Flocabulary Review: A Fun, Musical Literacy App

Jaymi Thiessen on July 5, 2024

Captivating Raps Fill Vocabulary Gaps

Curious about what experts truly think about online learning platforms? See this review of Flocabulary and more at phonics.org. 

What is Flocabulary?

Flocabulary is a Brooklyn-based educational website that has been operating since 2004. This site integrates educational content, hip-hop songs, and videos to build vocabulary, increase knowledge in American history, English, math, and science. Tens of thousands of schools have tried Flocabulary. The goal of Flocabulary isn’t to teach basic reading skills but to develop and improve content- area knowledge and overall vocabulary. 

Keep reading for a breakdown of what Flocabulary has to offer in terms of ease of use, engagement, and quality of literacy education. This review focuses on the literacy components of the Flocabulary website. 

Is Flocabulary Easy to Use?

Flocabulary’s website design and organization are intuitive and easy to learn for educators and students. 

Website Organization 

Flocabulary offers a deep selection of online lessons with a variety of topics. Fortunately, lessons are easy to find and well- organized. They are systematically categorized by:

  • Main idea/topic
  • Subject area 
  • Grade level
  • Curriculum outcomes

Lessons can be ‘favorited’ by teachers for quick access. Additionally, a user-friendly search bar facilitates quick access to specific resources, enhancing overall usability and organization.

Lesson Sequence

The website’s organized lesson sequence ensures predictability and ease of use for teachers and students. This consistency is a part of effective learning routines. 

All lessons have the same sequence of activities:

  • Video: Provides direct instruction through music videos with engaging visuals. 
  • Vocab Cards: Interactive cards with clear images and definitions representing key vocabulary from the video. 
  • Vocab Game: Interactive maze activity reinforcing vocabulary through sentence completion. 
  • Read & Respond: Multiple-choice questions to build comprehension.
  • Quiz: Additional multiple-choice questions to assess comprehension.
  • Lyric Lab: Creative activity where students write rap lyrics using learned vocabulary, supported by a rhyme generator and choice of beats.

Educators and students are not obligated to go through each section of the lesson. They can choose which parts of the lesson they engage with. Each part of the lesson is consistent, straightforward, and easy to understand. 

How Engaging is Flocabulary?

These features contribute to user engagement and student experience while using Flocabulary.

Videos

The videos offer a fun and creative approach to direct instruction that engages students of all ages (and adults too). The topics of the videos are interesting and contain practical and useful knowledge. The videos feature catchy beats and lyrics, accompanied by beautiful and powerful visuals created by a team of artists. 

There is also an option for educators to switch on discussion questions. The videos will intermittently pause and ask a discussion question. This encourages oral communication, collaboration amongst peers, and deepens understanding of important concepts. All of these aspects contribute to an engaging approach to learning. 

A ‘Discuss’ option can be toggled on to encourage communication between peers on content area topics

Practice Methods

Flocabulary has multiple methods where students can practice their new learning and apply it actively and engagingly. For example, vocabulary games and writing lyrics allow students to actively participate in new learning in a creative way. A research study on Flocabulary states that “97% of educators are able to engage the ‘most challenging to engage students’ when using Flocabulary.”

Games are enhanced with musical elements as students engage in answering questions

Accessibility

Flocabulary is not designed as a primary tool for teaching children to read. However, it includes accessibility features such as Immersive Reader, which can be switched on within the site. This technology supports students with varying reading abilities by providing speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities. It’s especially beneficial for students who are learning to read or have learning disabilities, enabling them to access content despite reading challenges.

The speed of the video can also be controlled by the student. This allows students who need a slower introduction to new concepts to adapt the presentation of learning material to suit their specific learning needs. 

Literacy Learning With Flocabulary

Does Flocabulary offer quality educational resources? Let’s discuss!

Direct Instruction

Direct instruction is recommended for effective literacy instruction, and Flocabulary incorporates this approach in a highly engaging manner through its videos. Much of the content in the videos effectively supports literacy outcomes, particularly in the area of comprehension.

Currently, the purpose of Flocabulary doesn’t include word reading or phonics instruction. This platform would be well- suited to this type of instruction and enhancing Flocabulary in this way could contribute to the world of early reading instruction. For example, a video on how to sound out a word or how to spell simple words would be helpful and likely effective in the learning format in Flocabulary. Currently, Flocabulary’s endorsement of balanced literacy—a method criticized for its ineffectiveness in teaching reading—may not fully optimize its potential for literacy instruction.

Vocabulary Development 

The Simple View of Reading contains two important aspects that contribute to reading comprehension: decoding (word-reading) and language comprehension. Knowing the meaning of words is an incredibly important aspect of language comprehension that closely connects to reading comprehension. The hip-hop genre can represent a large variety and creative usage of words. By combining hip-hop and vocabulary instruction, Flocabulary makes a clever, logical, and fun connection between music and learning. 

Vocab Cards reinforce the meanings of important vocabulary words in the videos and songs  

When describing this synthesis, Flocabulary states: “Since the beginning, rapping has been educational by nature. When an MC grabs the microphone, it’s their chance to share knowledge and analyze experiences, or simply get creative with words. This is why the genre is such a powerful tool in the classroom.” 

Through this, it’s easy to see how Flocabulary’s approach would support vocabulary building for students. 

Writing in the Lyric Lab

The Lyric Lab is the last step in every lesson on Flocabulary. The Lyric Lab provides an engaging and enjoyable way for students to apply new learning and develop their writing skills. The activity is designed with scaffolding that supports learners’ progression. The rhyme generator button assists in creating rhymes for the last word of each line and is a nice touch for this part of the website. Additionally, there’s a feature prompting students to incorporate specific vocabulary words into their lyrics, with the website tracking their usage. A wide selection of beats allows students to enhance their lyrics; which brings their writing to life. 

The Lyric Lab provides scaffolded support on an engaging platform for students to write about content area topics

Background and Content Area Knowledge

Flocabulary includes a current events category featuring “The Week in Rap” for grades 6-12 and “The Week in Rap Junior” for grades 3-5. These videos succinctly summarize American news and current events each week, which is an interesting addition to the platform. The weekly videos provide a quick and entertaining method for students to build background and general knowledge about the world, which enhances reading comprehension skills.

Is Flocabulary a Good Learning Tool for Students?

Flocabulary is a well-designed educational website that uses hip-hop music and engaging visuals to enhance vocabulary and content knowledge in various subjects. Its intuitive organization and lesson sequence make it easy for both educators and students to use. The platform’s videos, interactive vocabulary activities, and creative Lyric Lab contribute to an engaging and effective learning experience. 

While Flocabulary excels in vocabulary development and comprehension, it isn’t intended to teach basic reading skills. However, it would be interesting to see the site implement this area of learning! Despite its room for improvement, Flocabulary’s unique approach successfully supports student engagement and learning across multiple disciplines.

Discover more educational reviews on Phonics.org and explore more literacy learning apps!

Flocabulary App: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 4 / 5

Usability: 5 / 5

Engagement:  5 / 5

Poio App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on June 28, 2024

Fun and Engaging App Doesn’t Deliver on Reading Instruction

Not sure which literacy apps to use with your children or students? Read the reviews at phonics.org to learn which ones to try—and which ones to avoid.

Read on for an in-depth look at the Poio app for literacy instruction.

What is the Poio App?

Poio is a literacy app that introduces young learners (ages 3-8) to the world of reading through adorable letter bug characters known as ‘Readlings’. The Readlings enter and exit short levels through straws, and complete levels by collecting letter sounds and words for their storybook. 

The goal of the game is to complete the entire Poio storybook by collecting and rebuilding each word in the fairytale. The CEO and founder of Poio, Daniel Senn, founded the Scandinavia-based company to help his own son learn to read. Poio claims that kids can teach themselves to read by playing with their literacy app. 

Is the Poio App Easy to Use?

Which factors contribute to the ease of use of the Poio app? There are a few things you might want to know.

User Controls

In Poio, navigating through levels is easy as you navigate the island maps on the home page. Playing through the Readling characters is similarly a breeze with simple and intuitive touch controls. Even for young children, the game’s mechanics are intuitive and easy to grasp. 

Parent Section

Signing up for the game and adding children to play is also a hassle-free process. Accessing the parent section is straightforward, requiring only the entry of the birth year. Notably, the parent section doesn’t include an option to share the skills of the new reader or choose a place to begin learning and playing. This would be a welcomed feature in future app updates.

User Engagement in Poio

These elements impact the overall engagement of the Poio app, for both parents and children.

Rewards

Poio inundates players with many options for external rewards, ranging from coins, crystals, trophies, and stars—as well as special letters, digital books, pages, presents, cages, confetti, and cheering. 

