TOS Review - Ooka Island

K... HOLD YOUR BREATH... you're going to be absolutely shocked with this one!

I have been told to look for computer based programs that would help my daughter with her learning... and I've been okay with that... Whatever helps things make sense to her is worth a gander in my opinion! However, as you've no doubt read in the past, the programs that I have come in contact with have come up pretty short for me. Because of this I have had ZERO interest in messing around with anymore and when Ooka Island came up I was crossing my fingers and toes that I wouldn't have to do anything with it! Lucky for me Heavenly Father knows me better than myself and made sure I made the review list for it... even though I made it very known that I didn't want it AT ALL!!

Well, guess what? OOKA ISLAND IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Not only have I been incredibly impressed with the program, my husband has too, my daughter has learned A TON, and my little boys sit next to her and have been picking up reading and phonics skills just by being there. We WILL be buying this program once our current subscription is over and we will absolutely have accounts for all the little guys.

Back to the beginning.... I was picked for this review, so once I got the link to get the program I went ahead and downloaded it to my desktop (it was a pretty big file, probably took 45 mins to and hour to download completely). After it was installed I had Nathan open it up and try out the first thing that came up, which was following 'Zobot' through a mountain cave and listening for the right sound... which when you hear it you click and a bar blocking your way gets lifted. We were both pretty impressed and could see how this would be nice for our daughter to play with... and we could see it as a good way to increase her skills with a mouse as well.

The following day I had my daughter sit at the computer and she just took off! The instructions are easy for her to understand as she's guided through a 20 minute lesson and then about a 10 minute playtime where they earn books. While there is a place that you can go and "buy" things during free time, I like that it isn't really pushed in this game. Instead, my daughter just follows the lesson, reads books and answers questions about them, and chooses additional "games" she wants to play. All the while she's seeing letters and connecting them with their sounds, building her ability to see and put the alphabet in order, and putting together simple words. I LOVE THIS PRODUCT. The difference in my daughters abilities as far as written language is concerned has increased significantly! Not only does she love to sit and work on this program but she's actually GETTING IT. And like I mentioned, her little brothers are sitting and making sounds/reading letters right next to her. It's amazing! Nathan thinks that they'll start reading even before our oldest because of all the exposure that they're getting.

The graphics on this program are also really well done and in 3D! Ooka Island is done up in beautiful bold colors (which probably also add to my daughters ability to focus on what's happening), and the people/robots/etc. are fun to look at. I also really like the voices and sounds that are used in this program.

Pricing can be found here. Or you can look at this table here:

For us to have access for all our other children learning to read it's only $30 more for an entire year, love that! We put another copy of the program onto our laptop so that during our upcoming move the children (minus the oldest) can "work" on their reading/phonics during the time that we don't have access to our other curriculums. And that's fine by me! If this is all they do as well as have time to sit and listen to a chapter book, I'd say the next few months will be an absolute success!

Right now you can also get an additional 30% off of a monthly subscription if you'd like to give Ooka Island a try:



To find out what other crew members are saying about Ooka Island you can go here.

*As a member of the 2011 TOS Homeschool Crew I was provided a free copy of this product in exchange for my honest review of its content. I have not received any other compensation for the opinions stated here, and they were not promised a positive review.**