Starfall - Teaches Children to Read with Phonics

Starfall is a free public service website that teaches children to read using a systematic phonics approach. It was introduced in 2002 by the Polis-Schutz family (who also founded Blue Mountain Arts Publishing, which created the popular e-card site www.bluemountain.com). Starfall is geared towards preschoolers, kindergarten, first grade and special education students. It offers engaging phonics games and online interactive books. The website includes resources for teachers, including lesson plans.

This definition is courtesy of Wikipedia - Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing by developing learners’ phonemic awareness—the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate English phonemes— in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them. The goal of phonics is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out, or in phonics terms, blending the sound-spelling patterns.

I wrote this hub because I have three kids (a daughter who's 9, a son who is 7, and another son who is 4) that have all been positively impacted by Starfall. My 9 year old and 7 year old are way above reading levels in school (both two grade levels ahead), which I think is in large part due to their early exposure with Starfall. They both have a great passion for reading now, and I think that learning to read early on helped create that passion because it instilled a confidence and enjoyment in reading. This, hopefully, will be as beneficial and rewarding to your kids, and I really hope you give this site a try (www.starfall.com)..

Starfall is divided into four reading levels, designed for the progression of the reader, as they learn how to read. The four levels are: Learning ABC's, Early Beginning Reading, Intermediate Beginning Reading, and Advanced Beginning Reading. At the Learning ABC's level, Starfall shows the child the upper case and lower case letters of the alphabet, and the child hears the sound of the letters that comprise a word. In Early Beginning Reading, the child creates words using consonants with various word families. The letters are highlighted on the screen as the child goes through words. What's cool about the Intermediate and Advanced Beginning Reading levels is the child can read a whole host of stories, including fiction and non-fiction, and have interactive fun graphics to keep the child engaged.

Back in 2006, Starfall became available in Spanish. The site is call Pumarosa.com. As it's popularity grew, the demand for a Spanish version of Starfall became evident, and the creator's of Starfall built it's new website to aid in Spanish reading development.