Ultimate Phonics is not a computer game. It's a serious reading program that uses the computer as a direct learning tool. It makes great use of the computer to help with learning to read, just not in a cartoon format.
For some reason, not based on any scientific research or evidence, most educational software is designed in a cartoon game or "edutainment" format. Much more importance is placed on entertaining students than actually teaching them. The result is that many of these programs don't work very well because the educational content simply isn't there. If you are a parent or teacher who has tried a variety of these programs you know this is true -- your children or students played the games but still didn't learn to read especially well.
Ultimate Phonics takes a different approach. It is a 100% educational program that teaches your students directly and thoroughly to be excellent readers. Everything in Ultimate Phonics was put there for that single purpose. So when you introduce the program to your children or students, present it as something that will teach them to read books and do better in school, not as another computer game.
To get the most out of Ultimate Phonics you should set aside regular reading times. Because we are doing a thorough job of teaching reading, the program is fairly lengthy. On average, it takes around a year to complete the entire program using it 2-3 hours per week. Therefore you should try to establish a routine you can stick with for that length of time. In return for that investment, your children and students should end up as excellent lifelong readers with no need for any further phonics instruction.
There is no set schedule you must follow. In the end you should use your own judgment regarding how often to use the program. If your students are making good progress and are comfortable with a particular schedule, then it is the right one for you.
Generally we recommend using Ultimate Phonics at least 2-3 days per week for 30-60 minutes per session. The quality of the sessions is more important than the quantity. When students use the program we want them to focus and really try to learn. It is better to take more days off and have them fresher and more enthusiastic than to make it a grind. That said, some parents and teachers have used the program daily with excellent results. Again, use your judgment as to what routine works best for your situation.
For parents who sit down and read regularly to their children, a great approach is to incorporate Ultimate Phonics into those reading times. You can trade off reading to each other. When you read to them, you read the same books you normally would. When they read to you, they read from Ultimate Phonics. You can truthfully tell them that when they finish reading their Ultimate Phonics program, they'll be able to read books just like you do.
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One of the most important things you can do is listen to your children and students read the lessons. The Ultimate Phonics software is excellent at teaching students in great detail how to read over 4,400 words and 2,100 sentences in 262 lessons. But the software only shows them how to read the material, it doesn't test them. Our test is actually listening to them read.
We recommend the following routine for Ultimate Phonics sessions: first have your students review the current lesson on the computer, then listen to them read the same lesson to confirm they have learned it. When students read the lessons to you, they can read from either the computer screen or the Words and Sentences book. Either way it is the same material.
When you listen to your children or students read from the Ultimate Phonics program it is very important you insist on reading accuracy. No guessing or skipping allowed! If you are doing the lessons in order, there is no reason for students to guess. The program is carefully designed so that in every lesson they will have already learned everything necessary to successfully sound out the words and sentences we are asking them to read.
Many students routinely guess when they read. They constantly misread and skip over words that could easily be sounded out. At first they must do this because they are frequently confronted with words they haven't been taught to read. Since they don't have the knowledge to read the words, they have no choice except to guess or skip. Over time, this develops into a habit and becomes their style of reading. This wreaks havoc with comprehension since they are continually changing the meaning by misreading the text.
When students are first learning to read it is often critical that they begin with carefully controlled reading material that enables them to gain a lot of reading practice without being forced to guess. The Ultimate Phonics program is expertly designed to enable students to read thousands of words and sentences without ever needing to guess or skip! Therefore there is no excuse for misreading words when using our program. When students misread or skip a word, stop them and ask them to look at the word again and to sound it out. If necessary, find the word in the Ultimate Phonics software and review it. By insisting on accuracy throughout the program, students will become fluent, accurate readers with good comprehension.
