Educational Freebie: Free Funnix Downloadable Children’s Reading Program ($249 value)

by Crystal on January 05, 2011

I’m excited about this! During the month of January, Funnix is offering their entire Downloadable Children’s Reading Program for free! This is a two-year reading program which usually is priced at $249!

Here are more details from their website:

The program is designed by the world’s most successful creator of instructional materials, Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann, a maverick professor of Education who has authored many books, including Give Your Child a Superior Mind, and highly successful reading programs like Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Engelmann says of Funnix,”Teaching the lessons requires a lot less effort, and the lessons are more entertaining. Also, the program consists of 220 daily lessons, so it takes kids farther than most beginning-reading programs– from being non readers to reading on the third-grade level.”

The free version of Funnix is electronic. You download the entire package of 220 lessons and other material onto your computer, and you have everything you need to teach the program. The steps of what you do and how you do it are spelled out in Teacher’s Guide, which you review before presenting the program. Workbook and textbook activities accompany the lessons. You print these.

Thanks, My Litter!

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{ 43 comments... read them below or add one }

charity January 05, 2011 at 09:44 am

This is wonderful! I have the teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons book and started using it with my daughter when she was 3 and she is now 6 and she is very advanced in her reading….People are always amazed at how well she can read and what she can read….after going thru the whole book she was even reading very well at age 4. I am going to be starting the book again with my next daughter whom is 2 as soon as she turns 3….I found out about it thru the Duggars and it has been a blessing and makes teaching them so easy and fun.
Jenn January 05, 2011 at 09:46 am

Wow!
This is great!
Thanks for passing along!

~Jenn
Andrea January 05, 2011 at 10:09 am

Thanks! I am on my last 3 children for teaching to read and have been in a boredom slump.
April hooper January 05, 2011 at 10:11 am

This is very cool!
Thanks!
Vivian January 05, 2011 at 10:16 am

Thank you so much! I am downloading as I type this. I recently became a stay-at-home mom and I’m gathering materials to start homeschooling the boys!! This is GREAT!
amanda January 05, 2011 at 10:36 am

I’m so glad that this is available…for free! I’m excited to start using this with the kiddos.
Do the children only need to know the letters e,f,m,o,r in order to begin the program?
azra January 05, 2011 at 10:39 am

Hi ,link for first 1-40 lessons i got in email doesn’t work ,please help!
- Michele January 05, 2011 at 02:50 pm
  
  @azra, Mine was just not posted as a link, I just copied and pasted it into the address bar.. or you can just retype it too. It took a while to download though… Just thought you’d wanna know.
- Julie January 06, 2011 at 05:46 pm
  
  @azra, Mine didn’t work, either. Going to go try again…
Lee January 05, 2011 at 10:45 am

Hope this is good! Plan on using it with my 4 almost 5 year old. He did much better than I anticipated this year teaching him kindergarden and is ready to learn to read. I hope he enjoys the program!
Rochelle January 05, 2011 at 10:52 am

This looks great. Thanks!
Rae January 05, 2011 at 11:40 am

This does look great. Thank you for sharing
Kristi January 05, 2011 at 11:58 am

I went through the whole installation process which took about 45 minutes. Now I am getting an alert that says I can’t install it where I specified. I tried selecting several different locations and none are working. Any ideas?
- Cassie January 05, 2011 at 01:07 pm
  
  @Kristi, I had this exact same problem! I hope someone can help!
  - Michele January 05, 2011 at 02:51 pm
    
    @Cassie, I e-mailed and asked if I could put in on a seperate drive, and they said no, It had to be on the computer C drive. Maybe that will help. Also in the e-mail it said to be sure to put the shortcut on the desktop, did u do that?
  - Michele January 05, 2011 at 02:53 pm
    
    @Cassie, They told me it had to be installed on C Drive, so it can access the internet and keep track of your lessons, is that where you put it?
    - Jenny January 06, 2011 at 12:48 am
      
      @Michele, I was having the same trouble. Went back in to look at it further tonight. After re-downloading it again the file is much larger. It worked with the new download just make sure you select the new one when you are installing it.
- Alicia January 05, 2011 at 05:47 pm
  
  @Kristi, If you get this solved, please update here. We are having the same problem.
Becca January 05, 2011 at 12:25 pm

I got the same problem; downloaded the whole thing & said it wasn’t compatible with my computer (I did meet the specificacations they listed).
Anna S. January 05, 2011 at 12:49 pm

Same here- I can’t get this to work. Can anyone help? I downloaded it but it won’t work.
Gretchen January 05, 2011 at 01:17 pm

I am getting the same error message as Becca and Kristi. I did just e-mail them.
Amanda January 05, 2011 at 01:34 pm

This is so cool! I used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with my oldest son when he was 3 1/2 and it worked great (everyone is amazed at how well he reads now). I am downloading this so I can adapt it for my youngest son who just turned three!
Candice January 05, 2011 at 01:47 pm

same error here too
Heather January 05, 2011 at 02:39 pm

WOW!! That 100 Easy Lessons book is amazing, and I’m in the queue for it on PaperBackSwap, so this is wonderful!
Ashley Lauran January 05, 2011 at 04:44 pm

