For the past several weeks I have been able to review Ultimate Phonics Reading Program from Spencer Learning. I decided to try to use it with my daughter, Rebecca (3, almost 4) who is just beginning to learn phonics.
This is downloadable software. Tech requirements: You must be running Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP; or for Macs, OSX 10.5.8 or higher.
This program has over 200 progressive lessons, lessons making it suitable for many ages, from beginning readers to adults. It is also specifically designed to help students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
One of the things I liked about the program is that it is very basic. It does not have a lot of distracting colors and pictures, making the screen too “busy.” While some children may prefer learning with a more “fun” approach, this was helpful for my daughter who has vision problems and having too much input can make things double or blur. But, also, due to her vision issues, we strictly limit and enforce a very small amount of screen time per day.
The program is designed with short lessons that over time cover all the sounds and rules of the English language, and has a sizable number of words, using the reading rules the student has learned to build an impressive vocabulary.
One thing I did not like about the program was the voice used in the lesson. It was very electronic sounding and sounded a bit harsh. This made it a bit unpleasant for me. You can hear the voice in the video below. Moving through the program was fairly easy. It was easy to tell how to move from screen to screen.For a young reader, they may enjoy making the sounds play over and over, which can grate. You may want to give your child headphones if you have many students because the voice is pretty difficult to tune out (Be sure to purchase kid-friendly headphones with a maximum decibel level safe for little ears.).
Rebecca is making significant improvement in her ability to read and sound out sounds, but I am not 100% sure how much of this is due to her use of the language program, and how much is simply her stage of life, where things often develop in leaps and bounds. As she continues to progress through the program, I intend to make use of some of their printables that come with the program, including the Words and Sentences lists. Also, if you are beginning with an older student, you may wish to make use of the Reading test to see where your child can benefit best from the program. Also, there is a free trial you can use that will give you access to the TOTAL program for 10 days! You can download it and use it and play around with the different levels and see for yourself if it is a good fit for your family!
Now that the initial review period is over, I intend to add this program in for my older boys as a supplemental program to keep them moving forward each day in their phonics work. Daniel (6) is a beginning reader and David (11) is continuing to improve in the area of phonetics due to his dysgraphia. I am interested to see how it will help them. This program is also designed to be helpful for adult learners and ESL students.
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