A couple of opinionated parents have been reviewing a great site called True Learning. Here’s what they thought:
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By CPA Mom
True Learning, founded by JinheeAhn Kim in 2003 is an at-home preschool curriculum. It consists of “24 True Learning Modules that span 6 core subjects over 4 levels of advancement: True Math, True Literacy, True Thinking, True Motor Skills, True Art, and True World.
Each True Learning subject consists of 4 levels of advancement. Each level systematically builds upon the skills presented in the previous levels. The content is created to ensure success and mastery. Every concept is introduced in an intuitive manner, then reinforced and built upon in successive levels. Regardless of your child’s age and ability, True Learning will challenge and stimulate your child at each level.”
People, that is over 3,000 workbook pages! My first tip? Don’t download and save them all at once. That takes hours, believe me! And when you buy this product, for only $88, you get access to all the pages, 24 hours a day, for one full year. You’ll have plenty of time to print and save them as your child progresses.
How does it work? Three steps. Download, Print and work on the sheets for 15 minutes a day. A bonus is that not only does True Learning have the core curriculum, they have discussion forums, a message center and technical support. AND, they have a separate website for online games and free activities that are truly fun and engaging and are very similar to what is on the workbook pages.
I’ll admit I was apprehensive at how this was going to be helpful with my developmentally disabled child. We printed out Level One, sheet one, for all of the modules and went to work. While I noted one error on a “Let’s find One That is the Same” worksheet, the rest were bright and colorful and very easy to follow. Instructions are on the top of the page and the activity below. My son easily followed along what he was supposed to do and while he developmentally is not yet able to do it all, I could see how much he wanted to and how much a curriculum like this will be helpful in getting him there. After we finished the actual pages, he spent 15 minutes just looking through them, identifying animals and such. Believe me, I’ve not seen him have such a long attention span on anything in quite a while (that is not a Little Einstein’s video!). I look forward to printing the rest out and working with my son as we get him ready for pre-school this fall.
Two drawbacks I noted: Once you print the pages (and they do use a LOT of color ink), you can’t re-use them. So instead of spending a fortune on printer ink, I think I’ll invest in some page protectors and see if I can find some colors or pens that can be wiped off - any ideas out there, I’d sure appreciate it.
Second drawback is the True World sections. They have pages for learning words and numbers in Japanese, Spanish, Hawaiian, and French but no pronunciation guides. For me, since my only exposure to another language is high school German, and Dora the Explorer Spanish, I have no idea how to teach my child these words correctly. True Learning would do well to include such a guide.
All and all, a great value for the money. And you can feel good about your purchase since True Learning donates 25% of profits, after taxes, to educational and charitable efforts directed toward children.
THUMBS UP TRUE LEARNING!
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By Michelle
True Learning is an excellent online, educational website. They have downloadable activities and exercises for kids age 3-6. I’m impressed that these activities are more than just “reading and math!” Categories are math, literacy, thinking, motor skills, art, and world. Each category has 4 levels of progression so you go at your own child’s pace. My 3.5 yr old daughter loves letters so the literacy one is a fun one for her. I know we’ll be using this a lot over the summer!
There is also a discussion board on the website which I think would be a great tool to utilize; however it doesn’t appear to be very active. The last post in the Parent-to-Parent board was Nov 2006. If there were more participation in the forum I think this would make the website even better.
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And I tried it too, but from a teacher’s perspective since my one year old isn’t quite there yet. I loved it! I completely agree with all of the above praise and don’t need to try to come up with a different way to say it than they did. I’ll just say that if you have a preschool aged child, this is an amazing site and it’s well worth the $88 for the year (and as a techie family, we don’t take paying for anything online lightly when it’s not going to arrive in a box on my doorstep so that’s a compliment!). All of the units are made up of pdf files that are not just printable but savable so you can do them over and over again.
It would also be great for a kindergarten child who’s academically weak and needs a little extra focussed work. I’d highly recommend it as an early home schooling resource as well. Awesome!
Check it out! And don’t forget to go to the free blog too!
With a large family scattered across the globe, one of the things I’m always looking for are sites that provide a stable, fun and easy way to share pictures and messages across the web. That way I can upload Kiddo’s photos while it’s morning here and his grandparents can see them as soon as they wake up on the other side of the globe! But there are a lot of cons associated with these types of sites, one of the main being the lack of privacy.
When we were given the opportunity to review 
