I absolutely love writing reviews with the Homeschool Review Crew!  I especially love getting new and educational books for the kids to read.  I am so excited to share with you about four new books I received, brought to you by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com.

The books are:

• If You Were Me and Lived in… Elizabethan England (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 3)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…the American West (Volume 7)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…the Middle Ages (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 6)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 1)

About the Books:

Carole P. Roman actually has eight books out in the “If You Were Me and Lived in…” series!  We were just given 4 of these to check out.  The 8 titles in the series are

• If You Were Me and Lived in…Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 1)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Renaissance Italy (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 2)
• If You Were Me and Lived in… Elizabethan England (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 3)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4) 
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Ancient China: The Han Dynasty
• If You Were Me and Lived in…the Middle Ages (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 6)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…the American West (Volume 7)
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Viking Europe

Each of the books discusses about life in the time and place of the title.

My Thoughts:

These books turned out to be really educational for our family and now my kids are wanting to learn more about these times.  I think that these books would be the perfect addition to any history curriculum.  We will be checking out the other books as we continue our studies through history.

For More Information:

For more information, you can check out Awaywegomedia.com.  You can also find more on Facebook, Pinterest, Good Reads, and Twitter.

About the Product:

Ultimate Phonics Reading Program is a downloadable software program that helps people of all ages become better readers.  It’s not just for kids!

You can watch the Ultimate Phonics Quick Demo video below to see firsthand what Spencer Learning offers.

The program has over 7,000 pages divided into 262 lessons!  That’s a lot of information!

There are six types of pages:

1) Pattern pages
2) Idea pages
3) Word List pages
4) Word pages
5) Sight Word pages
6) Sentence pages

The pages in a lesson are organized into four parts:

1) A Pattern or Idea page
2) A set of Word List pages
3) A set of Word pages
4) A set of Sentence pages

You can try out a week of Ultimate Phonics Reading Program for free and can find that information on their website.  Once you decide on buying the full version, you will be able to install the program on every computer in your home.  It also can be used with every person in the house!  Just a one time cost.

To find out if your child would benefit from this program, you can check out their Ultimate Phonics Reading Test.

To download the program, you must be running Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP; or for Macs, OSX 10.5.8 or higher.

Our Thoughts:

We have been using the Ultimate Phonics Reading Program with my 7 year old over the last few weeks.  She is my most struggling reader right now.  In hind sight, I think I should have went ahead and started it with my 9 year old as well, just to get better at phonics decoding skills.  I plan to start that today.

Honestly, my 7 year old wasn’t a fan of the program at first.  She found it slow and boring, however after some encouragement, she doesn’t mind as much.  I’m seeing that her reading IS improving just after these few weeks of working on the program.  If you are looking for something cartoonish and exciting, this is not that program.  However, if you want something that is more serious and will actually help your child with phonics, this is what you want.

I am super thrilled that the purchase is a one time purchase.  This is fantastic news for large(r) families that would like several students to use the program.  The only improvement that I would like to see them make is an app for iPad or Android so that we could take the lessons with us.  We can take our laptop with us to do lessons on the go, and since it’s a downloaded program, we do not have to have the internet in order to use it.  That’s definitely a plus.

I will be continuing this program with my children and I’m thankful that I was able to learn more about such a wonderful phonics program.

For More Information:

For more information on Ultimate Phonics Reading Program, you can visit Spencer Learning’s website or check them out on Facebook or Twitter.

You can also check out reviews by other members of the Homeschool Review Crew on this product and others by clicking the banner below.

I’ve been reading The Pray-ers / Book 1 Troubles, written by Mark S. Mirza and published by CTM Publishing Atlanta, over the past couple weeks as part of the Homeschool Review Crew.  The book sounded intriguing so I was eager to read it.

About the Author:

The author, Mark S. Mirza, led the men’s prayer ministry for Dr. Charles Stanley at First Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.  Through his website, he desires to help teach men how to start prayer groups.

About the Book:

The Pray-ers is a fictional book Through the book, author Mark S. Mirza shows the depth of the prayer lives of three different people in different eras.  It covers the First Century, 19th Century, and Current Day.  The people followed through the book are Epaphras (from the Bible), a track coach from UGA, and a pastor.  The Pray-ers shows the dynamics of what may be happening in the spiritual realm between demons and angels that humans can’t see and how prayer relates to circumstances.

My Thoughts:

Overall, I enjoyed the read, but it was quite hard to follow.  Bouncing back and forth between characters in the beginning was difficult trying to remember which one was doing what and to not get them confused.

The other thing that I wanted to point out is that the book starts out very slow.  It drags and was almost painful to read, but as the book progressed, I enjoyed it more.

Throughout The Pray-ers, different Bible verses were worked into the dialog.  I appreciated how the scripture references were noted at the bottom of the pages throughout so I could look back in my Bible to see the full verse.

It’s also important to note that this is not a children’s book, so I wouldn’t recommend allowing your children to read it until they are young adults due to some of the topics discussed throughout.

One thing I noticed off the bat is that the book needs further editing.  I noticed several typos that need to be addressed in future versions.

As a final note, I wasn’t able to finish the book before I writing this review, but I do plan to finish it.  I’m about halfway through.  It’s a pretty heavy read so it’s something that I try to read after the kids are in bed so I can focus.  Definitely not a light read, but it really made me think and I appreciate that.

For More Information:

For more information or to order, you can visit their website.  You can also find more information on Facebook and Twitter.

You can also see more reviews on this book and more by clicking the banner below.