Another great website:

xtramath.org

I use this for teaching and assessing my students at school on math fact fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Thanks,
Ashley Langford
Alicia January 05, 2011 at 04:47 pm

I have plenty of space on my C drive, but when I try to install it says, “Please select another location to extract the installer to:” I’ve tried four different locations all on my C drive and none of them worked. Any help?
- alicia January 05, 2011 at 06:27 pm
  
  @Alicia,
  the email says to put on the desktop…Good luck!! I am downloading all of mine right now…had to put my swag tv on pause so it doesnt slow it down LOL!
Jennifer January 05, 2011 at 07:13 pm

tnx so much
glenda January 05, 2011 at 07:44 pm

For those that are getting the message to select where to intall and then nothing, I don’t think you have it completely downloaded. I tried this first on Monday when it came out and no success (x2) but yesterday I tried again and was able to download the first 2 parts. The size of the files that downloaded were much larger than what I had previously (why I think it was not completely downloaded and would not install). The third time, it installed exactly like the instructions said, etc.

Try downloading again.
- alicia January 05, 2011 at 08:42 pm
  
  @glenda, what is the sizes supposed to be? I have downloaded it twice and they are around 3-400 MB but it is still not letting me save it
Rae January 05, 2011 at 09:40 pm

After sharing this, a friend gave me www.starfall.com (a free website) that I have been playing around with (waiting for the download to work… I’ll try again tomorrow) and it is really neat. My 2 1/2 year old is loving copying the letters, sounds, and words
- Crystal January 05, 2011 at 09:40 pm
  
  We love Starfall at our house!
- Esther a homeschool momma in Mid-Michigan January 07, 2011 at 11:26 am
  
  @Rae,
  Thanks for the Starfall info. My 5 year old son is laughing, loving and learning from this site. If I can’t get all of the Funnix downloaded at least we have a back-up site too:)
Esther a homeschool momma in Mid-Michigan January 06, 2011 at 06:58 am

Iwasn’t able to download the first link for lessons 1-40 yet, but have had success for all the other downloads
I just tried the link for lessons 1-40 again and have gotten to the point where it says to: “Please select another location to extract the installer to:”
When I select the C drive, nothing happens
I’ll keep trying throughout the day, all I need is to download the first 40 lessons.
Flamingo January 06, 2011 at 09:46 am

I’m so glad that it’s not just me! I am going to try some of the other links now. I turned off my antivirus because I thought that might be the problem. If I can’t get it to work by the end of the day, I’m going to give them a call. If they can help me out, I will do a promo for them on my blogs:)
Jenn January 06, 2011 at 12:56 pm

Anyone else still having trouble downloading? I tried saving to desktop and on C:/ drive, tried downloading in google chrome and int. explorer. I get java errors and all kinds of weird stuff. The first file appears to be 496MB so it appears I got the entire download, but can’t get it to install.
Nicole January 06, 2011 at 02:59 pm

I’m having trouble unzipping the files on my Mac. They seemed to have downloaded fine. Then, they start to unzip, but stop half way through. If anyone can help, I’d appreciate it. I have emailed them, but haven’t received a response yet.
- Nicole January 07, 2011 at 01:48 pm
  
  Well, I downloaded it, and got it unzipped, but now it won’t install.
  
  Has anyone had success installing this on a MAC?
Blaire Ruch January 06, 2011 at 06:11 pm

crystal, thanks so much for posting about this!
we just did the first 5 lessons today – very cool!
she wanted to do more, but we’ll save it for tomorrow.
Rae January 07, 2011 at 05:53 pm

I gave up trying yesterday because after clicking “run” it would not let me install. Tried again today and it went completely smoothly. So anybody else that was having trouble, try again now or tomorrow and it should work better
Jennifer January 08, 2011 at 03:38 pm

The instructions I got from customer service were to “keep trying.” She told me someone tried 28 times to get it to download and then it did. Because the server is jammed, I guess that the entire file is not downloading correctly when it’s too busy. ??? I guess I can keep trying…
Amy January 14, 2011 at 10:25 am

I just successfully downloaded both parts to this program. If at the end the Install Shield does not give you the time bar that shows the download , and just goes immediately to the choose folder option then it has not fully downloaded and you have to keep retrying. When it has downloaded successfully it gives you a 4 part box that you have to keep clicking next on. It took me about 8 trys to get part 2 done. Try it at an off time of day when people are not normally downloading. It looks like a really cute program. I am excited to try it.
Amanda January 18, 2011 at 01:01 pm

I wanted to post here because it comes up first when you search for “trouble installing funnix”
Perhaps my experience may help others? I am wondering if something to do with your ISP or service provider could be preventing successful downloads. I tried to d/l and install multiple times on two different computers, one running Vista and one running XP, both with plenty of space. I tried everything suggested over and over again and got nowhere. Then I called my moms boyfriend who is an IT guy and runs servers and such from his house and he applied for the software and installed it on the first try. I brought my laptop to his house and he was able to install it on my laptop on the first try as well after having changed NOTHING but the physical location of where were were trying to upload and the speed of the upload. Rob is running a T1 line rather than DSL.
So if you are still having problems and you can somehow access a T1 line or a least faster internet than your usual that might possibly be the secret to installation.