Information & FAQ

No. This is not a subscription; purchases are for licenses based on duration. The license duration is as follows: you have one year from the purchase date to assign a student to an app, and then the student has one year to use the app. Three weeks before a license expires, a notice will be displayed on your teacher dashboard. If you would like to renew, simply purchase another license and assign the student to the app. All data will automatically transfer.

No. All teacher dashboards will include a free working app for any app purchases. This also applies to any PDFs purchased. For example, if you purchased five web-app licenses and assigned them to five students, you will have a working app on your dashboard. You will have access to the app from your dashboard if there is at least one student assigned app that has not expired. All PDFs do not expire and will always be available to you.

You will have one year, from the date of purchase, to assign your licenses to your students. Once assigned, your students' licenses will expire one year from the date of assignment. For example, if you purchased 25 licenses and immediately assigned 5 licenses to 5 students, then those licenses will expire one year from the date you purchased the licenses. If 364 days from your purchase, you assign the remaining 20 to 20 other students, then their expiration date will be one year from that date you assigned them (which will be one year plus the 364 days from the purchase date).

Once the app expires, you can purchase a new license and assign it to the student. All app data for the student will remain intact. If you already have apps available that have not been assigned to a student, you can simply assign those.

Note: The Blast Off to Reading Premium App has been discontinued and has been replaced with the new, improved Blast Off to Reading Web-App. If you are still using the program, please switch over to this new app. Get the app.

To access the "Fun Zone", students must first sign in to their student dashboard. Once signed in, they will find the "Fun Zone" button located in the upper-left corner of the dashboard.

For additional assistance, please refer to the provided PDF, view PDF.

The last page of the PDF includes an image of the student dashboard, with the location of the "Fun Zone" button in the upper-left corner.

Many of our apps collect data as the student does the activities.

To see the progress, go to your Teacher Dashboard, then, under the app, select the button "View All Student-App Info".


Then, find the student from the list, and select the "Show Progress" button.

You will then see an overview of the data, the attempts, the amount answered correctly, wrong, and the percent correct.


You can also see the details, where you will be able to see exactly how your student answered the questions.

If a student is no longer using their web-app, you can assign it to another student. When this is done, they will be able to use the app until it expires. Note that you can only do this three times.

You do not need a separate account for your personal needs. If your role is only as a teacher (not an admin), if you purchase licenses with your account, they will go to your personal account. Your dashboard will keep your roles separate. Also, if you are a teacher who is on a teacher list for multiple schools or institutions, they will all be listed separately on your dashboard (as long as you use the same email for all institutions).

Your school will have one student list which includes all students that you or other teachers from your school entered. This is done so that if a student has more than one teacher, they only have one account. Note that this secure list is for your school only, other schools will not have access to your school's student list. You will build your classroom from this list. Your classroom is not shared with other teachers.

Steps to Submit a Purchase Order

1. Create an Account as Admin: Create an account on our site using your school's email as your username. Select the role "Admin". If you are also a teacher who would use the apps as well as assign apps to other teachers, you should also select "Teacher", you will have two roles. Note that if you are a teacher only purchasing for yourself, you will not be able to purchase with a PO and would not be an "Admin", your role should be "Teacher" only.

2. Get Quote: Once your email is validated, log in. You will see your Admin Dashboard. From the admin menu (under your school's name), select "Get App Quote". Then, for each app you want to purchase, specify the quantities and hit "submit". A quote will be created for you to print out or save.

3. E-mail PO & Quote: To submit a PO, email the Purchase Order along with either a PDF of the quote or the quote ID (top right of the quote) so that we know how to process the order. Click here to email your PO.

4. View Invoice: Once we process your order, the apps will be on your Admin Dashboard, you'll be emailed a notice when this is done. The email you provided for billing, when you created your account, will receive an invoice; the invoice will also be available on your dashboard - select "Invoices" from the left side of the Admin Menu in your Admin Dashboard. From there you can view, print and pay the invoice.

Steps to Assign App Licenses to Teachers

1. Add Teachers to Your School's Teacher List: From your Admin Dashboard, add your teachers to your teacher list. To do this, on your Admin Menu in your Admin Dashboard, select "Teacher List". From there you should add all teachers that you will assign apps to. To do this, simply select the button "Add Teacher to Your List". Note that once you add a teacher, an email will be sent to them with instructions on how to register. Once they register, you will be notified via email so that you will know you can assign apps to them.

2. Assign App Licenses: To assign the apps, go to your Admin Dashboard, and scroll down to the License Table. Next, select the buttons on the right to "Assign or Reassign Teacher". If your teacher's name is not present in the drop down menu, then your teacher has either not yet created an account or used a different email when creating their account. Once you select the teacher, they will see the app on their Teacher Dashboard. And your job is done!

If your institution is in New York State and you have tax exempt status, please email your NYS tax exempt status letter. We will mark your account as sales tax exempt and any purchases made via our site will not include sales tax.

Click here to email your tax exempt letter.

No. All apps or PDFs purchased will also be available, at no charge, to the teacher on the teacher's dashboard. For web-apps that expire after a year, the teacher will be able to access the free app on the dashboard as long as there is at least one student assigned app that has not expired.

You have one year to assign licenses to teachers. Once assigned, the teachers have one year to assign the licenses to students.

No, you only need to enter the teachers to whom you will be assigning licenses. The teachers will add the students. Note that the students added will be in one list for your school. This way one student can have several teachers, which is a common situation.

Our apps will run on any device that uses a browser. This includes tablets, mobile phones, PCs, Macs, and Chromebooks.