While some rewards like coins and crystals are provided as in-app currency to purchase items for the Readlings home, the sheer abundance of rewards in this app can be overwhelming and distracting. The excessive variety of rewards detracts from the app’s core learning focus and may disrupt the learning experience for young users.

Many external rewards are available in the Poio app

Gameplay

Poio’s gameplay is a delightful blend of fun and learning. As the adorable Readling characters traverse from one ‘straw’ to the next, players guide them to collect letters, words, and rewards strewn along the way. The game incorporates clever letter association games, such as unlocking locks to free trapped Readlings. 

Visually, the app is a treat! With beautiful aesthetics and clean animations that captivate and invite exploration, Poio offers an enchanting gameplay experience.

Users practice matching the sound (key) to the lock (letter) in a clever method of practicing letter sounds

Passive Participation

In Poio, active participation in literacy activities appears somewhat limited. While children are encouraged to guide the characters to collect letters and words, they aren’t prompted to actively engage in sound recall or phoneme blending—both of which are crucial aspects of literacy development. 

Instead, children observe the sounds produced for them in the app and observe sound blending without being directly involved in the process. The emphasis on dragging characters to collect items may overshadow opportunities for children to actively participate in literacy tasks, which are important for developing literacy skills. 

Literacy Learning With Poio

The following factors contribute to the quality of the ‘learning elements’ in the Poio app. 

Direct and Explicit Instruction

Unlike the direct and explicit instruction method advocated by reading organizations and research, Poio takes a different approach by employing experiential and immersive learning techniques. While this approach may suit some children, it will not be effective for everyone. 

Sequential Learning

Poio uses an immersive learning experience that may pose challenges for some children. The app introduces difficult words (including rarely-used phonics patterns and multisyllabic words) from the start. It presents these words without a gradual buildup of complexity. 

Instead of a step-by-step progression, all sounds are presented at all once: 

  • Short vowels
  • Long vowels
  • Diphthongs
  • Digraphs
  • Vowel teams

This overwhelming approach can strain kids’ working memory and may not suit new readers. Furthermore, the absence of a defined scope and sequence means that the app lacks a clear progression from simple to more complex words. The result is a phonetically random, confusing learning experience.

Letter Sounds

Poio’s approach to teaching letter sounds lacks clarity and consistency. While the app initially focuses on short vowel sounds, the associated practice words deviate from this pattern. For example, it introduces the word ‘troll’ after teaching the short ‘o’ sound.

The visual design of the letters in-app can also be confusing. When the characters touch letters, they can move and roll around. This, for example, can make it unclear if the letter is a /u/ or an /n/. Additionally, the font style has a lowercase <i> and uppercase <I> that look exactly the same, lacking a distinction between the two. These features can make learning some letter-sound correspondences more challenging for children. 

Letters aren’t always clearly represented in the Poio app – uppercase <E> has been pushed over and looks like an <m> 

Finally, letter sounds are sometimes unclear in the Poio app. The sounds for /l/ and /f/ are not entirely accurate. Plus, the ‘underwater’ letter sounds are even less clear. 

The Poio app also has many sounds happening at the same time. For example, background music, effect sounds, character noises, and ‘munching’ noises occur at the same time while a letter sound is stated. Differentiating between all of these sounds is distracting and not ideal for early readers. 

Phonemic Awareness

In Poio, phonemic awareness development seems to receive some attention through blending and segmenting practice during spelling sessions. Although children are not actively engaged in these tasks themselves, they have the opportunity to listen to the models provided, which can still contribute positively to their phonemic awareness skills. 

While this level of engagement may not be as robust as interactive exercises where children actively blend and segment sounds, it nonetheless provides a foundational exposure to these essential skills. It’s better than no exposure at all.

Word building in the Poio app supports phonemic awareness (blending and segmenting skills)

The Fairytale Book

In Poio, the approach to the fairy tale book may not align with best practices in literacy instruction. Ideally, the books provided to new readers would be decodable. A decodable book matches the pre-taught letter sounds and phonics patterns to the text so children can decode (sound out) words and practice reading. 

However, Poio uses a leveled text approach where the text features random phonics patterns. There is controversy and limited evidence for the effectiveness of leveled texts in early literacy development. Therefore, while the fairytale book in Poio may provide an enjoyable reading experience, it may not fully support the development of phonemic awareness and decoding skills that young readers need.

The word choice in Poio is based on a book, not the word-reading ability of the new reader

Letter Formation

Poio incorporates a charming approach to letter formation practice by unlocking locks with correct letter formations, which is a fun and interesting concept. This interactive activity provides an engaging way for children to practice forming letters correctly, adding an element of fun to the learning process. The mechanics of this feature are user-friendly, making it easy for children to participate and benefit from the practice. 

This part of the game ‘unlocks’ when players practice their letter formation

Can Kids Teach Themselves to Read With the Poio App?

It’s unlikely that all children will be able to teach themselves to read with the Poio App. 

The Poio app offers an engaging and visually appealing approach to literacy learning. Its user-friendly interface and charming characters make it accessible for young learners and their parents. 

However, despite the entertaining gameplay, Poio falls short of delivering effective literacy instruction. The app lacks clarity and consistency in teaching letter sounds and phonics patterns. 

Furthermore, the absence of a structured scope and sequence of skills and the use of a leveled text approach are not ideal for learning to read in English. Finally, while the app incorporates some phonemic awareness activities, its passive approach to teaching does not fully engage children in learning to spell and read words.

While the Poio app is easy to use and enjoyable to play, there’s room for improvement—especially regarding the overall quality of literacy instruction it provides. 

Poio is one of many reading apps available today. Read about more effective phonics instruction programs and fun literacy apps for kids on the Phonics.org reviews page!

Poio App: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 2 / 5

Usability:  4 / 5

Engagement:  3 / 5

Blending Board App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on June 21, 2024

A Decoding Practice App With Potential

Take a closer look at literacy learning apps with expert reviews by phonics.org. Keep reading to learn more about this week’s featured app: Blending Board. 

What is the Blending Board App?

Blending Board is an innovative educational app designed to offer free dyslexia resources as part of Nadine Gilkison’s Google Innovator project. 

Unlike a standalone gaming app, Blending Board serves as a tool for teaching reading through phoneme blending exercises. It is intended for use by educators who organize these exercises using ‘decks,’ which are collections of letter combinations that can be modified to help new readers practice sounding out words and nonwords. 

Pre-created decks can be conveniently shared via QR code. Importantly, Blending Board itself does not teach letter sounds or blending; rather, it functions as a supportive tool for educators. It’s not an independent game.

How to Use the Blending Board App

Overall, the Blending Board app is easy to use but is missing some key features. Keep reading to see a more detailed look at the usability of the app.   

Navigation

The Blending Board app home page is set up with six initial options:

  • Create Deck: customize a new set of phonics patterns to practice
  • Bl: takes you to a pre-created, standard deck
  • My Decks: access to previously-created decks
  • Mission: goal and purpose of the app
  • Settings: customizable color options
  • QR code reader: access other pre-made decks

The interface is fairly easy to navigate and intuitive to set up. A home screen button in the bottom left corner always brings the user back to the main menu. This design ensures that educators can efficiently manage and utilize the app’s resources.

Accessibility

Blending Board is a free app accessible to all, created specifically to support individuals with dyslexia but beneficial for anyone learning to read words (decode). This app has customizable decks that can cater to individual needs. The app’s neutral appearance ensures it can be effectively used with both young children and adults. 

Editing Decks

Editing Decks on the Blending Board app comes with some limitations. Users cannot edit or delete just one deck. If there is a mistake, they must start fresh and create a new deck. Additionally, deleting a deck will result in all decks being deleted, which requires users to recreate any necessary decks from scratch.

Glitches

Blending Board has a few glitches that can affect usability. Sometimes, even when certain graphemes are unselected, they may still appear in the deck. Additionally, there are setup configurations where words cannot be properly formed, such as when the “short vowel pointers” option appears in the middle of a word. These issues can disrupt the intended learning experience and require users to be cautious when creating their decks.

User Engagement in the Blending Board App

These elements enhance the overall engagement when interacting with the Blending Board App.

Neutral Appearance

Blending Board’s neutral appearance ensures it is suitable for learners of any age without appearing babyish to older users. The design is practical and free of distractions, allowing educators and learners to focus on teaching phoneme blending effectively.

A Tool, Not a Game

Blending Board is a tool, not a game. In order to be effective, it requires teacher instruction, modeling, and pre-teaching. The app’s effectiveness and student engagement depend largely on the teacher leading the lessons. 

Literacy Learning With the Blending Board App

How does the Blending Board app measure up when it comes to helping someone learn to read?

