Best online phonics games?

[WTMCassandra]

I am a retired homeschooler who has gone back to work. My coworker is concerned about her 2nd grade daughter’s reading levels.

Specifically, my coworker says her daughter has trouble recognizing different forms of a word. My guess is that the public school is not teaching phonics, which I think would help skills like that.

Schools in our state are now closed. With all the turmoil, I’m suggesting to my coworker that an online phonics game might be the most palatable way to improve skills.

What say ye, hive mind? Am I on the right track? What are the best online phonics games?

I’ve been out of the loop for a long time. I’d appreciate your wisdom.

Thanks,

WTMCassandra (a blast from the past)

 

[goldenecho]

So, at my child's school we have something called Lexia which has really helped my child.  It MAY be something offered through the schools at this time so I'd consider it.

What I used in my homeschool, when we were homeschooling, was ProgressivePhonics.com.   Since she's in 2nd grade she'd probably want to start her at the intermediate level.   It's printable, not online, but it's free and super simple to use   (well, you can use it on a tablet, but I think its better printed).   You just read the short lessons to your child, and then you read short funny phonics poems together (they are color coded so your child reads some and you read some). 

Starfall is good for beggining, but I've not tried it with older kids. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by goldenecho

[ElizabethB]

Most online things encourage guessing, which is a balanced literacy habit.

There is Read, Write, Type which is good but just the basics of phonics and spelling. https://www.talkingfingers.com/read-write-type/

I would suggest my syllables lessons, designed for a child her age and older that has been taught poorly, free, videos make it easy to teach. http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Reading/syllablesspellsu.html

My phonics concentration game is a fun way to practice: http://www.thephonicspage.org/On Phonics/concentrationgam.html

This article explains what is being taught in schools and how it promotes guessing: https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading

I have an article about how to combat guessing habits and other things besides my program that work for older students: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-good-reading-habits-liz-brown/

Edited August 15, 2020 by ElizabethB

[EKS]

On 3/16/2020 at 2:52 PM, WTMCassandra said:

Specifically, my coworker says her daughter has trouble recognizing different forms of a word.

Sorry to be dense, but what does "different forms of a word" mean?

[ElizabethB]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:00 AM, EKS said:

Sorry to be dense, but what does "different forms of a word" mean?

My students who guess will read job as jobs or vice versa, same for ed, ing endings, they will skip or have an ending where none is there.

Nonsense words and learn all the phonics they are missing.  They have to be retrained not to guess, and to carefully sound out the whole word.

[EKS]

10 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

My students who guess will read job as jobs or vice versa, same for ed, ing endings, they will skip or have an ending where none is there.

Nonsense words and learn all the phonics they are missing.  They have to be retrained not to guess, and to carefully sound out the whole word.

Thanks, this makes sense.

[charlotteb]

I think Starfall.com is the best for online phonics games.  Several of my kids have used it when they were younger. 

[mariahwg]

My favorite is the Montessori Words and Phonics app by L'Escapadou. 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lescapadou.picturespelling&hl=en_US&gl=US

It's one word at a time (not sentences), using the concepts of the Montessori Moveable alphabet game. It goes in reverse order: the app says the word and the child spells it using phonics. What I love about it is that if the reader is having a hard time with a particular phoneme, you can choose to isolate that phoneme for extended practice. It's really good for learning all the phonic possibilities.

For more integrated reading, I like the McGuffey app. It's more expensive, but it's soup to nuts as far as reading goes, with a lot more opportunities for practice. If you're familiar with McGuffey, you'll recognize a lot of it. It's also ordered and you can simply follow through the lessons for completeness. 

[Melissa in Australia]

teach your monster to read 

[Melissa in Australia]

I also use reading eggs, but use it more as a reward after completing their regular schoolwork