Phonics Adventure with Sing-Along-Sam
Reviewed by Jason Levine
Published by Learning Ladder/Panasonic Interactive Media

Age Group: Age 4 to 8 Type: Language Arts Price: $ 30 US

PC version requires:
486 4 MB RAM, 2x CD-ROM, Windows 95, also on Win. 3.1; 640x480x256

Mac version requires:
Version is available.

Description:

Phonics Adventure with Sing-Along Sam is part of Panasonic's Learning Ladder series. Learning Ladder programs are divided into three categories: language arts, math, and social studies. Phonics Adventure, of course, fits in the language arts category as it's designed to teach kids basic sound and reading skills though song.

Phonics Adventure uses 16 original songs in 12 progressive lessons in which kids point and click to match the sounds in the songs with the letters of the alphabet and the letters of the alphabet with objects that appear on screen. The 12 lessons are divided into three reading levels: Junior Reader Level, Bookworm Level, and Superstar Level. Junior Reader Level is designed to take kids from learning the sounds of letters to reading whole words. Bookworm level introduces two-letter blends and teaches kids to identify sight words and start reading whole sentences. Superstar, the most advanced level, teaches the silent "e" rule, three-letter blends, and long words and sentences.

Features:

• Kids learn to read and pronounce words as they sing along with the songs.

• Simple interface requires little or no adult supervision.

• Kids get to play three arcade games and see their name in Hall of Fame when they finish each level.

• Extensive lesson plans and word lists are included on the CD, making program suitable for classroom as well as individual use.

• Tracking mechanism monitors child's progress through the levels.

• The 16 original songs can be played on an ordinary CD player as well as through the program.

Reactions:

Let me get the disclaimers out of the way first. I am not a professional educator of children. While I'm aware that the use of phonics to teach reading is controversial among educators, I take no position on its general utility as a teaching tool. I cannot say whether, in the long term, teaching phonics to beginning readers makes for better or worse readers later in life. So if you're against phonics I quite understand, but then . . . well there isn't much reason for you to be reading this review, is there?

What I can say is what seems to work for my kid. And by that criteria Phonics Adventure is the most spectacularly successful kid's program I've ever seen. In the past year I've reviewed lots of games for the Kid's Domain, and no other program I've seen has produced anything like the immediately discernible results that Phonics Adventure has.

Our five-year-old son is right in the middle of the target age range (4 - 6) for the program. He started kindergarten at the end of August, but his birthday was only two weeks prior so he's one of the youngest kids in his class. As such, we felt that it was important for him to get all the help in preliminary reading and pronunciation skills that we could give him before school started. And then my review copy of Phonics Adventure arrived at precisely the right moment.

Right off the bat, our son was singing along with the songs, and jumping, dancing and tapping as he sounded out the words with the on-screen characters. Words whose pronunciations had previously given him difficulty, he was getting absolutely right after just one or two times through the song. Just as important, it was clear that after only a few lessons he was actually beginning to read!

Yes, for someone like me whose gotten jaded on the flash and dazzle of some of the latest high-powered "grown up" games, the graphics and animations in Phonics Adventure seem rather primitive and crude. But so what? The kids don't seem to mind, and what really counts is that the program works. Phonics Adventure with Sing-Along-Sam is highly recommended!

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