Important Purpose

Phoneme blending—pushing speech sounds together to read words—is a crucial skill for literacy. Teaching these skills in a specific order (scope and sequence) is also vital for effective learning. The Blending Board app supports both of these aspects, allowing educators to determine the order of phonics skills. However, it is important to note that the app is not designed to include other essential aspects of literacy instruction, such as letter-sound correspondences, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Elkonin Boxes

Elkonin boxes, also known as sound boxes, are a common and effective tool in literacy learning. They help learners segment words into individual sounds, with each box representing one sound. For example, the word “fish” would be divided into three boxes: /f/, /i/, and /sh/. 

While the Blending Board app includes similar boxes, they do not always correlate accurately to the sounds. For instance, blends are often placed in one box instead of being separated into two, which can lead to confusion and reduce the effectiveness of this instructional strategy.

Chaining

The Blending Board app offers two options for modifying words. Users can change all letters around, creating a more challenging exercise, or they can tap on a specific grapheme (letter) to change just that one sound. Changing just one sound at a time is called “chaining.” For instance, the word ‘pat’ could be changed to ‘pit’ by tapping the middle letter. 

Chaining serves as a helpful scaffold for new readers, reducing the demand on working memory by changing only one sound at a time. This makes it easier for learners to practice reading and spelling, highlighting a good aspect of the app.

Tips for Parents and Educators 

To maximize the benefits of the Blending Board app in literacy instruction, follow these guidelines:

1. Scope and Sequence: Choose and use a scope and sequence for teaching phonics skills and create the ‘decks’ in the app according to this order. This structured approach ensures that skills are introduced and practiced in a logical progression.

2. Pre-Teaching: The Blending Board app is a practice tool. Direct, explicit instruction should still come before learners use the app to practice. Educators should introduce phonics skills before students use the app for reinforcement.

3. Discussing Meaning: Engage students in conversations about the words they read. Use the words in sentences to provide context and enhance understanding. The app can generate both real and nonsense words, so it’s important to discuss whether a word is ‘real’ or ‘nonsense.’ For real words, explore their possible meanings with the learners.

4. Parental Involvement: Parents should communicate with their child’s educator to understand which sounds and types of words their child is learning. This allows them to align the Blending Board practice with classroom instruction, ensuring consistency and reinforcement at home. 

By following these steps, educators and parents can effectively use the Blending Board app to support literacy development.

How Does the Blending Board App Support Early Readers?

The Blending Board app is relatively easy to use and navigate, making it accessible for educators and learners alike. However, its functionality could be improved with better editing options for the decks, such as the ability to delete one deck at a time or edit a deck after it has been created.

With its neutral appearance, the app is suitable for learners of all ages. While it can be a valuable tool, it should not be used in isolation but rather in conjunction with effective, research-based teaching practices. 

The Blending Board app is a supportive tool rather than a standalone learning format. Its primary purpose is to help with decoding real and nonsense words. It doesn’t cover multiple areas of literacy learning.

The app effectively incorporates chaining, which is beneficial for new readers. However, it could be further enhanced by aligning its boxes with the practices used in Elkonin boxes. 

Overall, the Blending Board app is a useful resource for phoneme blending exercises but should be integrated into a comprehensive literacy instruction program.

Read more Phonics.org reviews and explore more literacy learning apps today!

The Blending Board App: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction:  3/ 5

Usability:   3/ 5

Engagement:   3/ 5

Phonics Hero Review

Jaymi Thiessen on June 14, 2024

Literacy experts at Phonics.org explore different phonics and reading programs for kids. By sharing honest reviews, we hope you can make more informed choices about the educational tools you use with your beginner readers!

In this article, we share our Phonics Hero review and discuss the pros and cons of its approach to literacy instruction. Let’s dive in!

About the Phonics Hero App

Phonics Hero is an engaging literacy program designed for children ages 4 to 7. It offers instructional exercises for:

  • Letter sounds
  • Word reading
  • Sentence reading
  • Spelling skills
  • Vocabulary

Phonics Hero also provides valuable resources for parents and teachers. Examples include printable worksheets and a classroom dashboard for educators to track students’ progress and assign specific activities. 

Read on to learn more about the quality of different components in the Phonics Hero program. 

Getting Started With Phonics Hero

How does it work? Is it effective for kids? Let’s look at the usability and user interface of the Phonics Hero program. 

Signing Up 

The sign-up process is straightforward and easy for parents and teachers. Teachers have the option to select the preferred accent used in the app: English, American, or Australian. As learning to read and spell is sound-based, it is important to have the option to train students in their home dialect. 

Logging In

The log-in process is also straightforward for a single child at home. However, the app presents log-in challenges in a classroom setting. Each child receives a unique username and password, unlike other apps that offer simpler methods like choosing a nickname or using picture passwords. This can be tricky for younger children in a classroom as they may require significant practice and support to log into the app independently. 

Using Placement Tests and Teacher Choices

Teachers can choose whether new students complete a placement test that assigns them to a place in the learning sequence. Alternatively, they can select where the student should start. This level of customization empowers educators to scaffold learning and see that each student is appropriately challenged in their learning journey.

The teacher dashboard is exceptionally user-friendly. Teachers can easily manage student learning goals and access comprehensive feedback on student performance. Additionally, printable materials that align with the lessons are accessible to add extra practice. 

Playing Phonics Hero Games

Gameplay determines engagement, which is important for learning. These factors contribute to the engagement aspect of the Phonics Hero platform. 

Games and Activities

Phonics Hero games are not only entertaining but also varied. The navigation features make it easy for young players to explore and interact with the app independently. 

Instructions for games are clear and can be repeated as many times as the player needs. This is a helpful feature for kids who may have difficulties with hearing, attention, or memory. 

Phonics Hero also features an engaging, overarching story with interesting superhero characters and various missions for children to accomplish. This is a fun, interactive addition to the games. 

Fun characters and missions will likely catch the attention of young players

Rewards

Children earn stars by completing academic tasks, which can then be used to purchase items in a store within the app. These items—represented as digital stickers—can be placed in a secret hideout. The reward system adds an extra layer of engagement and is implemented in a way that’s unlikely to significantly detract too much from learning time.

A ‘Store’ for purchasing rewards in Phonics Hero

Loading Times

Each log-in, navigation, and transition to a new game creates additional loading times in the game where a child needs to wait. The wait times vary, but can disrupt the flow of learning and engagement. 

Learning with Phonics Hero

Here are the main factors that contribute to the overall quality of literacy instruction in Phonics Hero. 

Lesson Organization

The lesson organization in Phonics Hero follows a clear and logical scope and sequence that accommodates various accents and regions. This structure is well-communicated on the Phonics Hero website. 

Each level presents a sequence of lessons that systematically progress through key literacy skills:

  1. Know
  2. Read
  3. Spell
  4. Camera Read
  5. Camera Spell
  6. Sentence Reading

Camera reading and spelling refers to commonly used irregular words in the English language such as the word ‘of.’ Within each lesson, multiple opportunities and games are provided to practice and reinforce each step of the learning process. This systematic approach ensures kids are learning key literacy skills with a logical and clear step-by-step method. 

Letter Sounds

The Phonics Hero program teaches letter sounds clearly and accurately. Phonics Hero provides ample practice opportunities for mastering these sound-letter correspondences, contributing to effective skill reinforcement. Phonics Hero does not include letter formation (printing) as part of the lessons. 

There are many opportunities to practice letter sound correspondences in Phonics Hero

Letter Names

The app makes the interesting choice of excluding letter names in its instruction. As deliberately explained in this blog post, “Unfortunately, many children are introduced to letter identification by well-meaning parents and grandparents even before school entry. Teaching letter names before sounds is far from helpful.”

If you’re a parent or grandparent reading this, don’t worry. Experts have found that learning letter names before sounds is not detrimental for your children. In fact, knowing letter names is very helpful when learning to read and spell. Phonics Hero would be a stronger reading program if it included letter names as well as letter sounds in the early lessons. 

Type of Phonics

Phonics Hero employs a synthetic phonics approach, which is supported by research and considered the most logical method for teaching reading and spelling. This approach involves breaking down words into individual sounds or blending individual letter sounds to form words. Synthetic phonics is highly effective for developing word-reading skills.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics Hero includes phonemic awareness practice in their program.  Blending and segmenting skills are prioritized in the game. These are important skills for new readers to practice and know.

However, 3 meta-analyses of studies on this topic have shown that practicing these skills with letters doubles the effectiveness of the activity. Unfortunately, Phonics Hero focuses on mostly using these skills without letters. The Phonics Hero website suggests waiting until a child consistently segments and blends orally before introducing letters or letter-sound correspondences. In reality, this skill can be introduced concurrently (with letters). 

Finally, Phonics Hero uses final blending as the only type of phoneme blending in the program. However, it’s typically easier for children to start blending with continuous blending. This strategy may need to be supplemented to get a student started before using the program. 

Type of Texts

Phonics Hero uses decodable texts. These are texts where the sounds and words being taught and practiced are integrated into the reading material. Decodable books discourage “guesswork” and encourage accurate decoding skills. These texts also include phrases and sentences, providing a supportive scaffold for transitioning from word-reading to sentence reading. 

