Letters, Sounds and Plenty of Fun in 2 Phonics Titles

A new school year means a lot of reading for students. Most educators agree that children should have early phonics instruction to grow into good readers and spellers. Computers can be great tools to teach phonics rules and applications.

In “Disney’s Phonics Quest,” first- and second-graders join Mickey Mouse on an adventure revolving around six phonics games. In School Zone’s “On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3,” second- and third-graders review phonics rules with an electronic workbook full of charming games and animation to break up the serious learning.

‘Disney’s Phonics Quest’

Mickey Mouse revives his role as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in this learning adventure. As before, Mickey ignores the Sorcerer’s command to stay away from his “Book of Spells.” But just as Mickey opens the book, a fierce magical wind blows away the Sorcerer’s magical possessions.

Players help Mickey scour the countryside to find the missing items. Each of the six games has four levels of difficulty that automatically adjust to the children’s skill. The activities offer practice in letter and sound recognition, long and short vowel sounds, consonant blends, word building, spelling, vocabulary and reading comprehension.

In one drill, children help Donald Duck with his reading lesson. On the first level, kids hear a word and then match it to its written form. Other levels cover homonyms, consonant blends and vowels.

In another activity, Mickey bumps into Minnie and knocks her music sheets to the ground. To help Minnie put her papers in order, players sort words and images according to specific requests by Minnie. They also explore rhyming, beginning sounds, phonemes and word building.

Not only are all of these activities academically sound, but many of them also offer children the opportunity to “read” to the Disney characters with voice-recognition software. Whenever appropriate, the activities encourage children to read by speaking the correct answer into the microphone instead of using the mouse. Although the software was not always perfect, it worked well enough to create excitement in testers.

The focus is on phonics, not leading children on a quest. Some kid testers were frustrated that they had to do activities so many times before they could retrieve a magical item. The story is tangential to the lessons. Despite this, the software works because popular Disney characters charm children into learning.

‘On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3’

“On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3” is even more academic than “Disney’s Phonics Quest.” It presents material as an electronic workbook. There is no story line, just delightful interludes with animations and games to break up the lessons.

There are 30 pages, or screens, covering skills involving beginning sounds, vowels, blends, combination sounds, silent letters and vocabulary. Each screen offers directions that are read aloud. Unlike paper workbooks that force a child to wait for a parent to correct the work, the computer scores the pages immediately.

After a child completes a screen, the program plays a cute animation. After working through two screens, children can play a game that is just for fun. These include tangram-style geometric puzzles, a bumper car game and a concentration-type grid game. After children finish the 30 screens, the software can generate new variations of the material. The software provides the option of printing the computer activities and comes bundled with a printed workbook.

“On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3” presents its activities in many formats and appeals to many learning styles. Children find crosswords with answers that all have the same sound. They are asked to complete words that make a specific sound or select pictures that contain a designated blend sound. There are also word searches and matching activities.

The downside of “On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3” is that it clearly feels like work. Most children’s software combines work with a story line to make the hard parts more palatable. Even so, rewarding children with animations and games does provide motivation to explore the workbook.

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Jinny Gudmundsen is editor of Choosing Children’s Software magazine.

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The Skinny

“Disney’s Phonics Quest”

Price: $20

Ages: 6 to 8

Platform: PC/Mac

System requirements: On the PC, a Pentium 166 (233 for voice recognition) with 32 MB of RAM (64 MB for voice recognition) and 80 MB of available hard disk space. On the Mac, a G3 233 with 32 MB of RAM (64 MB for voice recognition) and 80 MB of available hard disk space.

Publisher: Disney Interactive

The good: Six multilevel phonics activities

The bad: Weak story line

Bottom line: A phonics title that delivers the goods

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“On-Track Software: Phonics 2-3”

Price: $20

Ages: 6-8

Platform: PC/Mac

System requirements: On the PC, a Pentium 166 with 32 MB of RAM and 50 MB of available hard disk space. On the Mac, a PowerPC 150 with 32 MB of RAM and 50 MB of available hard disk space.

Publisher: School Zone Interactive

The good: Games break up the intensity of instruction

The bad: Feels like work because there is no story line

Bottom line: An electronic workbook that effectively teaches phonics