Davidson's Learning Center Series - Phonics

Reviewed by Christine Webster
Published by Davidson

Age Group: Age 4 to 8
Type: Language Arts
Price: $15

Description:

Phonics by Davidson's Learning Center makes learning phonics simple and fun! It is an easy-to-use program for the youngest user who is just getting started in phonics, but is also a great refresher for the struggling reader. It uses brightly colored monster-like characters, each with a unique personality. Children can read or sing along to catchy tunes, learn to recognize similar sounds, make new words and sentences, or create their own dictionary using the words they made.

Features:

  • Phonics sing-along with bright characters that dance to rock, country, rap and classical
  • Different levels of difficulty
  • Word building using clusters of letters
  • Listen and learn with the Sound Buster game
  • Make your own sentences
  • Create your own dictionary

Technical Aspects:

Installation was simple, as it was auto-run. Once fully installed the CD will start automatically each time when put in the drive. The only problem noticed was on the main screen. When clicking on the different characters sometimes the bright colors appeared frozen into another blurred color. Clicking again on another character rectified this matter.

Report and Conclusions:

Phonics is an engaging CD-ROM that children will love. The adorable monsters sing and dance to hip-sounding music that will even have an adult dancing! The screens are simple to use but challenging to the listener. In one activity a sound is made and the player must click on each monster to identify the matching sound. The three levels change the difficulty giving the beginning reader a start in phonics and the advanced reader a challenge. Once the player finds the correct sound, a piece of a puzzle is revealed.

The player can also take the beginning of a word and click on it, along with an ending of their choice, to sound out and form a new word. The new word can then be put into a sentence by choosing additional words from a list.

The player can also choose a picture to spell. Choices of letters are shown and the player must choose the correct vowels or letter groups to form the word. All this is saved to their very own dictionary to print out or color!

An average seven-year-old boy who needed to review his phonics used this program with ease. He was immediately captivated by the characters and proud to read and show his new dictionary of words. Davidson's Learning Center Series Phonics is an engaging CD that makes phonics so enjoyable that the players might forget that they are learning! [Editor's Note: This title is a re-release of Davidson/Knowledge Adventure's Kid Phonics]





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