Developing Critical Thinking Skills For Effective Reading
Grammar Fitness
Reading Shape-Up
Vocabulary Stretch
Paragraph Punch
Basic Algebra Shape-Up

Merit Software carries a wide variety of educational software for all ages. I was able to look at a few of their newer products and found that, although they seem old-fashioned at first, the skills taught are valuable and straightforward.

These are not the type of programs that your kids will gravitate to independently. They are the type that a teacher, or mom will assign a child to work on. I have two kids in this age group currently. While not jumping up and down at the opportunity, they found them interesting, and painless. I appreciated the fact that you can work on them for short periods of time. Some programs make you continue for a long period of time before seeing any progress, or before being able to quit. Your students can move between programs (with your help) and can work for brief periods of time that meet their attention spans.

These are great programs to supplement other more interesting work, or to help a student who needs a bit of catch up or review. Do not be surprised when you first turn on one of the Merit programs to see older graphics. I was quite taken back at first, but came to terms with this once in the program. Each program has multiple skill levels, dealing with several subjects. You can have your student take a pre-test, which is highly recommended. They then work on individual skills for that unit, and are tested on them in the "final." Each program tracks multiple students.

Critical Thinking Skills for Effective Reading:

This program presents paragraphs for your student to read. They then answer questions regarding meaning of words and phrases. They will be asked to find replacement sentences, additional relevant sentences and more. I found this more interesting than the usual "read the paragraph and then tell me about it" questions often seen with reading comprehension programs. The questions make you think a little bit more. This is a particularlly good program for a student who can read, but has difficulty analyzing complex sentences, or understanding what was read. This program comes in two levels, for grades 5-8 and grades 8-11.

 

Grammar Fitness

In much the same format, your students in grades 6-10 will learn to deal with common grammar problems. These include usage, diction, idioms, grammatical relationships, and punctuation. These are great reviews, as well as skill builders.

 

Reading Shape-Up

Containing 144 passages and 302 questions, this program helps your 3rd grader to 8th grader with basic reading skills such as vocabulary, sequence, main idea, fact-opinion, factual recall and inference. I am currently using this with my 5th grader who is a good reader, but has not mastered the 'behind the scenes' work of reading and vocabulary.

Vocabulary Stretch

This new program is for students in 4th -10th grade. There are 96 activities with 720 questions per set. Your students will get plenty of vocabulary building with this particular program. Questions involve word recognition in various context situations, as well as English word development.

 

Paragraph Punch

This was one of my favorite programs. As a writer, I find it hard to explain to my kids how to do something that comes naturally for me. This program allows your children to choose their own topic, and walks them step-by-step through the writing process. If I could only purchase one in the set it would be this one. I like the way it helps children think through topic sentences, supporting ideas, and paragraph construction. This is a skill that can be rather daunting to teach.

Basic Algebra Shape-Up

This is for the student in 6th -9th grade who needs some review. It does not delve very far into the subject of Algebra. I very much wished the text had been narrated, as some kids have a hard time reading and comprehending the text. Reading a mathematical explanation can be very intimidating for some kids. The step-by-step tutorials walk your child through some very basic Algebra concepts such as, intgers, operations, word problems (I liked this section), rations and a proporations. This program will not "cover" the subject of Algebra, and is meant as a supplement or review of some very basic concepts. Although a good program, I was more impressed with the reading and grammar line of products.

Merit Software has dozens of other programs on varying subjects. Their website is worth checking out at http://www.meritsoftware.com Although the graphical concepts are a bit dry, the academics are solid, and affordable.

Below are screen shots from Grammar Shape-Up, Reading Critically-Non-Fiction and Paragraph Punch.

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