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The lessons in Ultimate Phonics are designed to be learned in order, since each lesson builds on concepts taught in earlier lessons. If students skip over lessons, they may miss out on learning important phonics rules that will be needed for reading some of the words and sentences in later lessons. This puts them right back in the position of having to guess at words, which is one of the major problems we are trying to correct. Presumably you are using Ultimate Phonics to teach your students to read properly once and for all. The best way to ensure this result is to have them learn all of the lessons in order.
That said, if you are an experienced teacher using Ultimate Phonics as a supplement to another phonics program, you can skip around and choose the lessons that complement whichever phonics rules you are teaching. The easiest way to this is with the Find feature. Just be aware that by doing this you will lose some of the 100% decodability of the words and sentences. However, many teachers use Ultimate Phonics in this fashion and find it to be a very valuable enhancement to their other instruction.
Lesson 1 is different from the other lessons in Ultimate Phonics. Its main purpose is to provide a review of the consonants and their basic sounds, which we need to get started reading words and sentences. We assume your children and students already know the names of the letters of the alphabet before beginning the program. Ideally they will also be somewhat familiar with the basic sounds of these letters. You can use Lesson 1 to review these basic sounds whenever necessary. When first starting Ultimate Phonics, we recommend that you review the contents of Lesson 1 with your students, then go straight into Lesson 2 to begin actual reading.
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Normally you should start your children and students at the very beginning of Ultimate Phonics and proceed through the lessons in order. Because we begin at the most basic level of reading ("fat", "cat", "rat") sometimes the question arises as to whether a student with some reading experience should start the program in a later lesson. For example, some students may claim that the beginning lessons are too easy.
There is a simple way to settle this issue. Take the Words and Sentences book and have the student read the lessons aloud, starting with Lesson 2. As long as the student is reading fluently and accurately, have him continue to read the lessons in order. As soon as he encounters a lesson where you begin to detect any tendency to misread words or to read excessively slowly, that should be the starting lesson. Remember, it never hurts to review material that students already know. If they truly know it, the reading should go quickly and easily. If they don't truly know it, then it is critical they correctly learn the material now.
For beginning readers of any age it is very important that they thoroughly master the material in the first 12 lessons before going on to the later lessons. These lessons teach the two and three letter words with short vowels, which from a phonics standpoint are the simplest words in English.
For students who begin Ultimate Phonics struggling with these basic words, think of the first 12 lessons as a mini-program within the larger program. Make a pass through these lessons in order, then another pass. As you see students start to improve, jump around among the first 12 lessons reviewing them randomly. When you are confident that students can read all of the words in the first 12 lessons with fluency and 100% accuracy, you are now ready to proceed through the remaining 250 lessons of the program.
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In a typical session using Ultimate Phonics, the students should try to cover at least one lesson. The lessons are designed to be fairly short. Each lesson teaches a single phonics rule, a set of words that use that rule, and a set of sentences that use the new words as well as words from earlier lessons. The average lesson teaches around 20 words and 8-10 sentences.
Ideally in a session, students will review all the words and sentences in the current lesson on the computer, then read that material aloud to the parent or teacher to demonstrate their mastery. Students can review the lessons as often as needed if they are having trouble. As soon as students can read a lesson accurately, they can go on to the next lesson.
One of the most powerful features in Ultimate Phonics which is often overlooked is right-clicking. There are three ways right-clicking is used:
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Although Ultimate Phonics is an excellent reading program, it doesn't have the cartoon bells and whistles typically found in "edutainment" software. It is a learning tool that simply teaches children and students to read in a direct, thorough, and effective manner. In terms of praise and encouragement, this must be provided by you, the parent or teacher. When your students read well, praise and compliment them. When they struggle, be patient and encourage them. Through being involved in this way, you can help make the process of learning to read enjoyable and rewarding.
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When you’re teaching students with dyslexia, you
need all the tools you
can get,
whether it’s Ultimate Phonics Reading Software, WordQ Writing
Software,
SpeakQ Dictation Software
or Quarter Mile Math Software.
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