Summary and Rating: 4. I found the AVKO website interesting. The site has a lot of content. As I was not familiar with AVKO’s main curriculum methods, I felt like I was wading through the English language…I do wish the site was bit more user friendly. However, the site serves its purpose, and I think it is worth the time to poke around and learn about some useful curriculum.(I found the “Where To Start With AVKO Materials Page” helpful).
Don McCabe is the founder of AVKO. This group is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to further literacy among all people (youth to adult), especially those who face issues such as learning disabilities, dyslexia, poverty and lack of opportunity. The website offers numerous teaching aids, such as curriculum, articles, videos and tutoring.
McCabe himself struggled with dyslexia and in his popular book, To Teach a Dyslexic, he talks about “how luck enabled him to learn to read and how his blissful ignorance and stubbornness enabled him to discover an easy, common sense way to teach other dyslexics to read and write.”
In AVKO, McCabe promotes a multi-sensory, common sense approach to reading, spelling, handwriting and keyboarding. In fact, the letters of AVKO stand for Audio (A), Visual (V), Kinesthetic (K), and Oral (O). From what I see on the site, it appears that McCabe also has quite a sense of humor. Some of the practice worksheets have some more adult plays on words! So, while I think this stuff may well work, you may want to review the delivery based on the age of the student.
There is also a membership section. The cost for the membership is $25 per year and you get a lot of goodies, like 25% off printed materials, free e-book curriculum, and access to placement tests among other things. The membership appears to be an excellent value. See below:
- 25% discount on all AVKO printed materials
- Newsletter with freebies, discounts, resources, and promotions
- An amazing amount of free e-books (PDF format)
- The Reading Teacher’s List of Over 5,500 Basic Spelling Words
- The Patterns of English Spelling Volumes 1-10
- To Teach a Dyslexic
- The Teaching of Reading & Spelling: A Continuum from Kindergarten Through College
- The Teaching of Reading & Spelling: Starting at Square One
- Worksheets and templates such as the Sequential Spelling Response Book
- Audio (mp3) of many of Don McCabes workshops
- Access to Pretests and Placement Tests
- Access to the Answer Keys for the Unscramblers and Family Reunion exercises of the Engaging Language Kits
I liked one of their blogs, at http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/avko. It was easier for me to learn about AVCO in small bits of blog posts!! Here is one good post: Take the AVKO Challenge: The Real Extreme Makeover. Do you have a student or child who is a terrible speller? Is s/he reading at a level way below what s/he would be expected to read at? Take the AVKO Challenge — a real extreme makeover!
To see what my TOS crewmates have to say, click here!
A membership to AVKO was provided to me for the purpose of my review. I received no compensation and I have expressed my unbiased opinion on this product.
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