ClickN’ READ Phonics

Teaching Children to Read
 – Its Harder Now

Distraction From TV and Video Games
Takes Reading Away From Today’s Children

I am a father. “Now”, as they say in action movies, “its personal“. My son is a bright boy but, like many children, he has occasional problems with certain subjects at school. He also isn’t as interested in reading as some would like him to be [update: the Harry Potter books may have saved the day].

Seeing a child reading and enjoying it is a pleasure. So, I began searching for web sites and software that could act as a reading tutor. So far I have not been able to find as many as I might have expected. I’m continuing my search and will share the results on this site. Fortunately, for teaching reading to young children (even kindergarten), there is one site that stands out: ClickN’ READ Phonics.

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ClickN’ READ Phonics is an animated and fun but thoughtful and effective phonics-based teaching system. I have discovered, to my surprise, that there is a heated debate about the merits of phonics-based teaching verses a newer method called ‘Whole Language’. I won’t weigh in on this emotive duel but I do feel that, as far as computer-based teaching systems are concerned, phonics may be more practical. Here are some of my impressions of ClickN’ READ Phonics :

The Good

  • The sense of fun keeps kids coming back.
  • Very young children can operate the site on their own.
  • The lessons are well-planned and progress logically.
  • There are a number of excellent concepts:
    • Sound identification
    • Keyboard skills
    • Sentence construction
    • Sight words (for sight reading)
    • Speed identification training
  • Your child can try out two lessons for free

The last point is important.
ClickN’ READ Phonics has made two sample lessons, one simple, one advanced, available for your children to try out before buying. If your child finds the first one too hard or the last one too simple then might not be useful to you. This is a courageous step on the part of ClickN’ READ Phonics
— they are putting their wares in plain sight.

The Not-So-Good

  • The Sign-up process could be more streamlined: it asks for address and phone number.
  • The Mascot, a futuristic dog, named ClicknKid, pronounces ‘kn’ incorrectly saying ‘en’ instead of ‘ne’.
  • He exclaims too loudly on correct answers: Good!, OK!, You got it!, Great job! Perhaps that’s less annoying to children than to adults. I don’t know…
  • He repeats instructions on errors rather than giving a helpful hint.
  • There are no images to help with legibility, like showing a knee when saying “knee”.
  • When typing sentences the mascot repeats the entire sentence for each word.

The last three would appear to be the result of the ClickN’ READ Phonics developers trying to simplify their task. Perhaps that’s financially justifiable but it slightly lowers the teaching effectiveness. One would hope that they will improve the error support and interactivity as time goes on.

The Hype

The developers make some pretty outrageous claims regarding ClickN’ READ Phonics. If even half of them were true it would be pretty amazing. For the record, here are some of the claims:

  • We Guarantee Your Child Will Learn To Read or Your Money Back
  • The Only Product You Will Need to Teach Your Child To Read
  • The Only Product to Teach in a Simulated Live-Classroom
  • Used by 1,000’s of Schools & Homes in 60 Countries
  • Teaches the Entire Phonics Curriculum Taught in US Schools From K - 3rd Grade
  • Like Having a Expert Reading Tutor In Your Home

Whew! Well, maybe its all true. In fact, a quick glance at the credentials and publications of the creator, Dr J. Ron Nelson, makes me wonder if some of the hype really is true.

So how does ClickN’ READ Phonics stack up? Well, warts, silliness and hype aside, ClickN’ READ Phonics appears to be the best reading teaching website available at present. It is interesting to read the dozens of heart-felt letters from parents and teachers to the developers of ClickN’ READ Phonics. Their joy and relief at the childrens’ rapid progress is heart warming.

But, enthusiasm and warm fuzzies aside, I saw little hard evidence of positive results of using ClickN’ READ Phonics. Here are the only two letters I could find that contained any attempt to quantify the childrens’ results:

Kimberly Gully, Special Education, N.B. Cook Elementary, FL says:
“Since one of my kindergarten students began using ClickN READ Phonics, he has come from a 7 on Initial Sound Fluency to a 32. He has also been able to sound out words 100% better than when he first began coming to my classroom. I have only been seeing this student since December. This program is wonderful. I highly recommend it to other teachers. I love using it!”
Frank J. Nosal, Educational Technologist, US Dept of Defense Elementary School says:
“ClickN’ READ Phonics has proven to be a viable online remediation tool which is closely linked to the DoDEA reading and language arts curriculum. The results of the program have been remarkable. The average school gain on the Scholastic SRI test scores was +119 points. Students who significantly used ClickN’ READ Phonics on average scored +18 points higher than the average school gain.”

If you have a pre-school or early school child, definitely check out, and, let your child try out the two free online demo lessons of ClickN’ READ Phonics.