AVKO Membership Review

As part of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I was sent a one year membership to AVKO, the site can be found at www.avko.org. If you live under a rock, as I do, you may not have heard about this organization, but apparently seasoned home school parents are well aware of AVKO.

For those sad rock dwellers, I will enlighten you as to what AVKO is and why you may want to look into becoming a member. On the surface, actually on the website, AVKO is "a non-profit 501 (c) 3 membership organization that focuses on the development and production of materials and especially techniques to teach reading, spelling, handwriting and keyboarding. AVKO is dedicated to teaching everyone how to read and spell regardless of their mild to moderate learning disabilities, dyslexia, poverty or opportunity."

Sounds nice, right? Avko's philosophies and methodologies are "Orton-Gillingham" based ( I really have no idea what that means, but I figured I would include it so you can google it), using a systematic and multi sensory approach to teaching the language arts. AVKO firmly believes that studying and lessons should take place in short frequent sessions; daily reading and writing are important for engaging in the language and becoming fluent.

The AVKO website has a vast amount of information for teachers/ parents who may need guidance/ educational materials for children who are struggling or floundering in the Language Arts subjects. The site has many great resources concerning Dyslexia, and many great books for those of us who need to teach a child that doesn't quite learn within the same parameters as other children. AVKO's spelling lessons are based on a cirruculum called "sequential spelling" (fyi)- Sonlight uses this as their spelling curriculum.

The AVKO site does offer freebies, so if you were not sure you wanted to become a member, you can go check out the site and get a feel for the teaching method used/ materials available. Once you become a member you will have access to over $400 worth of e-books. A basic membership costs $25 per year and includes e-books such as all 10 volumes of the "Patterns of English Spelling" as well as the book "To Teach a Dyslexic". You also receive a 25% discount on all printed AVKO Materials.
The Deluxe Membership is $100 for the year, it includes access to all materials/ benefits of a basic membership as well as read- only access to all AVKO curriculum materials (except for sequential spelling and engaging Language Kits) as well as access to AVKO's newest e-books.

I think becoming a member of AVKO would best suit the needs of a parent who has a child that is struggling to learn Language Arts. This site is a great resource for those who are seeking help teaching in this area. I don't have a child who is struggling in this area at this time, however, I see the value in a site like www.avko.org . As an educator, you want to fill your teaching tool box with as many tools as you can, AVKO provides you those tools. As I said earlier, the site is loaded with information, go check it out, if you think this may be exactly what you need, the membership is worth the price. I don't think there is such a thing as too many good resources.

This has been a TOS Homeschool Crew Review. As a member of the Homeschool Crew, we are given homeschool related items and are asked to write honest reviews. The items are provided to us by the companies, but we are not paid for our reviews.