Talking Fingers Wordy Qwerty Review

Wordy Qwerty - Foundations for Reading and Writing Fluency is an award winning software program from Talking Fingers, Inc. for children ages 7-9 yeas old.  Wordy Qwerty has 20 lessons with 6 activities per lesson.  Each lesson teaches a foundational rule of spelling.  To see a list of all the spelling rules covered, click HERE.  In each lesson the spelling rule that is introduced is then used in 6 different activities.  These activities also include lessons in dictation, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency.

Midi, the musician, and Qwerty, the word coach, work with your child through each lesson.  They need your child's help to build their machine that will play music.  Wordy Qwerty uses games, songs, rhymes and storytelling in order to engage your child.  When your child completes the 6 activities in each lesson successfully, he is rewarded with a "sphere" that is needed to unlock Midi's music machine.  The six different activities provide not only variety, but focused practice for the spelling rule for that lesson.

 

1.  Patterns - In this activity, your child will sort a list of words into two categories.  Here they will begin to notice a pattern for the spelling rule being taught.

2.  Karaoke - Here your child will learn a catchy rhyming song that teaches them the spelling rule for that lesson.  They can read and sing along. 

3.  Recycler - In this game, your child will choose the correctly spelled word and the non-selected word goes into the recycler and is "vacuumed" away.  This game helps teach real words from non-real words.

4.  Pop-a-Word - In this arcade style game, your child will find the words from a 4 word phrase by popping the balloons.  This will help improve his speedy recognition of words that belong and distinguish them from "outlaw" words.

5.  Write Stories - This activity presents your child with an 8 line rhyme which uses the spelling rule for that lesson.  After hearing and seeing the first line, your child will type the second line after it is dictated.  This activity is wonderful for improving listening skills, typing skills and spelling skills.

6.  Read Stories - These short stories are fun and engaging!  Your child will fill in the blanks as he reads along.  Of course, those words involve the spelling rule taught in that lesson.

Here is a 6 minute video which will take you on a tour of Wordy Qwerty. 

Wordy Qwerty may be purchased for 1-5 users.  Prices start at $25.  This gives you a 5 year subscription!  Click HERE to order and/or review all the options and prices available depending on the number of users you will have.  If you are like me and you like to save money, click HERE to save 20% off your order.  Wow!

If you have younger students, be sure to check out Read, Write, and Type! Learning System which is designed for K-3 students.  This is the first program from Talking Fingers, Inc. and will prepare your younger children for Wordy Qwerty.  If you aren't convinced yet that Wordy Qwerty is a unique and fun learning program and that your child will love it, click HERE for a FREE Demo usage of the first lesson.

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Finally....let me share with you a little bit about our experience with Wordy Qwerty.  My son is 11 years old so he is a bit out of the target age range for this program.  Still, he did try it and completed the first 3 lessons.  Here is his opinion:

"Wordy Qwerty is pretty cool.  It was kind of easy for me, but I think it would be good for a kid that was about age 8.  I liked that there were different things to do and one of my favorites was the stories because one of them sounded just like a book I read called Eragon.  I got bored, but I think it was because it was easy for me.  If I were younger I think I would like it a lot more.  I think my cousin would really like it.  He will be 8 in October"

Since Matthew is 11, I thought I would try Wordy Qwerty out on a couple of our younger friends.  Lukas, age 6 tried it.  It was much too challenging for him.  I think Read, Write, and Type!  would have been a better fit for him.  Molly, age 7 tried it.  She loved it and it had just enough challenge for her where it wasn't too frustrating.  She really liked the rhyming songs in particular.

There were only a couple of aspects of the program that we didn't like.  There were times when we wished we could skip over the songs.  I realize that they are a valuable aspect of the learning process, however, some children may not like this part.  Matthew found them annoying and would turn off the volume when they came on.  He even walked away a couple of times until it was over.  Also, we had an issue with our computer freezing up when the program would begin.  It was random, but happened pretty regularly.   Tech support couldn't pinpoint why this was happening.  I have a pretty new computer and I don't experience that with any other program I have.  It was more of annoyance then anything and wouldn't have deterred me from using the program if it suited Matthew better.

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I think Wordy Qwerty is perfectly suited for ages 7-9.  The child using it definitely needs to have a basic foundation of reading, spelling and typing skills.  The activities, graphics and audio are engaging and fun.  The price is reasonable, especially considering it is a 5 year subscription.  Your child will be able to replay any lesson as often as he wants.  So, it would even be great to complete the program, wait a short amount of time and return to replay it again to be sure the concepts have been retained.

Any products reviewed by me as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew have been given to me free of charge in order for me to provide you with an honest review of the product and/or how we used the product within our family.  I do not receive any other form of compensation for the reviews posted on this blog.