Express Readers Homeschool Kit Review

Alright moms, I’ve spent the last few weeks working on an Express Readers Homeschool Kit review and I am incredibly excited to share it with you. I’ve had my eye on these kits for quite some time – we have a new addition to our family as of recently – a foster child whom we absolutely adore (and hope to adopt…but more on that another time). We have been struggling for the last few months trying to get him to love reading as much as our other kids do, and honestly, it’s been a struggle. Not just for him, but for me as a mom. I hate seeing him cry when he can’t figure out a word on his own, or when his brothers and sister can read books aloud and he can’t. It’s heartbreaking.

When we had the opportunity to review this program, I jumped for joy. I wanted to know if the Express Readers Homeschool Kit could help my DS as much as I had hoped. Parents, it didn’t disappoint! We received the Express Readers Homeschool Kit, Steps 1-5 (the complete set). I was so stunned by the quality and the amount of product that arrived in my mailbox. It must have cost Elise (the author) $100 to send the entire kit. It was heavy and such high quality. My DS and I opened the box together as he knew it was coming for him. I watched his eyes light up as each piece came out of the box. There were workbooks, small readers (books), daily lessons & activities, games, an alphabet card, and so much more. Honestly, it seemed overwhelming to me when we first started looking through things. He was excited, and I was a bit scared. What did I get myself into?

That feeling lasted about 2 hours, until the kiddos were in bed and I had a chance to read through the Parent guidebook. It’s a large binder full of great information for the parent to help them get started and not feel overwhelmed. It starts off with a letter from Elise. It’s beautiful, and really sweet. It gave me a ton of confidence that what I was doing was not only needed by my child, but that I could do this. It gave helpful hints that I really appreciated.

There are 5 steps in the Express Readers Homeschool Kit (2 school years worth of Reading & Phonics materials)!

Step 1: CVC words & short vowels

Step 2: Blends (beginning & ending) & short vowels

Step 3: Digraphs (ch,sh,th,tch), short vowels, -nk,-ng, and 2 syllable words (with short vowels)

Step 4: “sneaky e” (CVCe), long vowels, and soft c

Step 5: Vowel teams (ai, ee, ea, oa, ui) & long vowels

What I love about the Express Readers Homeschool Kit is that Elise provides 65 days of planned lessons. Thank heavens! It is a huge pet peeve when curriculum doesn’t come with at least some sort of plan to help me get started. Each day doesn’t take more than 30-40 minutes – depending on how much you decide to do. 15-20 minutes for letter sound activities, another 5-10 minutes from the practice pages, and another 5-10 minutes for letter formation activities.

After 3 weeks with the program, my DS was begging me to read the stories and play the games. Is it a miracle product? It definitely is for our family. I was almost in tears seeing him pick up a book and be able to sound out the words so proudly.

Honestly, this program revives the imagination of a child by using engaging characters and funny stories, it places an emphasis on games, activities & movement, and the kids have ownership of their learning. The small books fit perfectly in the hands of children and they feel like this product is made for them. 

So here is what is included in the ENTIRE Express Readers Homeschool Kit (2 school years of Reading and Phonics material):

• 4 Workbooks (almost 1000 pages)
• 34 Express Readers color books
• Teacher’s Guidebook, Homeschool Edition, Steps 1-5 (almost 600 pages of extra activities, daily lesson plans, assessments and explanations)
• 3 games (close to 500 pieces, picture cards, word cards)
• 1 alphabet card
• 5 Step themes
• Sticky Word display cards, Steps 1-5

Not sure what steps or program your child needs? This might help:

Here are some photos of the worksheets and the books that are included in the kit:

In addition to having the opportunity to review the Express Readers Homeschool Curriculum with steps 1-5, we also reviewed the “I am Ready” program. This program is for kids in TK (transitional kindergarten). It was an equally impressive program and one that I would highly recommend for any beginning reader. Again, Elise hit it out of the park by being so thorough. Your child will fall in love with at least one section of this program, if not all of them. My DS was remedial, so we used this program before we moved into Steps 1-5 and it really helped as a refresher course. It built up his confidence a ton and made it easier to go into the full homeschool program a few weeks later. The “I Am Ready” Program is based on language acquisition, letter and sound exposure, pre-reading skills and a variety of activities that promote a real world understanding of basic phonics.  Play, imagination and movement are integral parts of the program.  This material was created to prepare learners to begin reading, yet the product includes CVC words and some content similar to Step 1 for those students who require further progression.

Each child has their own Practice Pages and these cover skills such as listening, phonemic awareness, rhyming, and sound recognition.

Learn more about the Express Readers Homeschool Kit here: http://www.expressreaders.org/ and click here for free downloads.

Did you like the Express Readers Homeschool Kit Review? Check out our other reviews here: https://howtohomeschool.com/curriculum-reviews