast. There is no great rush.
On the other hand, if you have an older child who has become very frustrated with reading and needs to catch up a bit, then our online “Easyread System” will be a better option. Search on Google for information on that.