Spelling

Phonics Hero implements effective spelling procedures, including some direct instruction on segmenting words into sounds with letters, which is beneficial. The use of chaining, where one letter is changed at a time to form a new word, is also an effective strategy for spelling instruction. 

Changing one letter at a time in spelling instruction is called ‘chaining’

Phonics Hero uses boxes in the general shape of the letter to reinforce spelling. This is not a useful method of spelling instruction. The focus in early spelling instruction should be on the sounds in the word. Identifying the outer shape of the word does not help with learning to spell.

Spell the word ‘hip’ – the books are meant to show the general outer shape of the correct letter

There are also small errors in the “camera spelling” section. This spelling practice is mostly for irregular words that don’t entirely match the regular phonics patterns in English. 

When a child makes an error in this spelling section the program provides the sounds for the word. Unfortunately, the sounds provided in the program don’t match the word. For example, the word ‘his’ has the sounds /h/, /i/ /s/; when the final sound in ‘his’ is a /z/ sound. Making these differences and exceptions clear to children helps them identify the irregular part of the word and they will be better able to read and spell the word accurately next time.

Quality of the Phonics Hero Platform

Phonics Hero has some useful and effective teaching methods that likely help children reinforce some foundational word-reading concepts. Synthetic phonics is used with a clear, systematic scope and sequence. Phonics Hero incorporates phonemic awareness practice in their program and uses decodable texts at the phrase and sentence level to support kids in building reading fluency. The characters are fun and engaging and the app is generally easy to use. 

If I were a teacher or parent using this app with my child, I’d want to know that there are some important aspects of literacy instruction that are missing from the program:

  • Phonics Hero does not incorporate letter formation (printing) or letter names. Make sure to include this instruction on your own, as it is important knowledge for children to have. 
  • The phonemic awareness practice in the app is rarely done with the letters (graphemes). Showing a child how to sound out a word from left to right with letters is going to be crucial practice in addition to the Phonics Hero program. 
  • The blending skills modeled in this game are limited, so teaching continuous blending before a child gets started would be very helpful. 

Overall, many features in the Phonics Hero serve as valuable resources for literacy instruction. The app can be effectively used with some key additions and guidance from a literate adult. 

To consider other phonics programs, read more on the Phonics.org reviews page!

Phonics Hero Rating

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3.5 / 5

Usability: 3.5 / 5

Engagement: 4 / 5

Super Simple Songs App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on June 7, 2024

Building Literacy Foundations With Super Simple Songs Playlists

At phonics.org, we review the most widely-used literacy apps for kids so you can make informed decisions about what programs to consider. Continue reading to learn more about the Super Simple Songs app and website. 

What is the Super Simple Songs App?

Super Simple Songs provides an immersive literacy experience through its app and website. It offers a safe environment for young learners to explore independently. With a free trial and flexible subscription plans, the Super Simple Songs app is tailored toward families seeking quality educational content. 

This app is tailored for younger learners under the age of 8. It features an extensive collection of engaging songs, printable activities, and simple interactive games. The content and themes in the app vary widely in content and quality. 

This review will focus on the literacy-related themes within the app. 

How Easy is it to Use the Super Simple Songs App?

The following factors contribute to the ease of use of the Super Simple Songs app.  

Usability

Super Simple Songs excels in usability, even for young learners. The intro to the app is a rotating wheel that can be turned by a child to choose the content they’d like to engage with.  

Even for young children, the interface is intuitive and straightforward. 

Parental Controls

Super Simple Songs protects the grown-up area (parental control settings) by requiring the user to answer a simple math problem to change the controls. These controls allow the adult to tailor the app experience specifically for their child or students. Parents can also limit or lock access to the app ensuring their child doesn’t exit the app and explore other types of media on the device. 

The app also allows pages to be ‘frozen’ so kids can’t navigate without adult guidance. The ability to change the control and subtitle language is a thoughtful feature for families who don’t know English but would like their child to learn through the app. These comprehensive grown-up controls ensure a safe, customizable, and enjoyable learning environment for children and caregivers alike.

“Manage Playlists”

Super Simple Songs offers a comprehensive “Manage Playlists” feature, allowing caregivers to tailor the spinning content wheel to match their child’s specific interests and learning needs. 

With nearly 40 content options available, it’s easy to curate playlists that cater to individual preferences, ages, and the topics being taught. This customization process is highly recommended. It ensures a more engaging and higher quality learning experience. 

The ‘Home’ screen in Super Simple Songs is easy to use and customizable

User Engagement in Super Simple Songs

These elements enhance the overall engagement of children interacting with Super Simple Songs.

Catchy and Fun

Super Simple Songs holds young learners’ attention with its catchy and fun content. The songs and activities are carefully designed to keep children entertained and eager to learn. 

The videos strike the perfect balance in length, holding the attention of even the youngest viewers without becoming overwhelming. With vibrant colors, playful animations, and adorable characters, each video creates a lively and inviting activity that sparks joy and curiosity. 

The app’s content is specifically designed for younger children. Therefore, it might not resonate with older audiences. Nevertheless, the colorful, playful, and cute presentation ensures an enjoyable and memorable learning experience for the target age group.

Encourages Physical Movement

“Super Simple Songs” cleverly incorporates physical movement into some of its videos. This enhances engagement and promotes active learning. 

One notable example is the “Bunny Hop ABCs” where certain letters in the alphabet song are replaced by a bunny. This bunny cues children to join in and start hopping along. Such creative ideas effectively capture children’s attention and energize their learning experience.

Super Simple Songs That Support Literacy Education 

Some of the playlists in Super Simple Songs are better than others. The following songs are helpful for children learning literacy skills, so make sure to include these in your playlist! 

The Super Simple Songs

Super Simple Songs are short, engaging, and playful songs that usually repeat a few keywords or concepts throughout. Don’t let the simplicity of the songs in Super Simple Songs fool you, though! These songs teach valuable skills. 

Many of the vocabulary words in these songs are called “basic concepts” which are essential words to understand to comprehend language. This supports overall oral language ability as well as reading comprehension. 

Repetition and clear, fun animations help children remember the information presented in the songs. Whether it’s letters, numbers, colors, or other basic concepts, the songs serve as powerful tools for vocabulary development, laying a solid foundation for language acquisition and literacy. Make sure to include the “Super Simple Songs” category in your playlist!

Super Simple Songs support children’s language development

Storybooks

Super Simple Songs provides a valuable resource in its digital library of books. These books appear as classic stories that are read out loud to children or interactive storybooks with a look-and-find feature. While not intended to replace an adult directly reading with their child, the app provides a nice supplement for children to hear stories independently. This is another great option to include in a learning playlist on the app. 

Phonics Fun

Phonics Fun stands out for its catchy and engaging approach to letter-sound instruction. Through repetitive exposure, the Phonics Fun section of the app reinforces accurate letter-sound associations, letter names, and keywords associated with the letter sound.

The frequent repetition of letter sounds ensures that these associations are firmly established in children’s minds. This is a great resource for parents and teachers alike and should be included in customized playlists. 

Caitie’s Classroom

Caitie’s Classroom is an educational resource featuring Caitie, an engaging teacher who brings real-life experiences to life to explain various concepts to children. With her clear and direct communication style, Caitie holds children’s interest, making learning both enjoyable and accessible. Through her lessons, she skillfully builds background knowledge on interesting and important topics, laying a strong foundation for reading comprehension skills. 

The inclusion of “Imagination Time,” an audio-only segment, adds another dimension to the learning experience. Imagination time builds kids’ listening comprehension skills. Caitie’s Classroom is an excellent addition to the in-app playlist option if your goal is literacy education.

Caitie is an engaging teacher who helps kids understand the world

Not Great: The Super Simple Songs to You Should Skip

As mentioned, not all of the songs in this app are effective for literacy education. Here’s our list of songs that were not fully approved by reading experts. We recommend you leave them out of your child’s playlist. Instead, focus on the more effective songs mentioned above.

Pratfall ABCs

Pratfall ABCs presents adorable bug characters that engage with letters and associated images. However, it lacks effective integration of literacy fundamentals. While the animated bugs interact with letters and corresponding keywords, the absence of letter names and letter sounds diminishes its educational value. 

Additionally, some keywords may not accurately represent the letter’s sound, such as the use of “onion” for the letter ‘o’ (onion starts with an /u/ sound). While the videos here are harmless entertainment, they are unlikely to contribute significantly to literacy learning. This part of the app may be better skipped in favor of more educational content.

Pratfall ABCs could improve by including letter names and sounds

Turn and Learn ABCs

Turn and Learn ABCs adopts a turning puzzle format, gradually unveiling pictures of keywords associated with each letter. However, the app falls short in directly addressing letter sounds, prioritizing the visual reveal of pictures over phonics instruction. 

