Learn to Read for Children at Starfall

Internet Site, Windows, Mac OSX

Teaches: reading, phonics, vocabulary

CTR Rating: 94%

CTR Review

You can't argue with the price of this set of web site-based activities. It's basically a large set of well designed and leveled interactive reading books for grades K - 1. There are two sections to the site. Learn to Read, for beginning readers, contains 15 short stories designed around letter sounds. For example, "Gus the Duck" is offered up for the letter U. In the stories, each part of the word is sounded out. There is also an electronic word sheet activity for each book. It's Fun to Read (geared to the first grade reader) consists of four tongue twisters, an all about me activity (a survey style game where you choose hair color, etc.), bird riddles, and so on. The art and narration is excellent, and the interface is well designed. A newer browser is required. All the activities are designed in Flash, and load nicely using a standard 512K DSL connection. The catch? It's hard to find one. The site is owned and maintained by the Blue Mountain Company, which sells greeting cards and print versions of the books (not required in order to use the site). There's no visible advertising. Visit www.starfall.com.