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AVKO (TOS Crew Review)

As a current member of this year's The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I have gotten some really interesting things to review. There are gobs of homeschooling and supplemental materials and resources out there to be had that I didn't even know about! AVKO is one of them.

AVKO (which stands for audio, visual, kinesthetic, oral) Educational Research Foundation was created with the intention of helping dyslexics learn to read, write, and spell using a multi-sensory teaching style. You can read more about their philosophy here.

For the purposes of this review, I was provided with the online membership, and it is the benefits of that membership (which generally costs $25) that I am reviewing.

The membership to AVKO comes with free downloads, articles, supplemental materials for their Sequential Spelling program, discounts on printed materials, and much more. While it may be an amazing deal for many homeschooling families, I was too overwhelmed by the website to get much use from it. There was so much information about learning styles and dyslexia, but we don't suffer from those problems at this stage of the game. There were downloadable PDF files, MP3's, and diagnostic aides, but we didn't need most of it.

Unfortunately, the stuff I did print out either went over my head or required too much time and focus to make use of it. We have a very laid-back attitude toward schooling, and I am not motivated to spend hours researching something that we don't currently have an interest in. The website itself was also very cluttered and time-consuming to navigate, with quite a bit of fluff that was unnecessary (and often off-color). All of which is a drawback for me. For a family looking to get some real help with learning difficulties like dyslexia, this is probably well worth the money. For us, though, it wasn't really useful.

To see what my fellow TOS Crew Members had to say, as well as read more about the AVKO membership, click here.

* As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's Homeschool Crew, I was given a complimentary subscription to the AVKO website with the understanding that I would use and review the product. This is my honest review of that membership. No other compensation was provided.

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