Direct Instruction materials By Mary jane

With the advent of NCLB, I am having to look at additional instructional materials to be used in conjunction with my main curriculum. Since I am stretched about as far as I can be stretched, I have been diligently looking for computer software to help fill in the gaps.

I found a sequential reading program called LTK by JWor Company. I think it is great. The kids have to work harder than usual on the computer, so they don't enjoy it very much. I try to get each child on it for 15 minutes 2-5 times a week. It assesses each child's auditory discrimination skills initially, provides a tutorial, allows you to set the starting point, number of repetitions of each lesson, monitors and keeps a record of each child's performance, time on, percentage correct overall and on the subsets of skills within a lesson, requires children to listen and respond by typing a response or verbalizing one using a special microphone. The program gets an occasional hiccup but after 8 mopnths of use it is still reliable 98% of the time. It is expensive but it frees me up to work with groups and provides instructionally important skill development that requireds no prep time for me. I also use the detail print out to help each student become aware of and work on weaknesses. I am looking for an additional software program for reading, parts of speech and math calculation and reasoning if you have any suggestions.