Mini Guide Reading Software

Mini Guide – Reading Software

The Learning Context

Young children learn to read by being read to and having "shared book experiences" with parents or more experienced readers. They learn to predict and anticipate events in the stories and love to hear their favorite stories time and time again. They gradually learn to identify letters and words and the other sub skills that enable them to read. As they learn to speak, they learn the rules that govern language.

Computer programs which provide reading experiences for younger children offer animated stories, games and word play activities that either actually introduce many of the sub-skills that the child needs to know to be able to read, and others offer activities that develop their knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical construction and reading comprehension. It is important for children to find reading an enjoyable and engaging experience and good educational software programs can do this well.

If you can get your child using good reading software at a younger age then you will be increasing your child's exposure to the skill subsets of reading and grammatical construction and also building an association of reading with enjoyment.

The neat part about good reading software is that many kids will enjoy the experience because of their enjoyment of the game or narrative adventure of the program. Below you will find some of our suggestions.

Choosing Reading Software.

Early Stage Reading Software (ages 4-8)

Let’s start by saying that all the programs that we will be talking about are first rate educationally and are ones we have seen kids really enjoy. The question of which one to choose can be based on the following considerations.

1. What age or stage of skill development is my child at, in relation to the skills and knowledge taught in the program.

2. What is the particular learning emphasis of the program.

3. What characters and/or style of program is going to better appeal to my child.

Disney’s Ready to Read with Pooh (ages 3 –6) is an "activity centre" designed program with the simple goal of building a garden in the 100 acre woods. As the title suggests, it starts at the very beginning with many of the basic pre-reading skills that will allow a child to begin to read. With the help of a parent, this program can be a very effective tool to actually teach the fundamentals of the ABC’s to a 3 to 5 year old and for a child age 5 –7, a great program for practice of what they have already started to learn, as well as adding to their basic knowledge that enable their reading capability.

Arthur’s Reading Race (ages 3-7) is a guided story reading journey of equal quality to Ready to Read with Pooh, but with a slightly different learning emphasis. This program focuses more on sight reading and vocabulary skills, both at the individual word level and constructing basic sentences. The program, through the character of Arthur, also extols the joy of reading is a very nice way.

Ariel’s Story Studio (ages 4-9) is more of a 50/50 blend of learning activity and creative play activity. On the learning side, Ariel’s Story Studio is a guided story telling journey. It is similar to Arthur’s Reading Race in that it focuses on sight reading and vocabulary, but goes to a little more advanced level (up to age 9). Needless to say this program is designed for young girls.

Madeline's 1st and 2nd Grade Reading, a 2 CD set, has a total of 16 different activities that cover a wide range skills for both reading and basic writing. If your child has a grasp of the basics of letters and word construction, this is a very good program to help develop and expand the range of their emerging skills and knowledge. As a 2 CD set, this program is an exceptional value with all the different activities that are available in the 2 CD's in the set

Advanced Reading Software (ages 8 - 14)

At the more senior level, where you are trying to really deepen the child's skill sets in language arts, Carmen Sandiego’s Word Detective is a very engaging mission/adventure program that provides exposure to and testing of a wide variety of grammar, word construction, and reading comprehension skills for kids from 8 to 14. The program has 3 very different levels of challenge that can be set by the user and can provide a real challenge to almost any child in this age range.

N.B. If your child is of school age and is experiencing difficulties or shows a delay in reading development, seek the advice of a educator who is qualified to make an individual assessment and provide recommendations for strategies and materials.