Despite mentioning words beginning with a specific letter—such as “bee starts with the letter b”—it neglects to emphasize letter-sound associations, which are essential for literacy development. Consequently, while the app’s interactive puzzle may capture children’s attention, neglecting letter-sound relationships diminishes its effectiveness as a literacy tool.

The squares in Turn & Learn ABCs turn over to gradually reveal a keyword associated with the letter

Captain Seasalt & The ABC Pirates

Captain Seasalt & The ABC Pirate presents a lively approach to early literacy instruction with its charming pirate theme. Each video features friendly pirates that visit a letter island and tell a short story using many of the letter sounds of the island they visit. While the videos explore words beginning with a particular letter, they lack explicit phonics explanations of how each letter represents its corresponding sound. 

Additionally, the depiction of letter formation—often starting at the bottom—is inaccurate. It could potentially confuse young learners. Despite the creative use of a pirate map to illustrate letter formation, the incorrect portrayal detracts from the instructional value of the content. 

Overall, while the app’s theme and characters may capture children’s interest, it falls short in delivering effective phonics instruction and accurate letter formation techniques.

The ABC Pirates could improve on modeling correct letter formation

Is the Super Simple Songs App Good for Phonics Instruction?

The Super Simple Songs app offers an engaging platform for building language and literacy skills in young learners. The app’s user-friendly interface, coupled with grown-up controls and playlist management features, ensures a safe and customizable learning experience that children can enjoy with their caregivers.

The short video options available in the app are highly engaging for young children. The songs are catchy, the animations are well-done and visually appealing, and the content is interesting. 

Some of the thematic content available in Super Simple Songs has higher educational quality than others. 

  • Super Simple Songs, Storybooks, Phonics Fun, and Caitie’s Classroom are excellent additions to classroom instruction. Additionally, these are ideal for parents and teachers interested in fostering foundational literacy learning for their children through custom playlists in the app.
  • Pratfall ABCs, Turn and Learn ABC, and Captain Seasalt & the ABC Pirates have less educational value than the above content areas.

The Super Simple Songs app alone will not teach a child to read. However, the app offers a playful and enjoyable learning experience. Its effectiveness in promoting literacy skills depends on the selection and integration of appropriate content.

Learn more about effective phonics instruction programs for kids by reading more Phonics.org reviews today!

Super Simple Songs App: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3.5 / 5

Usability:  4 / 5

Engagement:   4 / 5

Endless Alphabet App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on May 24, 2024

A Simple and Engaging App That Disappoints in Alphabet Instruction

Take a detailed look at the literacy apps your children play with at phonics.org. Continue reading to learn more about the Endless Alphabet literacy app.

What is the Endless Alphabet App?

Endless Alphabet is a children’s learning app by Originator Kids, an educational app developer with 8 different selections of children’s apps. The purpose of Endless Alphabet is for children to learn:

  • Letter recognition
  • Letter names
  • Letter sounds 
  • Over 70 novel vocabulary words

After purchasing the app, children are greeted with a cute monster with alphabet letters on his mouth. Players can choose any letter or word they would like to practice with. The word is clearly stated and a group of other adorable monsters runs by to mix up all the letters. The player then needs to match the letters to the outline in the game. When a player touches a letter, it makes a repetitive sound representing that letter. A correct letter match is followed by a clear stating of the letter name. As the child recreates the word, the app uses the word in a sentence and the meaning is reenacted by the engaging creatures in the game. 

The “Home” page of the Endless Alphabet app is fun and inviting for kids

Usability of Endless Alphabet

Usability refers to the ease of use and navigation in the Endless Alphabet app. How does it perform for players using the app? 

Sign-Up 

Simply purchasing this game in any app store and opening it will get you started with the Endless Alphabet app. It is incredibly simple and easy to get started. 

Navigation

The Endless Alphabet app has 3 main areas to navigate:

  • “Information for Parents” — a one-page description on how to share or contact the app. This area is accessed by entering written numbers. 
  • Home Page — The ‘monster mouth’ home page is where players can choose which letter to focus on. Navigation to this place is easily achieved by tapping the home button at the top right of the screen. 
  • Recreating Words — This is where the majority of gameplay and learning occurs. 

Overall, it’s easy to navigate through these sections of the app. Young children would easily find this app accessible and easy to use. 

User Engagement in Endless Alphabet

These elements enhance the overall engagement of children playing Endless Alphabet.

Cute and Funny Animations

The animations in the Endless Alphabet app are seamless, smooth, and engaging. The instructions to play the game and the keywords are clear and easily repeatable. The background music in the game is calm and not distracting. Children likely find this to be a simple and engaging app to play and interact with.

Rewards

The Endless Alphabet app does not use points, scores, or rewards for children using the app. Playing the app is the reward in itself and it is refreshing to see an app for children not include additional extras that can distract or discourage children’s participation. Children are able to interact with this app at their own speed and level of interest. 

Literacy Learning With Endless Alphabet

These factors enhance the overall effectiveness of literacy instruction in the Endless Alphabet app. 

Letter Names

Young children need to learn the names of letters as this is the foundation for reading and spelling skills. Endless Alphabet has a fun and engaging method of recognizing the difference between different uppercase letters and their names. The repetition of this concept in the app ensures that children not only grasp the letter names but also enjoy the process.

Letter Sounds

Endless Alphabet introduces children to letter sounds, a fundamental aspect of early literacy instruction. However, the app’s letter sounds are inaccurate. The sounds /r/ and /l/, for example, are particularly difficult for children to learn and are misrepresented in this app. The app might wrongly teach letter sounds, which could hinder children’s reading and spelling skills. 

This is further complicated by misrepresenting sounds in certain words. For example, in the word ‘nightmare,’ the letters ‘-igh’ represents the long ‘i’ sound. However, in the Endless Alphabet app, the letters <i>, <g>, and <h> all have separate sounds and they are all inaccurate with a heavy schwa sound attached. Ideally, the ‘-igh’ letters could be dragged as one unit with one sound, and then each letter could be individually stated. Addressing these inaccuracies could greatly enhance the app’s efficacy in teaching letter sounds authentically.

The letter sounds representing the words are a bit of a nightmare

Uppercase Letters Only

In English books and texts, 95-98% of the letters are in lowercase. Given this overwhelming exposure to lowercase letters, prioritizing them in alphabet instruction makes logical sense. However, the Endless Alphabet app only uses uppercase letters in its gameplay. Incorporating lowercase letters into the app’s instruction would align more closely with the literacy experiences of children and have a more immediate and practical use. 

Vocabulary

Vocabulary instruction in Endless Alphabet is a dynamic and integral aspect of the app’s educational approach. Children are introduced to a variety of words in the app, expanding their lexicon and comprehension skills early on. Each word is accompanied by vibrant illustrations and playful animations, creating an immersive learning experience that captivates young learners’ attention. 

The representing visuals for vocabulary words are interesting and helpful for learning new words

However, there are words called ‘basic concepts’ that are essential for young children to understand. These basic concept words equip children to navigate the world and follow basic directions. Incorporating these foundational words into the app would provide another valuable educational goal for children’s practice. 

Spelling

The Endless Alphabet app does not claim to support children’s spelling abilities. However, the nature of the app might fool some parents into thinking their children are learning to spell. Due to the inaccurate representation of letter sounds in the app, playing these games will likely hinder future spelling skills for some children. 

Should My Child or Student Play Endless Alphabet?

The information page in the Endless Alphabet app says that it has been, “founded by a team of passionate Artists and Engineers.” This app is undoubtedly beautiful, engaging, and easy to play and navigate. However, the Originator team may benefit from working with a reading specialist or speech-language pathologist to consult on the literacy aspects of this app. 

Unfortunately, playing Endless Reader will likely teach your child to learn letter sounds inaccurately. This can be a difficult skill to reteach or remediate! It might be wise to avoid playing this game until this crucial aspect of instruction has been corrected. 

Want to find more early literacy programs for your child to play? Check out our other reviews at Phonics.org, a place where literacy experts review the top apps available today.

Endless Alphabet Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 2  / 5

Usability:  5 / 5

Engagement:  4  / 5

Read Naturally Live App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on May 20, 2024

Phonics.org takes a close look at literacy programs so that you can make informed educational support choices for the new reader in your life. 

Continue reading to discover more about the Read Naturally Live literacy app.

What is Read Naturally?

Since 1991, Read Naturally (Read Live) has provided a range of interventions for literacy development. While Read Naturally has 12 different intervention options, this review focuses on three key components: 

  • Read Naturally Live
  • Word Warm-ups Live
  • One Minute Reader Live

Emphasizing research and assessment, the program offers technical and tailored support for students’ reading fluency and comprehension skills. Let’s take a look!

Usability of Read Naturally Live

When it comes to usability and interface, there are a few factors to point out in Read Naturally Live. 

