I posted this on the parenting site, but thought it might be good to post it here too. I happened to be at Best Buy the other day and came across an inexpensive ($9.99!) computer reading program that seemed pretty good. It’s called Phonic Reading by Simply Media (www.simplymedia.com). I don’t work for the company, of course. I was looking for some fun math games for the computer and just happened to glance at the packaging on this program.
I was kind of surprised to read on the cover that this program is based on Orton Gillingham methods. Also, the inside cover says, “You can’t read well if you can’t automatically recognize words.”
So I figured for $10 the program was worth trying. So far I’m impressed. There’s about 15 different games and three different levels. There’s even directionaltiy exercises with letters like “b,d” which the program has the user sort, and then the level increases in difficulty as letters are added (i.e. lb, ld).
Also, the games are designed to encourage processing/recognition speed and they aren’t babyish like other programs that start at a very easy beginning (letter/sound) level.
I had my son start at level one and he did find it very easy, but then when we took a look at level 3 it was much more challenging. I think it’s going to be good practice for him once in awhile after our Seeing Stars.
Although I don’t think this program is a “complete” reading program unto itself, I think it offers some very good practice in orthographic recognition. Gosh, I sound like a PR person here!!!!! Really, I was just so surprised to find something like this at Best Buy. How neat!!!!