A spine you can teach from, not another pile of activities.
Most "educational websites" hand you a library and leave the sequencing to you. Ladderbug is the sequence. You can run it as your whole reading and math programme, or use it as the daily practice layer under whatever curriculum you already love.
What you get
- An explicit scope and sequence for phonics and for K–5 mathematics, visible on one page, so you always know what comes next and why.
- Placement without a test. The ladder opens rungs as prerequisites are met. A child who already reads lands high; a child with gaps gets them filled without being told they are behind.
- Records you can actually file. Field Notes exports as JSON and prints as a one-page mastery record with dates and standards codes — useful in states that ask for a portfolio.
- Flat pricing for six children. No per-child surcharge, no per-subject surcharge.
- Secular throughout. No religious content and no anti-religious content. Just phonics and arithmetic.
- Offline. Once loaded, it runs with no connection — useful on the road, in a co-op basement, or on rural bandwidth.
How a week looks
Four days, twelve minutes each, is the target. That is enough because the practice is dense: about sixty responses per session, roughly a third new, a third recent, a third spaced review. It is not enough to be your child's entire education, and it is not meant to be — the completion screen sends them off the screen with something to do, and the Field Notes page gives you a question to ask at dinner.
Where it fits with what you already use
It sits well underneath a literature-rich or Charlotte Mason-style programme, because it handles the mechanical, drill-shaped part that living books are not for. It duplicates a lot of what an explicit phonics programme like a boxed Orton-Gillingham curriculum does — if you are already running one faithfully, use Ladderbug for the review and fluency layer rather than the instruction.
Honest advice about the alternatives
Starfall is genuinely lovely for a three- or four-year-old and costs $35 a year. If your child is pre-reading and you want gentle exposure, start there and come to us when they need a sequence. Longer comparison.
Khan Academy Kids is free, well made and completely ad-free. Its limits are that it is app-only with no web version, and that it is a library rather than a mastery sequence.
Beast Academy is the best elementary mathematics on the market if your child finds maths easy and enjoys puzzles. It is a poor fit if they are struggling; we are the opposite trade.
Time4Learning is a full graded curriculum with attendance records, which is what you want if your state requires them and you want one vendor for everything. It costs $39.95 per student per month and its review scores are poor; go in with eyes open.
IXL has the strongest analytics in the category and the widest standards coverage. It also generates a lot of parent complaints about relentlessness and thin instruction at the moment of failure. If your child is resilient and you want data, it is a reasonable buy.
Try before anything
Every skill on this site has its own free page with a playable game and no sign-up. Start with the phonics pages or the math pages and see how your child responds before you think about paying anyone, including us.