Sign-Up and Log In

Signing up for Read Naturally Live takes considerable time and effort. The process involves requesting a username and password, followed by a day-long wait for approval. The number of steps required—including inputting account numbers, user IDs, and passwords—exacerbates this difficulty, particularly for young children trying to navigate the system. 

Navigation

Read Naturally Live has in-depth programming and navigation. While enrolling a student may be a relatively straightforward (although time-consuming) process, upon further exploration, the platform requires significant effort. 

Users would benefit from watching instructional videos or participating in webinars, given the unintuitive nature of the interface. Educators must be prepared to invest substantial effort into learning the program.

Placement Test

The placement test in Read Naturally requires active involvement from teachers, as they must log in and be present to administer the assessment. 

An Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) passage is used to place students. An ORF is a quick and highly accurate literacy assessment method that can be completed quickly. However, proficiency in administering this placement assessment requires specialized training for educators, adding complexity. 

Following the assessment, the meticulous process of verifying the results involves using the program’s dedicated calculator, charts, and methodology. While this is a thorough method, the detailed nature of the post-test procedures can be time-consuming and tedious.

Data Management and Student Growth

Read Naturally tracks student progress. Detailed charts provide comprehensive insights into individual student performance. Through these tools, educators can gain a nuanced understanding of each student’s development, enabling targeted interventions and adjustments to support their learning journey.

Engagement in Read Naturally

These factors contribute to the overall engagement of children learning with Read Naturally. 

Neutral Appearance

The program’s neutral aesthetic makes it suitable for older learners requiring intervention. However, this lack of visual stimulation may contribute to a sense of monotony. It’s devoid of engaging characters, vibrant colors, or interactive elements typically found in engaging educational apps for young children. 

Instead, Read Naturally leans towards a “skill and drill” practice, prioritizing content over flashy presentation. This makes it more appealing to some older students. 

Read Naturally Live has a neutral appearance and direct practice approach that would be respectful of older learners including adults.

Activity Length

Some activities within Read Naturally can become lengthy and monotonous, lacking clear indications of when they will end. This ambiguity can lead to uncertainty and a sense of disengagement for students. 

Rewards

While the program offers incentives like earning stars, points, or awards for completion, these rewards lack tangible significance. The advantage of this approach is that the focus stays on learning skills and intrinsic motivation (improving based on personal skill). Users would be encouraged to improve their reading skills tangibly with detailed and immediate feedback on progress. 

Feedback is provided for students and teachers after each lesson sequence

Literacy Instruction in Read Naturally: Live

How is the Read Naturally Live program for literacy? When it comes to phonics and literacy skills, we’ve made some observations.

Scope and Sequence

Read Naturally has a carefully designed scope and sequence for foundational literacy skills. The program begins with practice reading one-syllable words, focusing on practice for each vowel sound, which is a tricky skill for new readers to learn. 

The curriculum assumes students enter with some confidence in this skill, using the app as a platform for practice and reinforcement rather than initial instruction. This approach ensures a targeted and efficient progression, maximizing student engagement and skill acquisition.

Type of Phonics

Read Naturally Live uses synthetic phonics as its primary approach to phonics instruction. Synthetic phonics connects individual sounds and letters to teach children how to read and spell words. It’s known as the most effective, efficient method of phonics instruction. 

Read Naturally Live uses a direct and explicit teaching approach to teach phonics concepts, which is ideal. While the instructional videos aren’t exciting, they’re clear and short which is a good approach for new readers. 

Phonemic Awareness

Read Live Naturally incorporates phonemic awareness practice into its lessons. The practice of manipulating phonemes is done with and without letters. Students observe how to blend individual letter sounds together to read a word. This is done through ‘final blending’ (saying each sound and putting them together at the end). 

The program can improve here by showing other types of blending such as continuous blending—where each sound is held and blended into the next sound without pauses in between. 

Overall, the Read Naturally Live program presents many opportunities for reading practice and modeling, reinforcing effective phonics and phonemic awareness concepts.

Letter Sounds

Read Naturally Live has relative accuracy in representing letter sounds in American English. The audio examples of phonics sounds serve as a valuable reference list, although certain phonemes like /r/ may require refinement. 

It’s important to note that these audio cues serve primarily as reference points or reminders rather than comprehensive teaching tools. For optimal effectiveness, the program should coincide with direct classroom instruction of these key concepts. 

Spelling

Read Naturally Live mirrors the reading instruction in its spelling lessons. The program models how to segment a word into its sound parts, and then reinforces vocabulary by using whole words in sentences. Students are expected to type the spelling responses on a standard keyboard which may present challenges for younger learners. 

Alternative methods like using an alphabet arc or having a few letter choices could enhance the platform’s accessibility. Additionally, the program requires students to check their answers and correct their own mistakes. This method fosters independent learning and skill development.

Spelling exercises in Read Naturally Live

Is Read Naturally Live a Good Reading Program?

Read Naturally Live offers a technical, skills-based approach to literacy development. It emphasizes interventions and tailored support for students’ reading, fluency, and vocabulary building. 

While its neutral appearance and direct approach are appealing to older learners, it may lack engagement for younger audiences. 

The program’s sign-up and navigation are challenging because they require substantial effort from users. However, its detailed data tracking and progress monitoring tools empower educators to make informed decisions. Despite some activities being lengthy, Read Naturally Live provides detailed feedback and opportunities for skill improvement. 

With a carefully-designed scope and sequence, synthetic phonics instruction, and integration of phonemic awareness practice, the program effectively supports foundational literacy skills. Read Naturally Live can be a valuable resource when paired with direct classroom instruction and an involved teacher who is committed to using the program. 

Want to find the best phonics programs available today? Read more of our reviews at phonics.org, rated by literacy experts and reading specialists.

Read Naturally Live: Overall Rating

Quality of Literacy Instruction:   3.5 / 5

Usability:  3 / 5

Engagement:   2 / 5

Foundations A-Z Review for Literacy Instruction

Jaymi Thiessen on May 13, 2024

Phonics.org takes a closer look at literacy programs so that you can make more informed choices about what apps to use for the new reader in your life. 

Continue reading to discover more about Foundations A-Z.

What is Foundations A to Z?

Foundations A-Z is a newly-redesigned digital learning program by Learning A-Z, formerly known as Headsprout. 

This program was created to align with the science of reading to teach students from Kindergarten to grade 5. Launched in 2024, this web-based platform is designed for parents and teachers to support students in developing foundational literacy skills:

  • Letter names
  • Letter sounds
  • Letter formation (printing)
  • Phonemic awareness (rhyming, syllabication, phoneme blending, etc.)
  • Decoding (word-reading)
  • High-frequency words instruction

Foundations A-Z has several notable pros and cons that educators should be aware of so that they can support students.

Usability of Foundations A-Z

Usability relates to how easy the platform is for kids to navigate, use, and understand. Here are some of its features. 

Sign-Up and Log In

The sign-up and log-in process is simple for teachers, parents, and kids to figure out. Students can log in with their name and a picture password. This makes accessing the games fairly easy. Ready-made parent initials for logging in and providing lesson information are also easily accessible. 

Student Management

Foundations A-Z has a very detailed “Student Management” area for creating classes of students with passwords, changing learning settings, and evaluating progress. The student reports are incredibly detailed and would offer educators valuable feedback on how children are doing in the program. 

Instructions and Gameplay

The instructions in Foundation A-Z are clearly stated and repeatable. Unfortunately, many of the game instructions appear unnecessarily complex and lengthy. This is not ideal for most children and would be especially difficult for children who have language disorders, attention difficulties, or executive functioning struggles. 

Additionally, the long instructions need to be repeated even if the child just wants to hear the keyword or single sound to answer the question. This can become boring and frustrating for players.

 

Game instructions are often unnecessarily complicated and long. 

Microphone Feature

A microphone feature encourages children to say sounds or read words out loud. This is a great feature for encouraging active engagement. However, the microphone needs to be calibrated every time it is used, even from one game to the next in the same sitting. This involves touching a ‘record’ button, counting to 5 out loud, stopping the record button, and then submitting the answer with another button and waiting to see if it worked. This is a lot of extra steps for kids to go through to read a word out loud. 

Not only is this feature complicated to use, but the program often gives inaccurate feedback to the learner. In this way, a player could read a word incorrectly and the game would congratulate them for reading it correctly. Inaccuracies likely increase if a child has concerns with speech articulation or an accent. 

The microphone sound calibration process is repeated every time a child needs to use the microphone, wasting precious instructional time and boring young players. The feedback from this feature is inconsistent. 

Visual Organization

Foundations A-Z contains odd visual settings for gameplay. Often, the answers are too large to fit on one screen. Kids must know how to scroll around the screen to see all the answers to most questions. They need to click another button to “check answer” and then another button to know if their answer was correct. 

