My Reading Tutor is a Nintendo DS game that’s designed to help children sharpen their reading skills. The game succeeds in making an educational subject fun with a combination of interactive books, word games and quizzes.

Players will need to hold their DS sideways, like a book, with the touchscreen on the right hand side.  The game offers a few different playmodes called Learning Track, Paint, Games and Books, but the Learning Track is the main mode and needs to be played in order to unlock all the other options.

On Learning Track, players will progress one at a time through lesson plans such as Consonants, Short Vowels and Crazy R’s.  Activities must be completed in order, and range from tapping on the correct word that has been spoken, choosing a rhyming word, or taking a quiz based on an interactive book that you just completed.  There’s a great variety of activities that need to be completed, and it never ends up feeling like you’re doing the exact same thing twice.

Once an activity is completed in learning track, it unlocks the appropriate game in the Paint, Games or Books mode.   Games are divided into three categories: Phonics, Spelling and Sight Words.  We particular enjoyed the Spelling game, in which players are given all the right letters to spell a word, but must arrange them into the proper order.

The game’s Book mode consist of very simple interactive stories, in which players can have the narrator reach page to them, choose to click on each word to hear it pronounced, or read at their own pace without any assistance from the game.  In all, there are 14 different books that will be available to players once they’ve unlocked everything via the learning track, with titles like “Animal Patterns” or “Tom Cat’s Day.”

The Paint mode is an interesting inclusion for My Reading Tutor.  It allows players to select one of the interactive Books they’ve unlocked, and while it is being read let’s players draw simple lines or “spray point” on the book’s background, as the book is read to them over and over.  It’s a very basic paint program, but perfect for younger kids.

With all the reading and pronunciation, listening is key part of My Reading Tutor, so players will need to make sure they are using headphones or in an area where they can clearly hear what the game is saying to them.

Even though there is a strong emphasis on the spoken word, and the game’s Paint mode will appeal to younger kids, it’s important to note that although listening key, there’s also reading involved, so using this as a way to introduce kids to reading is not recommended as that’s not what this game was designed for.

My Reading Tutor is a great game for kids and tweens who possess at least some basic reading skills, and are ready for some simple word play.  The game offers some interesting interactive wordplay, but you’ll need to make sure that it’s being played in a place where your kids can clearly hear.  There’s no real way to play this one together, but the game does include a parental mode which lets grown-ups look at the time spent and mastery level of each game.  Parents should also be aware that this is not a game that should be used to teach younger kids or toddlers or read.

INFORMATION FROM COMPANY FACT SHEET
My Reading Tutor is a fun to play, comprehensive, scientifically-based tutoring program that teaches children to read through a scientifically-based methodology of guidelines from the National Reading Panel. My Reading Tutor has four fundamental strengths that make it perfect for the task of teaching children to read: proven effectiveness, individualized instruction, engaging interaction and the intimacy of one on one instruction..

Key Features
My Reading Tutor is a culmination of more that six years of research and testing in reading, pedagogy, and literacy.
? 14 Complete Story Books to read and reinforce skills
? Fun interactive puzzles and games to enhance learning
? Establish reading comprehension skills
? Parent mode to track success and progress
? One to One personalized instruction
Proven Effectiveness
? Six years and $6 million of research and development were invested at the University of Colorado to create the proprietary Foundations to Literacy software that My Reading Tutor is based on.
? The proprietary software used in My Reading Tutor has been tested and proven effective with over 2500 students.
? In early studies students on average showed a 50% GAIN in reading scores vs. students who did not use the software.
Parent Mode
? Parents can see Unit Progress, Book information, and the player’s practice and time spent in the games and skills areas. For the games, it shows the amount of time played, mastery level for each kind of phonics game. For books, it shows how often a player has opened the book and how long each player has spent reading. This information will help you get to know your child’s preferences and abilities, and to further guide them.
The Tutor
? With the help of Mentor InterActive’s proprietary virtual tutor, your child will conquer early reading through individualized, adaptive learning exercises and interactive books—all while having fun on the Nintendo DS! During tutoring tasks, she gives hints and explanations to help children to solve puzzles, and to help them practice reading, spelling, and comprehension. She helps children learn to recognize words, to read fluently, and to understand what they read, providing engaging practice with individualized support and focused hints. Your child’s Tutor pronounces words distinctly. By using a recorded voice rather than synthetic speech,we have produced a more natural and effective user experience that benefits from the range and communication abilities of the human voice. When the Tutor reads a story to your child, she narrates with inflection and emotional content characteristic of fluent reading.