Headsprout: Phonics Based Reading System

You want to give your child every advantage when it comes to school. Reading and understanding language is a big part of academic success. That’s why I was interested in Headsprout’s Phonics Based Reading System.Their books combined with the online program teach early reading and comprehension for children from Kindergarten to 5th Grade.

There are two parts to the program – Early Reading and Reading Comprehension. The Early Reading is geared to school-aged children, from Kindergarten to second grade. The Reading Comprehension is for children from third to fifth grade. Here are the features of each program.

EARLY READING

During the first half of Headsprout Early Reading, children learn through direct positive experience that letters and sounds go together to make words, words go together to make sentences, and sentences make stories. The basic component skills and strategies necessary for reading, such as phonemic awareness (the sounds within words), print awareness, phonics, sounding out, segmenting and blending, are explicitly mastered in a fun, self-directed manner. The second half of the program focuses more on reading vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, while still teaching more sounds and sight words. Your child will have a fluent knowledge of more than 90 phonetic elements, more than 100 sight words, and a potential reading vocabulary of more than 5,000 words!

Headsprout Early Reading includes:

• Individualized, adaptive instruction matches your child’s needs
• 80 online lessons each average 20 minutes
• 12 full-color Headsprout Readers
• 80 “ready-to-read” printable stories
• Printable sound and word flash cards
• Progress Map, stickers, and Completion Certificate
• Individualized, detailed progress reports

READING COMPREHENSION

Headsprout Reading Comprehension teaches children how to comprehend what they read. It provides elementary readers with engaging instruction in how to read for meaning and how to apply these skills across subject areas and on standardized tests.

Headsprout Reading Comprehension includes:

• 50, 30-minute online lessons which teach students strategies to master the four main components of comprehension: Finding facts, Making inferences, Identifying themes and the “main idea”, Learning vocabulary in context
• Makes learning new vocabulary fast and easy with our proprietary vocabulary acquisition system.
• Individualized, adaptive instruction, not just practice answering questions, as students are actually taught how to comprehend and the reason for learning comprehension
• Increasing passage complexity as the program progresses to include more complex sentences and longer passages, more answer choices and more variation in questions. Passages and vocabulary teach a variety of subjects and include: tables of contents, headings, maps, and measurement: scales, rulers and charts
• Automated progress reports that show what your child is learning

One thing that impressed me about the program was the idea that a four year old reading. That comes from John Crone’s testimonial, available on Headsprout.com.

“Headsprout Early Reading was wonderful. In a month and a half my four-year-old went from knowing his ABCs to reading everything that he can get his hands on.”

My son is 3.5 years and very knowledgable about letters and their sounds. I can see his brain aching to read, as he does memorize his current stories. So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to test out the Early Reading program with him. Headsprout sent 11 books and gave me online access to the program. I also received a progress map, stickers and completion certificates. We were ready to roll!

On the back of each book it tells you when to read it. For example, on the back of the book See it says to read it after Episode 5.

MY EXPERIENCE:

I have a 3.5 year old. He will be going to Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten next year. So, he is on the young side for the program. But he is so smart, of course. He recognizes letters and knows sounds already, and he memorizes his stories now. He’ll point out letters and sounds in his “big” books too. So I wanted to get him started with Headsprouts Early Reading Program. The average length of each online session is about 20 minutes. You log on, give your child a mouse and it takes you to the right session. My son has done 4 and a half sessions. His little brother turned off the last one he was working on – boy was he mad. So we took an Oreo break.

Anyways, in the beginning it concentrates on the sounds the letters make, not the name of each letter. I thought maybe that was a little confusing for my son, since he is used to a V says VVVVVV approach – but he really caught on quickly to the way the lessons were illustrated. You learned the sounds and you learned how to combine sounds to make words. There are little games and characters to walk you through it. Whenever my son gets an answer wrong for a game, it puts him back at the beginning – boy does that peeve him off. But when I ask if he’s done, he says, “No! More!” So we sit and play some more! I know he’ll be excited to do this daily, just like he loves his LeapFrog products (Leapster, Flashcards, Alphabet Video, etc.). At the end of Episode 5 online, we’ll introduce our first book. The first book is VERY short with only 3 pages of reading with 7 words total. But they are all words he was learning to recognize during his online sessions.

Also, my little one is a SPONGE, as he sits and learns alongside his brother. We can’t trust him with the mouse – but he will repeat sounds and words that he sees and hears from the program. So I have a feeling they will BOTH benefit from this. And although my 3 year old can do this alone, he gets frustrated easily when he gets something wrong, so I like to sit near him and help him out. And as I sit and watch, I can feel good as I see the knowledge he is getting and the connections that are being made.

As my son finishes his lessons, I am e-mailed a report on what he learned and the progress he made! And I can even go online to download and print stories and flash cards that complement his learning.

Headsprout also sent me the books for Reading Comprehension. Here the stories are divided into Chapters with Black and White illustrations. The storylines are more complex and there are questions that go along with each chapter. Although my child is too young to appreciate them now, I can definitely see how these readers, along with parent support, can prepare children for school!

COST:
The first 40 Lessons of the Early Reading program costs $99, and so do the last 40 lessons. Or you can purchase the complete program for $198. You can purchase at once or in monthly installments. Additional learners save 50% in the same household.

EXAMPLE: Here is my son doing one of the first lessons on Headsprout.com.