Children need to scroll to look for all potential answers to this question. 

Engagement in Foundations A-Z

These factors contribute to the overall engagement of children playing Foundations A-Z. 

Games and Activities

The energetic and cute characters in the game add interest and positive reinforcement for players. However, complex instructions and gameplay could interfere with a child’s ability and willingness to play the games. 

Star Zone Rewards

In the Rewards feature, children can earn ‘stars’ by engaging with lessons or completing games. These stars can be exchanged for one of three interesting options: 

  1. Custom Background: Changing the background of the game 
  2. Avatar Builder: Customizing robots’ features, clothes, and accessories 
  3. Raz Rocket: Designing the inside of a spaceship by purchasing items

To maintain focus, the reward options are customizable. This allows teachers or parents to turn off all or some rewards if they become too distracting.

Reward options within Foundations A-Z

Literacy Concepts in Foundations A-Z

Here are some factors that contribute to the overall quality of literacy instruction in Foundations A-Z. 

Lesson Organization

Foundations A-Z has a detailed, planned scope and sequence indicating the order of literacy content. Systematic literacy instruction is highly recommended by experts in the field. In this way, children learn information in a step-by-step manner. It’s a logical and research-based method of teaching reading. 

Direct Instruction 

The Foundations A-Z literacy program incorporates engaging characters and narrative elements. Videos with these characters provide direct teaching instruction in the game. Direct and explicit teaching in phonics skills is highly recommended by reading experts, generally making these videos a benefit to the program. 

These videos have a piece where they ask children to tap or interact with something on the screen. Unfortunately, this is a video. The tapping just pauses the video. The instructional pieces should not ask for interaction from children when it isn’t possible or disrupts learning. 

Cognitive Overload

The instructional videos are packed full of information. For example, one of the first direct instruction videos includes information on: 

  • Review of all letter names
  • Letter sounds
  • The difference between consonants and vowels
  • The /n/ sound
  • Uppercase and lowercase letter information
  • Formation of printing the letter <N>, 
  • How to make the sound /n/
  • Counting words in a sentence

This information is important and valuable. However, providing all this information at once is rather overwhelming. 

Additionally, some of the information in these lessons is too technical to share with very early readers. For example, one of the early instructional videos includes information about short vowel sounds in closed syllables. 

Chunking information into smaller, sequential lessons better supports many learners. Simplifying important information for young learners must also be a priority. 

Letter Sounds

The letter sound instruction within the Foundations A-Z literacy program is generally clear and accurate. 

There are a few inconsistencies in the consonant sound for /y/. Letter sound learning is accompanied by videos of a mouth that shows how the sound is made. There is also a short description of what a child’s mouth, tongue, and lips are doing when making this sound. This has been shown to support children in learning and remembering letter sounds accurately and is a good addition to the program. 

Explaining how to make a sound is a helpful aspect of literacy learning

Letter Formation

Foundations A-Z includes explicit instruction and modeling of letter formation. This is an excellent aspect to include in a reading program. The letter formation in Foundations A-Z is accurate. The program also includes a verbal path for letter formation. A verbal path is a consistent set of oral directions that can be associated when making the letter to encourage appropriate formation. 

Unfortunately, the verbal path in Foundations A-Z is quite verbose. A more succinct verbal path does a better job of helping children remember how to form letters. 

The verbal path for letter formation is accurate but complicated. 

Type of Texts

Foundations A-Z uses decodable texts to encourage children to practice reading continuous texts. Decodable texts contain words that children have been taught to read. This encourages decoding and discourages guessing. 

Children can choose to listen to the digital book or read it themselves. When a word is selected, children can have it highlighted, read to them, or added to a word journal. These are great features that allow children to learn more independently. 

Decodable text sample from Foundations A-Z

How Effective is the Foundations A-Z Platform?

Overall, Foundations A-Z seems to be aligned with reading research. 

  • There is a clear scope and sequence. 
  • It uses synthetic phonics with explicit and direct instruction for letter names, sounds, and formation. 
  • Children learn how to sound out a word using individual letters and sounds, which is a rare and important feature of an online reading program. 

The follow-through and implementation of some of these features could use some improvements for children. Many of the game instructions, video lessons, and letter formations are overly verbose and occasionally too technical for the youngest learners. 

Games need to be scanned and scrolled to see all potential answers and methods of playing games and answering questions are not always clear. A child who has issues with memory or attention may struggle to learn with this program. 

This program is also relatively new and still has some glitches that make it difficult to play. For example, playing Foundations A-Z games on an iPad does not function well. Some games are unanswerable and the microphone system should not be relied upon to give accurate feedback to children. 

Hopefully, with system updates, some time, and finessing, Foundations A-Z will become more functional for new readers. 

Want to explore more phonics and reading programs for kids? Check out Phonics.org reviews from literacy instructors!

Foundations A-Z: Overall Rating

Quality of Literacy Instruction:  3.5 / 5

Usability:  2 / 5

Engagement:  3 / 5

Lalilo App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on May 9, 2024

Lalilo App Review

At Phonics.org, our goal is to provide educational reviews that empower you to make informed decisions for your child or student’s literacy learning.

Discover the benefits and drawbacks of the Lalilo app in this review!

What is Lalilo?

Lalilo is a literacy software program intended for K-2 students and teachers. The program offers interactive lessons and exercises aligned with various literacy goals. 

It includes practice with:

  • Phonological awareness
  • Sight and high-frequency words
  • Letter and word recognition
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary
  • Grammar and conventions
  • Comprehension

Lalilo’s student platform offers individualized, and adaptive, and self-paced exercises with AI technology ensuring appropriate content levels and feedback. The teacher dashboard facilitates data analysis, progress tracking, and lesson planning based on student needs and input. 

Positive Aspects of the Lalilo App for Reading

Here are several positive features of Lalilo worth noting. 

Sequential and Systematic Lessons

In the Lalilo app, lessons are structured systematically. This aligns with recommended educational practices. The program presents a clear and comprehensive scope and sequence and implementation guide, complete with hyperlinks to sample lessons for easy reference. Each lesson is designed in a step-by-step format, simplifying the game navigation for children. 

Dashboard and Student Data

The dashboard and student data area for teachers in Lalilo are impressively organized and user-friendly. Whether viewing individual student progress or analyzing class-wide data, the interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. 

Teachers can delve into specific literacy goals such as phonics, sight words, comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary, allowing for a detailed breakdown of each student’s performance in specific areas. Overall, the teacher dashboard area is exceptionally well-executed, providing educators with valuable insights to inform their teaching.

Letters and Sounds

Lalilo teaches letters and their sounds clearly and directly. Each letter, both uppercase and lowercase, is presented with its name and corresponding sound repetitively. The app emphasizes repetition to reinforce learning. 

Additionally, the pronunciation of sounds aligns accurately with American English standards, contributing to effective phonics instruction.

Engagement

Lalilo uses several features that foster engagement for kids. 

  • It has a visually beautiful design and user-friendly interface. 
  • Directions for each exercise can be repeated, which is a practical and useful feature for kids. 
  • Students are further motivated by proximity rewards such as books or badges, which are seamlessly integrated into the learning process without detracting from the educational objectives of the games.

Stories 

The stories in Lalilo feature a rich vocabulary, vivid descriptions, beautiful illustrations, and engaging narratives that captivate children’s interest. They provide an enjoyable listening experience that builds oral language skills. Overall, the stories add to the platform. 

Read aloud stories for children in Lalilo

Vocabulary

Lalilo offers a full “Foundational Vocabulary Unit” for emergent English language learners. There is a toggle on/off switch that can be added to individual students’ programs when needed. Direct vocabulary instruction is practical and helpful for kids in school who are just learning the English language. 

Shortcomings of the Lalilo App

There are also several challenges with using and learning with Lalilo.  

Introductory Activity and Training Exercise

Students begin Lalilo with an ‘introductory activity’ and then a training exercise. The introductory activity gauges the specific skills of each learner and places that learner in an appropriate place in their scope and sequence. This is a helpful and practical feature. 

However, these initial activities can be quite long and arduous for newer or younger readers. 

The training exercise is designed to teach players how to play the different games. Some of the games in Lalilo don’t appear intuitive for kids. For example, keywords are not dragged and dropped to a location. Instead, each response needs to be clicked and entered in the ‘answer’ box with another click, and then the answer needs to be submitted by clicking on the checkmark at the bottom of the screen. The existence of the training exercise itself seems to imply that these games are not intuitive for young children. 

Children sort graphemes into “Ss” and “not Ss” categories 

Oral Reading

Lalilo has a microphone feature that can listen to students as they read words. The app then provides feedback on their accuracy. This is a great feature that encourages active engagement in the game. However, this feature isn’t helpful for children with articulation or pronunciation struggles. Unfortunately, it also isn’t always accurate with this feedback. It sometimes corrects answers that a child already got right. 

