Customer Reviews

The Phonics Game -- 18 Hours of Fun For Better Reading (3 VHS Tapes, 7 Audio Cassettes, 6 Two-Deck Phonics Card Games, Sound Code Chart, Mirror, Reading Selections, Play Book, Notepad and Pen, Complete Instruction Book, Stickers, Game Plan Calendar, Comprehension Game and Audio Tape -- 1996

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I don't think the first reviewer was reviewing THIS game! Spelling and grammatical errors?? Losing a foreign accent?? Not here! The Phonics Game (and the Junior version) has been a tremendous help to me as a mother, tutor, and basic skills elementary teacher. With the Junior version of this game my daughter learned the basic letter sounds plus simple words in 3 weeks--and she had just turned three-years-old. This version is what I've used for ten years with my tutoring students and struggling readers at my school. As an educator I can tell you that children learn best when they are FOCUSED and MOTIVATED, which is what good games should help a child become. The Phonics Game teaches how to make letter sounds correctly (without adding an "uh" sounds as so many children do--example: saying "muh" instead of "mmm" for the sound of the letter m). So impressed am I with this game system that two other teachers in my building have been convinced to purchase it as well. Unfortunately, it is no longer made and seems to come only with a VHS tape...but the instructions book can help you learn the game if you don't have a VCR. ALL of my students have thoroughly enjoyed this game!

While teaching reading to children of all ages and cognitive abilities, The Phonics Game was the most valuable tool I utilized in 24 years. Carefully follow the instructions and your child/children will learn all the sounds, blends, rules, etc. necessary in becoming a competent reader. Not only will they learn how to sound out multi-syllable words, they will have fun while using their newly acquired phonemic-awareness skills.
All children have the right to become proud and successful readers so my sincere thanks to the people who developed this program. Have fun while playing and learning with your child/children. Yes, adults can also learn rules they were unaware exisited.

I used this game for five years as a teacher with a variety of struggling readers from 1997-2002. Every child I used this game with dramatically improved his or her reading skills as measured by norm-referenced assessments. This included elementary students with generic learning disabilities, dyslexia, autism, behavioral challenges, Downs Syndrome and students who were generally struggling with learning to read. With two exceptions, every child also enjoyed the games and asked to play as often as I would "let" them. :)

This fall I found an old copy of the game at Goodwill and grabbed it thinking my children might enjoy it someday. I got it home and, on a whim, tried it with my typically-developing kindergartener. She loved it and improved her cvc (e.g. led, nip) accuracy in text from 82% to 100% after just one session. (Yes, I am a data geek. It is hard to stop taking running records after all these years!) The response from my just-turned-four-year-old was even more dramatic. She saw her sister playing and wanted in on the action midway through the game. She took over for me and started sounding out and blending words just by observation. (In the interest of full disclosure, she has been participating along with her sister in "stretch and shrink" phonemic awareness activities, which are precursors to using the sound-symbol relationship to sound out and blend words.) She did, however, need some help with systematically looking for the cards she could take.

As a researcher whose dissertation was on advanced reading decoding strategies, as a teacher of struggling readers, and as a mother of typically-developing children, I highly recommend The Phonics Game.

We purchased this to teach a child with learning disabilities, autism to be specific. We used it as a family game and it is very helpful. For any child learning to read it reinforces lessons at school and can be used by home schoolers, teachers, tutors, and parents like us who just want to support learning activities at school with a social learning game at home.

The quality of the product is good. I am enjoying using it to tutor a student during the summer. It is a wonderful teaching tool.

Despite what you may have read or heard, this is in fact a great phonics tool. It teaches kids to read quickly and in a systematic approach. I help run a nonprofit educational service company which uses this system a lot. We have found that if you use it properly almost everyone learns to read. There are, however, a few people whose optimal way of learning will never be through phonics. Additionally, my niece (7) and nephew (9) learned to read with this game. They loved it and now can read anything they want with a remarkable fluidity. They began reading with it before kindergarten and since we only have them two hours a week, it took them a few months. This is remarkable progress given that schools generally don't have that kind of progress in years of having kids several hours a day, five days a week. Please don't believe everything you read. This is a great game.

I would have given this game 5 stars except that there are two decks that I believe are in the wrong order for optimal learning. It is my opinion that the deck where you learn about the "soft g" and "soft c" sounds should be used later in the learning process. It requires a discernment in reading that kids aren't ready for quite yet. Also, the beginning games with the short and long sounds are wonderful. After that, it's harder to play as a game but does well as a learning/teaching tool.

Research on the Web that I've seen indicates that this is worthless. It was created by an bad author with NO background in education or psychology. Spelling and grammatical errors abound, apparently. All sort of false claims were made (like you could lose a foreign accent in a weekend!). It was marketed by a pitchman with totally falsified credentials. I'm not going to waste money buying it for my 3-year-old, and I hope no one else will, either.