One More Story Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Reading aloud is an important part of our family culture and homeschool philosophy. I have been reading aloud to my children since they were infants. I love the feeling of cuddling up with them and a good book and the connections that encourage. However, they would have me read aloud all day and sometimes I need to be focused on other tasks.

That is why I was super excited to try out the one-year subscription to One More Story. I loved the idea of the computer reading aloud to my children when I could not. We already did audio books, but this was so much more. For young children, the pictures in a book can really help them gain understanding and begin to use their imaginations.

Overview

One More Story is an online program that allows children to select from a wide variety of digital books. Once the child has chosen the book, the computer can read it aloud to them as they turn the digital pages. They can see all of the illustrations and the words on the page.

For really young children you can click on a button to have the pages turn by themselves so they do not even have to click the arrows. This is the setting I used if my three-year-old was using One More Story by himself.

Features

If you have a beginning reader, they can even have a try at reading it for themselves and get help when needed. They simply choose the “I Can Read” button at the beginning of the book. Then it allows them to flip the pages without the book being read aloud. If they come to a word they do not know, they can simply click on the word and it will be read aloud.

There is also a button at the beginning of each book for vocabulary. When you click on the vocabulary button, it takes you to a page with a list of words from the book that students might have difficulty understanding. Then they can click on any of those words to hear a definition and hear the word used in a sentence.

One More Story is available on a desktop or also an iOS app. We used it on our laptops and as a website on my son’s kindle. I found it to be great on the laptop but a little glitchy on the kindle. He still really enjoyed it, but would sometimes have to close out and reload the website to get it to work on the kindle.

Our Thoughts

When we first logged into the program, one of the first things that caught my eye was how big the selection of books is. There are almost 90 books to choose from. I found this to be a great variety, especially considering that young children often like to listen to the same story multiple times. It gives them plenty of different options.

Some of the books were ones that I had never seen before, however, there were also a lot of familiar favorites. The selection even included Stellaluna by Janell Cannon and The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats which I love.

Conclusions

Overall, we really enjoyed One More Story. I do not think that it replaces the closeness and connection of cuddling up and reading a good book together with your children. However, I think it is a great program to get in a little more reading or help out a new reader. I loved being able to sit my younger boys (ages 3 and 7) down with One More Story instead of television time while I fixed dinner or finished up a project.

If you have children ages toddler through elementary school this could be a great program. It is an easy way to include more read aloud time, work on vocabulary, and learn some important pre-reading skills. It is also lots of fun. Both of my boys enjoyed it and asked to do One More Story on a regular basis.

Don’t forget to click on the graphic below to find out what the other Review Crew members thought about One More Story.