Letter / Sound Recognition

Teach Your Monster to Read is a program that has three developmental levels to support early primary literacy growth. First Steps supports the learning of 31letter-sound combinations, blending and segmenting CVC words, and the first six non-decodable tricky words. Fun With Words teaches new letter-sound combinations, lots of practice with blending and separating more complex words, and introduces new tricky words. Champion Reader introduces new spelling sounds and pronunciations, more tricky words, and plenty of reading for meaning and comprehension. While this program does not instruct all of these phonics skills, it does support the learning occurring within the classroom in a fun, gamified environment the children seem to enjoy.

Khan Academy Kids has over 400 lessons to help teach and support the development of early reading skills. Some of these lessons include upper and lower case letters, beginning letter sounds, ending letter sounds, vowel sounds, and CVC words. Khan Academy Kids also has lessons to support the development of stronger readers as well as developing writing skills. Khan Academy Kids allows teachers to assign lessons and activities, as well as to differentiate assignments. Khan Academy Kids also provides progress reports for student assignments so that teachers can see at a glance where review may need to be assigned . Khan Academy Kids is a free site.

Reading Eggs is a program that provides guided one-on-one lessons that match a student's ability is based on scientific research and is developed by teachers with over 30 years of experience. The program teaches phonics, sight words, and other essential literacy skills. There are over 3000 e-books in the online library and the songs, animations, and rewards make learning to read fun. There are progress reports that allow teachers to track student growth. After Reading Eggs, the program scaffolds to Fast Phonics where students cover required phonics skills such as letter-sound recognition, blending, and spelling. In the next level, Reading Eggspress, older students continue to build and develop their literacy skills. Reading Eggs does have a free trial for educators, however, there is a cost associated with extended use.

Lalilo is a web-based literacy program that is used to teach phonics and literacy in a fun and gamified way. Students are able to learn a wide variety of early literacy skills in a motivating way that allows them to travel through various worlds and achieve a variety of badges and rewards. There is a scope and sequence available, and an initial placement test is offered to determine where students should begin. The program has a teacher dashboard that is designed to provide data on student needs and progress. The lessons are scaffolded to meet student needs, and students receive immediate feedback to support their learning growth. Students are able to work at their own pace. Reports are available for both teachers and parents, and Lalilo is able to be used at home or school. There is free access to a portion of this program however a premium paid program is also available that unlocks additional data information and assignment abilities.

Reading Kingdom uses the Six Skill Integrated Method which was developed by Dr. Marion Blank (Reading Kingdom - Our Approach PDF, p.3). This method incorporates phonics as well as other skills needed to develop fluent reading and writing. The six skills included are sequencing, writing, sounds, meaning, grammar and comprehension. These skills are incorporated and taught together to help students make sense of reading and writing. Lessons and activities include a clear use of words and sentences. Reading Kingdom adapts to a student's learning needs and provides an academic path that supports their individual growth. It identifies a student's starting point by administering an initial placement test and allows students to progress or skip activities as required. The program is gamified in its use of points, levels, challenges, and rewards to keep students engaged and motivated. There is also a reports section that allows teachers to see their students' progress through the program. This program is housed in the United States. There is a one month free trial after which there is a fee for use.