Yes, in order to run the apps, you will need to be connected to the internet.

Even though the web apps will scale to the size of a mobile phone, due to the size limitations, we do not recommend that they be used. This, of course, is ultimately up to your preference. Our Arcade games are, however, made to be enjoyed on mobile phones since we want to encourage students to use the coins they've earned on their devices.

Browsers save files in cache so loading will take less time when you open the app in the future. Unfortunately, this can cause problems if the browser is updated, a cached file becomes corrupt, or when a change is made to the web app. Some files may update, while others don't, which can cause the app to not load or, if it does load, it may not operate properly. Your browser needs to be told to do a complete reload (not the same as a refresh). There are a few ways to make your browser reload all web pages.

Sometimes browser settings are set in a way that won't allow our HTML5 apps to open. For troubleshooting Chrome, click here.

Note that Chrome and Edge use the same engine and often act in the same way.

If you followed the recommendations and the apps still won't open, we recommend using the Firefox browser. Get Firefox.

Mobile phones require that the ringer is used as a mute button. To get sound, please make sure your ringer is on and that your device is not muted. If you believe your ringer is on and you're still not getting sound, use headphones. If you're getting sound with headphones, then your device is muted.

If you have multiple apps open, there may not be enough memory to handle the functions of the app. Please close all open apps and then reopen the web app. If it's still not right, turn your device completely off and then turn it back on (you should see a black screen with the Apple logo). If that doesn't work, then you should clear the browser data.

To clear your browser data, first close this site on your browser. Then follow the directions for your browser to clear the cache and website data. If you're using Safari, you can do this by opening Settings, scroll down to find Safari, then you can either click on "Clear History and Website Data", or you can clear the data for our site only by scrolling down to "Advanced" > Website Data > find blastofftolearning.com > swipe left to get the "Delete" button. Finally, reopen this site and then open the webapp.

Once you purchase a program (or any web-app or PDF from this site), it will be available on your dashboard. The apps are web-based, which means that they run from your browser and downloading to your computer is not necessary. Note that you will need to be connected to the internet to run the apps.

If your child has an average or above average IQ, you should first try Blast Off to Reading. If you child is less mature, and/or has learning difficulties (other than dyslexia), you may want to start with the I Can Fly Reading Program. Both programs start with phonemic awareness, however, Blast Off to Reading is faster paced, covers more material (more rules, sounds and some ELA), and is more difficult.

To teach to a classroom, we recommend using the lesson slides for the reading program you're using. You can use a Smart Board, to present the lessons. Then you can use the program's app to review prior lessons using the online flash cards and demonstrate word building, with the new sounds taught, using the letter tiles (also review sounds from previous lessons). Your students should do the exercises from the book with you present. Lastly, your students should do the activities in the web-app (at the end of the lesson, it will tell you which activities to do). When the students are doing their lesson-based activities, that's your time to give attention to those in need. From your teacher dashboard, you can view the students' progress metrics, to see which lessons need more practice and instruct those students to play the activities for those lessons. During this time, you could work with students one-on-one, going over the flash cards and using the letter tiles.

The programs are designed to build up on previous sounds and rules so that a student is not expected to know a sound or rule if it wasn't yet taught. Thus, skipping around is not recommended. If, however, you're only using our programs as a supplement to another program, then skipping around is fine.

The programs address both reading and spelling, since the two do go hand-in-hand. Note that the I Can Fly Reading Program does not emphasize spelling as much as Blast Off to Reading, however, the activities in the I Can Fly Program do contain word building with sounds and a spelling activity. The progress metrics will show the spelling score for the spelling activity.

Once the long vowel rules are taught, then students should begin reading 15 to 20 minutes a day with a proficient reader using our side-by-side method. Read more about our side-by-side method. This is very important as it will provide the bridge from decoding to fluency.

The OG approach can benefit any student learning to read. Students who are not dyslexic who use the OG approach will be better decoders and spellers. This is because they will be taught all sounds and rules and will be able to decode words that they've never heard before. The OG approach isn't just phonics, it's a combination of phonics mixed with rules and exceptions, and it's taught in a systematic, cumulative manner with a lot of review. Read more about the Orton-Gillingham approach.

Before a student becomes fluent in reading, they must first learn to decode words. When they have aquired enough decoding skills to read (usually after they learn the long vowel rules in our reading programs) they can begin to read books. This is what will bridge the gap from decoding to fluency. Read more about our side-by-side method.

In 2016, when our apps were first made available, we were able to offer our reading program apps as a courtesy by subsidizing the cost with the sales from the books. In 2023, printing costs and retailer fees significantly increased. In addition, costs to maintain and host our software also increased. Consequently, while reading program apps remain available, we are no longer able to subsidize the cost of the apps and offer them at no charge.

Note that any advertising that indicated the apps were available at no charge were eliminated one year prior to when charges went into effect, which is the amount of time considered for the lifetime for a consumable workbook. In addition, the interior of all books were also changed to reflect the new policy, however, older books may be in circulation and may say otherwise. Regardless, the no-charge apps are not available.

Note that all changes are in alignment with our Terms & Conditions. To read more, regarding app duration licenses as specified in our terms and conditions, go to Terms for Web-Apps via Book Purchases.

If you have an older copy of the book, the book's instructions may indicate that there is a PDF for the flash cards available on our website. However, the PDF has not been available for a number of years. If you've seen information that the PDF is available somewhere else besides the book, please let us know where, so it can be removed.

An electronic version of the flash cards, for every reading program, is included with the web-app. For Blast Off to Reading, a hard copy is also available for purchase, click here.