Game Instructions

In Lalilo, there are occasional glitches where the game instructions are interrupted by specific letter or word prompts. This can be remedied by repeating the directions. However, this could be confusing for young users. 

Phonemic Awareness Practice

Phonemic awareness—the ability to manipulate individual sounds in speech and words—is crucial for reading development, particularly in blending sounds to form words. Lalilo offers phonemic awareness practice, although much of it focuses on isolating sounds in words. 

This activity asks children to put sounds in order to create a word.

The ‘repeat arrows’ are sounds and the + signs are where the sounds should go.

Lalilo does have some activities where children need to blend individual sounds to form a word. Unfortunately, these activities don’t have letters. Incorporating more activities with blending individual letter sounds would enhance the literacy instruction in Lalilo. 

Phonics Instruction

Lalilo uses analogy phonics with a reliance on word families. There are over 300 word families in the English language. It can be taxing for children to memorize all of these different families. 

This type of phonics instruction is not as efficient as synthetic phonics. Synthetic phonics uses individual letters and sounds to teach children to read and spell and is supported by research. 

The activities and exercises in Lalilo also don’t closely follow the scope and sequence of letter sounds and word types. Kids are frequently asked to read words that contain letter sounds that haven’t been taught yet. 

Decodable Texts

Lalilo includes decodable text very early in the literacy program when children have only learned three sounds and the word “the.” Decodable books are intended to contain mostly letter sounds and words that have been practiced and taught previous to reading the book. This is intended to encourage children to sound out the words in books.

However, in the initial Lalilo “decodable reader,” many of the sounds have not yet been introduced. Children would need to rely on guessing from the pictures unless they happen to know the letter sounds already. This reliance on pictures may detract from the book’s decodability, as the goal is to avoid children guessing based on images.

Only one of these words in this ‘decodable book’ can be sounded out based on the letter sounds that have been taught so far.

Font and Readability 

The font size in Lalilo is relatively small which may pose readability challenges. Children’s responses can be particularly small and more difficult to see. Additionally, the word “I” lacks distinct horizontal lines at the top and bottom, making it easily confused with the letter <L>. Implementing clearer differentiation for “I” could enhance readability for young learners and reduce potential confusion.

The sight word “I” can be confused with the letter <l>  

Children are asked to find the words that contain the letter <t>

Lalilo Review: Is the App Worth It? 

Lalilo offers a comprehensive literacy program for K-2 students and teachers. It includes various important aspects of literacy instruction. Its systematic lessons with direct instruction are great practices for teaching basic literacy skills. The beautiful stories and visually engaging interface are enjoyable to see and play. The systematic vocabulary program for English language learners is a valuable addition to the program. Finally, the data tracking of student skills is helpful and easy to access for educators. 

However, there are notable drawbacks to consider, including challenges with game instructions cutting out or being unnecessarily complicated. Lalilo should include practice in sounding out a word, letter by letter, from left to right. Using this type of synthetic phonics practice is more efficient when learning to read.  Additionally, the very early introduction of decodable texts and font readability issues may impact the effectiveness of the program. 

Despite these shortcomings, Lalilo remains a useful tool for supporting literacy development, particularly for emergent English language learners and students with early language skills.

Lalilo App: Overall Rating

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3 / 5

Usability: 2 / 5

Engagement: 3 / 5

Project Read AI: Review

Jaymi Thiessen on April 30, 2024

Project Read AI is an artificial intelligence reading tutor. Launched in August 2023, this innovative tool was created by educators and AI experts from Stanford University. Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, Project Read not only coaches teachers in the science of reading but also provides free personalized literacy tutoring for children. With its commitment to free and personalized reading tutoring, Project Read is a step towards closing the literacy gap, making literacy education more available for all.

How does this program implement literacy instruction? Here’s our Project Read AI review, provided by reading educators at phonics.org.

How to Use Project Read AI

Each aspect of the Project Read AI platform plays a strategic role in literacy tutoring. To understand how to use Project Read, let’s look at every component offered on its website. 

Student and Educator Log-In

Signing up for Project Read is a relatively straightforward process for educators. Using a class code, students can log in, select their name, and get started with the AI tutor. 

After the initial sign-up, logging in to the site requires an email link for every sign-in. Navigating to different parts of the site such as going to the AI tutor and then back to the dashboard requires an additional email link. The log-in process could be more streamlined to better accommodate busy educators. 

Project Read Dashboard

The dashboard area is where educators can set up their digital classrooms, add students, assign specific work to practice, and review data on student practice in the app.

Educators can choose from four different scope and sequences to follow on the site. The scope and sequence options include: 

The teacher can also select exactly which place in the scope and sequence the child should begin practice. This can be done as a whole class or changes can be made to accommodate specific students and their ideal starting point. 

Individual student data includes:

  • The number of minutes a student spends studying 
  • The number of stories a student reads
  • The number of objectives a student completes 

Additionally, an email will be sent to the educator on which concepts and irregular words the student needs more practice with. This is incredibly valuable information to receive from a tutor.

This area of the site is easy to use and is a quick way to get specific feedback about each child. 

AI Reading Tutor

Once a student logs in, they require a microphone/speaker to communicate with the AI Tutor. 

The tutor sessions start with brief, direct instruction on the concept of focus. It introduces words and sentences, which the student is then asked to read out loud to the tutor. The AI tutor listens to the answers and either gives positive reinforcement or corrects mistakes.

If a child makes a mistake on a specific word, the AI tutor isolates the word and has the student practice their error correctly. The tutor notes errors the student makes and reintroduces them to encourage the practice of specific areas of difficulty. This kind of specificity and adaptability is an interesting and helpful feature of the tutor. 

Who is Project Read AI For?

The approach in Project Read.AI is great for upper elementary, adolescent, and adult learners. 

Often, upper elementary or adolescent students who struggle with learning to read can feel self-conscious and would not want their peers to see them play games that look like they are for small children. The interface and direction in the AI Tutor are neutral and universal. Students can easily get right into the nitty gritty of practicing word and sentence reading. 

Limitations of Project Read

Students with speech articulation errors may have difficulty getting accurate input and feedback from the AI tutor. 

This app also doesn’t focus on the comprehension aspect of learning to read. The AI Tutor focuses entirely on word reading (decoding) abilities and does not implement spelling or other necessary skills of literacy instruction. 

Using Project Read in conjunction with direct teaching of literacy concepts with an educator is ideal. In this circumstance, having the technology to support individual student progress with specific feedback is a valuable concept. 

Decodable Text Generator

The decodable stories generator is an interesting and fun aspect of the Project Read site. Teachers may choose from four teaching objectives (scope and sequences). You can also include custom words to create a text that has personal meaning to a student or classroom. 

As a result, generated decodable texts use words that have been specifically taught from the chosen scope and sequence. It even includes an AI-generated picture to go along with the text. 

The decodable texts can then be edited, saved on the site or as a PDF, or put right into the AI tutor to practice reading with a student. If there’s part of the story you don’t like, you can click the “Regenerate” button and the AI writes a new story that includes your requested changes.

It’s important to note that artificial intelligence has limits. Educators need to evaluate stories to ensure they make sense. You likely want to revise the stories to make sure they’re accurate, relevant to your class, and age-appropriate. Perhaps editing these stories with students could be an interesting teaching opportunity. 

Ask Lola (Beta)

Another innovative section of the Project Read website is called ‘Lola’. 

Lola is an AI-powered “instructional coach for the science of reading.” According to the website, Lola can answer questions about “lesson planning, assessment, and implementation of structured literacy in your classroom” and is prepared to generate responses to general inquiries about the science of reading. 

As with all generative AI tools, you need to use discernment. The disclaimer on Project Read.AI is, “Always review AI-generated content for accuracy and appropriateness.” Therefore, be wary of the information provided. Answers should be backed up by further fact-checking when possible. 

Pros and Cons of Project Read AI

Project Read AI is a promising tool for students learning to read. It offers a blend of innovative technology and educational features to address the need for accessible reading instruction. This platform not only equips teachers with tools to use in the classroom but also provides personalized, free tutoring for students. 

Again, some logistical hurdles in the sign-in process are not ideal. There are limitations for people with speech concerns. Furthermore, reliance on artificial intelligence can only be taken so far. Educators should edit texts for accuracy and comprehension. 

Despite these limitations, Project Read AI comes with valuable resources like its decodable story generator and the AI-powered instructional coach, Lola. Classrooms can use the AI tutor to explore individual feedback and tips on improving students’ word-reading skills. 

The neutral, sleek user interface is perfect for upper elementary or adolescent students who are still developing literacy skills. 

Want to learn more about literacy instruction for your classroom? Read more reviews from the team at phonics.org and discover which ones work best.

Project Read AI Rating

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3 / 5

Usability: 3 / 5

Engagement: 3 / 5

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