Hooked On Phonics Review

Program Summary and Contents

Hooked on Phonics is the first phonics program that my husband and I purchased for our children. We bought it when my oldest was just three years old - the youngest age recommended. It has been a few years since then, and Hooked on Phonics still remains the best known phonics program available. According to their website, "Designed for kids ages 3 to 8, Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read is a great way to give early readers a head start or provide an extra boost to a child who has begun reading."

The complete Hooked On Phonics Learn to Read program comes equipped with 5 color-coded levels to take your child through learning letter sounds and short vowels, beginning blends, ending blends, long vowels, and challenging combinations. Each of the color-coded boxes contains "readers", a workbook, an audio tape, flash cards, and instructions. In addition, the program comes with a complete parent's guide, an interactive CD-ROM, helper word and word play cards, and posters and reward stickers. This is a very large, complete, and hight quality program.

What To Expect...

My first reaction when I received this package in the mail was WOW! There are a huge amount of materials included in this program. It is heavy, it is massive, and ... it looks complicated.

I was excited about the program. My daughter had started showing quite an interest in letters, had most of them mastered, and really wanted to learn to read. We were pumped when we opened the Quick Start Parent's Guide and began the program. Everything was well organized, each level was clearly set up. We immediately started using the program.

What I liked...

I really like a lot of things about this program. The thing I like the most is that there are so many materials included with this program. Because the majority of this program is geared towards improving reading ability and self-confidence, there is a wealth of reading material, music, workbooks, games, and helper cards available at every level of the course geared towards helping your child become a better reader.

Hooked on Phonics also includes a lot of innovative techniques to help your child read better. Helper Word cards contain common sight words that don't follow normal sounding out "rules," giving your child practice with these frequently used words. Word play cards give your child practice spelling words in an interactive way. The workbooks use colorful and entertaining ways to help your child learn to sound out words with different letter-sound patterns, and give them practice reading those words through entertaining stories. The interactive CD reinforces the skills your child learns with the other parts of the program through fun, interactive activities and animated characters to keep your child engaged in the program and reading.

The Hooked on Phonics program also offers rewards as the child progresses through each level of the program. There are My Reading Adventure posters that are designed to help you and your child keep track of their progress with star stickers to mark each milestone along the way. In addition, the books themselves become a reward because they are engaging and well written stories designed to use only the words your child is able to read at each level.

In short, I can't begin to really do justice to the Hooked on Phonics program and what it can do for a child who is already a beginning reader. This program is sure to help the beginning reader improve their reading ability and build confidence in their reading.

The Down Side...

You may have noticed that I keep saying "beginning reader." If your child is not yet a reader, that is where this program falls short because about 95% of the program is dedicated to improving a child's reading, and only about 5% is dedicated to actually giving them the beginning foundation for reading. The program claims to help children between the ages of 3 and 8 learn to read. As you know, there is quite a developmental difference between a child of 3-5 years of age and one of 6-8 years of age. In fact, each year is fundamentally different in learning ability and rate.

You may remember that I said that we bought this program for my daughter when she was three - the youngest age Hooked on Phonics recommends... well, I found this program to fall far short of helping her to learn her letters and sounds.

In the Quick Start Parent's Guide you are asked to assess where your child is at before you begin the program. It says that if you child doesn't know the names of the letters, then you should start with the letter flash cards and the first audio tape. That was fine. My daughter knew nearly all of the letters pretty well already, so I decided to do a quick review there to make sure we had a firm foundation. We ended up spending a few days on this because there were a few that she didn't know well yet.

At first she was excited to do the flash cards and loved the music, but after the first or second lesson, she couldn't sit still, wasn't paying attention, and didn't seem to be getting anything out of it. The audio tape really only repeated each letter in order over and over again on the tape, so I decided we could do without the tape and get her through this part faster. That worked pretty well and my daughter picked up the few letters that she hadn't known.

Then we moved on to the next step... letter sounds. Now there were a different set of flash cards and a different audio tape. I expected things to get a little more interesting and engaging for both me and my daughter. Nope. This lesson was basically the same as the last, only it incorporated letter sounds along with the names of the letters. It became more and more difficult to keep my daughter engaged in the lessons. Finally I gave up in frustration.

Several months later, I became aware of a computer based program called ClickN READ. I didn't want to give up on Hooked on Phonics, but it just wasn't engaging enough for my young child to learn her letter sounds and blending. What I ended up doing was using ClickN READ, going through the entire program, then stepping in to Hooked on Phonics to challenge her more and improve upon her reading skills. It worked great for us.

In Summary...

In conclusion, I would highly recommend the Hooked on Phonics reading program for children who have already mastered the beginning reading skills like letter recognition, letter sounds, and blending. It is the best program on the market today for improving the reading skills of children, bar none. In fairness, however, I just don't think they have what it takes to keep a younger child engaged and focused on the program.

If you have a younger child that is just starting to learn letters and sounds, then a program like ClickN READ is much more appropriate. If, on the other hand, your child can already read a few words, then you just couldn't find a better program for them to continue on the road to reading than Hooked on Phonics

See what other parents have to say about Hooked on Phonics - Don't just take my word on this program, do your own homework. Visit the site and see what other parents have to say.