Earobics Home Version Step 2: Sound Foundations for Reading and Spelling

by Houghton Mifflin

Product Features

• This builds phonological awareness and auditory processing skills.
• Earobics Step 2 features five interactive games with 593 levels.
• The software automatically adjusts to the appropriate skill level of the user.
• Earobics uses adaptive training and acoustically modified speech.
• Recommended for ages 7 to 11.

Product Details

• ASIN: 0669524425
• Item Weight: 6.1 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,760 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #5 in Software > Children's Software > Reading & Language
  • #8 in Software > Children's Software > Activities
  • #22 in Software > Children's Software > Early Learning

Product Description

Building on the foundation of phonological awareness, phonics, and auditory processing skill training delivered by Earobics Step 1, Earobics Step 2 also teaches language comprehension skills that are critical for extracting meaning from spoken language and written text. Earobics Step 2 features five interactive games with 593 levels that teach the essential skills required for learning how to read and spell. Recommended for ages 7-11.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dyslexia help, February 8, 2009

By 

niknikmontana (Plattsburgh, NY) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Earobics Home Version Step 2: Sound Foundations for Reading and Spelling (CD-ROM)

My 9 year old dyslexic son has been using this program for several months and it has been incredibly helpful with reading and writing. We hope to find the adolescent version and continue once he finishes this one.

5.0 out of 5 stars System requirements, February 23, 2012

By 

L. Hetue "Reading Fool" (China and Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Earobics Home Version Step 2: Sound Foundations for Reading and Spelling (CD-ROM)

Mfg System requirements are: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows ME or Windows XP.
Not XP Home Edition

3.0 out of 5 stars Good - but watch out for non-American accents, October 12, 2011

By 

Laura - See all my reviews

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Earobics Home Version Step 2: Sound Foundations for Reading and Spelling (CD-ROM)

This program and the other Earobics titles are clearly designed for North American users.

This is a shame because most of the activities work quite well.

However as a previous user mentioned - there are still af few glitches in there - thankfully not many.

What is more problematic is the English vs American accents.

Some of the differences are very frustrating for the kids, and leaves them stranded on the same level, unable to progress.

In the Fireman sounds game - the short vowels u and o sound almost identical.

For English speakers (UK, Australia, NZ, Sth Africa etc) these sounds are very different.
with the short 'u' sound clearly being pronounced 'uh' as in 'cup' or 'but'
and the short 'o' sound pronounced as 'o' as in 'cot' or 'orange'

However the Nth Amercian pronounciation of the short 'o' sounds very close to the 'u'/'uh', and comes out sounding somewhere between 'ah' and 'awe'.
So instead of 'cot' it sounds like 'c-ah-t' ... which is ok in the word recognition as there are the surrounding letters to help with the sound interpretation.
However in the individual short vowel sound recognition - it's quite hard and confusing for the kids, as it's clearly very different to what they learn in school English classes.

Similarly for the Pengiun game where there are sounds syllables given for words which are just confusing for the kids' spelling.
eg lemon ... instead of being sounded out as le-mon ... is sounded out as le-min
chicken ... instead of being sounded out as chi-cken ... is sounded out as chick-in
kitchen ... instead of being sounded out as kit-chen ... is sounded out as kit-chin

Finally the Hippo - find the mismatched sound in the sequence game, has very similar problems to the o/u issues above, along with r/l, with the kids getting stranded on a level unable to progress. At times, even as an adult who is well versed in accents - I cant hear the difference between the ruh/luh/rah/lah. The audio is also quite clipped short ... so this makes it even more difficult to determine what sound is being said.

Summary:
The Pirate/Parrot word/syllable matching games and the Luck Duck sound/syllable/word recognition games dont seem to suffer from these issues.

The beginner & intermediate levels of the Fireman sound recognition game are also good. With the English/American accent confusions only arising in the advanced level games.

Apart from the pronounciation issues - the Penguin game works well too.

Probably the most frustrating one is the Hippo game as the kids can easily get stuck on each of 8 the beginner tasks without progressing at all. Any background noise can make it impossible to hear the subtle sound differences, which are not familiar to non-American accent speakers.

***
The games are repetitive by nature, so can become a bit boring. So offer some kind of incentives to get them thru it. We did the program over the school spring break - getting thru all the beginner & intermediate levels within 2 weeks, except the Hippo, which I'm considering abandonning if the higher levels' audio isnt clearer as it's too frustrating.