One Minute Reader Review – Research Based Reading Intervention Program

Do you have a struggling reader? As a homeschooling mom, I’ve always felt that my biggest hurdle is to get our children to become accomplished readers. Not only do I need to teach them how to read, I also want them to develop confidence about their skillset. Because once a child has efficiently learned the skill of reading, an entire world of opportunities are opened up to them and the possibilities are endless. Thankfully, I’ve already managed this with our four oldest kids and they all LOVE to read as well as are all quite proficient in it. But right now, I’m in the midst of working with 7 year old Lucy on her reading and am thrilled to partner with One Minute Reader for this review.

Before I go on, I do want to note that One Minute Reader is an awesome program for public schooled as well as homeschooled and private schooled children.

Our Summer Reading Goal

My summer goal was to help Lucy become a better reader. While she knew the basics, reading was still a struggle. She wasn’t loving it because her reading was oftentimes too ‘choppy’ for her to comprehend what she had just read. So this summer was going to be spent helping her become a smoother, more confident reader. However, as you may know, summer gets busy and while we’ve been doing some reading practice, it hasn’t been enough. That’s where One Minute Reader swooped in to help save the day.

One Minute Reader: What Exactly Is It?

One Minute Reader is a program for struggling as well as developing readers. It’s a simple, research-based program that gets kids reading. Kids need more than just books to learn how to become skilled readers. They need structured support, motivation, and FUN! That’s why One Minute Reader has designed their program with these aspects in mind.

Created by reading teachers, One Minute Reader helps kids develop fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills while expanding their knowledge and having fun! It’s based on the Science of Reading and is a fully independent and motivating system, perfect for struggling and developing readers of all ages.

Our One Minute Reader Review

We have really been loving One Minute Reader. Lucy (7 years old) and Sam (just turned 10) started the program in July and have been growing their skills in leaps and bounds. By using One Minute Reader, it actually feels like we have a private tutor right in our own home!

While Sam is a pretty good reader, I wanted to have something to compare Lucy’s progress and experience to. So I had both kids try the One Minute Reader program.

To Begin One Minute Reader

When starting with One Minute Reader, they provide an assessment to help know what level your child should start at. As expected, Lucy was slated for the lowest level, which is level E. Sam was placed at the highest level, which is level 5.

One Minute Reader Reading Levels

After getting their level assignments, the kids got to start the program. The first thing the kids do is choose a story and then get started.

Steps At A Glance

1. Cold Read — The reader starts the timer and reads for one minute. A graph displays the reader’s cold-timing score, establishing a baseline for progress monitoring that motivates the student to improve.
2. Read Along — The reader quietly reads along with a recording of the story, typically three times. This helps the reader learn new words and learn proper pronunciation, expression, and phrasing.
3. Read Alone — The reader practices reading the story independently until they can read it accurately and with expression. This helps the student improve fluency, master difficult words, and understand the story.
4. Quiz & Joke Jumble — The reader answers questions about the story. The correct answers to the questions help to solve the book’s Joke Jumble.

After selecting a story, the child ‘cold reads’ for the first time. I really like the fact that if you hover the cursor above a word (or line), it highlights in yellow. This is REALLY great for helping the kids keep their place. During the cold read, if they are struggling on a word, they just click it and One Minute Reader tells them how to pronounce it so they can continue on.

After the cold read, the program shows the child a graph of how many words they read correctly in a minute. This shows the child where they started. Their goal is to improve their words-correct-per-minute score by the time they are done working on the story.

At this point, the program highlights vocabulary words that, once clicked, will read the definition to the child. This has been really helpful, especially for comprehension, and I love this feature.

Once they’ve completed the cold read and learning the definitions, One Minute Reader will read the story, in its entirety, out loud to the child. The child builds fluency by reading along, out loud, with the audio recording. By default, the program has the child reread two additional times in order to become automatic with the words. Parents can adjust these settings depending on their child’s needs. 

After reading along, the child practices reading the story in one-minute increments. The program shows the child how many words they read correctly in a minute. They love to see their improvement from practice to practice! The child practices a minimum of two times, but again, these settings can be adjusted. 

Following their practice, the child is ready for a “hot timing.” The goal is for the hot timing words-correct-per-minute score to be higher than the cold timing score. After completing the hot timing, their graph will show them their progress. This visual proof of progress is super motivating! The kids love to see how much improvement they made.

After each story, there’s a quick quiz. Again, One Minute Reader has really thought out the design as it’s not just any old quiz. Instead, the correct answer will give the kids letters in a clue phrase to help solve a riddle or joke.

Additional Thoughts

Overall, I am SO happy with One Minute Reader! This program is truly working for our kids. I love how I can just remind Lucy to go do her stories for the day and she is able to work independently. I will note that most days I do sit next to her and listen in as she reads, as I like to stay on top of her progress. Because Sam is so advanced, I have him work independently most of the time.

My favorite part of using this program is seeing my kids’ confidence increase as they improve their scores. For a struggling reader like Lucy, this is huge! She is seeing her hard work pay off and is motivated to continue improving on her skills.

Engaging & Affordable

The One Minute Reader program helps the kids stay engaged and the improvements we’re seeing, especially with Lucy, have been wonderful! Plus, the $8 per month fee after the initial free seven day trial is extremely affordable.

One Update I’d Love To See

The only thing I would love to see changed is that to see my child’s progress, there is no report on the parent portal. BUT, with that said, I can log into my child’s account and am able to get progress reports on the ‘Select a Story’ page or the ‘Select a Book’ page when logged in as my reader.

Just look for the small icon on the lower right of the book or story. Click that icon to view the reports. (NOTE: Don’t click the arrows button as the bottom left icon will reset the book or story.). The report will look like this:

Free Trial

If One Minute Reader looks like a good option for your family, sign up today and try One Minute Reader free for seven days. As mentioned above, if you love it and want to continue, it’s just $8 per month. You have nothing to lose and a world of opportunity to gain! I just can’t say enough good things about this program.

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