Get a head start in Headsprout Early Reading

I am honored to be able to review and advise on the literacy program by Headsprout. They were very eager in having a parent (and teacher) review the program and get the word out. I was even allowed full access to their special online program and really dig deep into it and see what I really thought about it.

Having taught Kindergarten for 3 years (and pre-K for 1) I am very passionate about early literacy. I have seen all sorts of literacy programs and there have been good ones and there have been bad ones. Before being asked to review Headsprout, I had heard of it but did not have any direct experience with it.

Before I go into review, I would like to tell you a little bit about the Headsprout Early Reading Program.

What is the Headsprout Early Reading Program?

Headsprout Early Reading is a K-2 supplemental program that ensures reading success for every child, guaranteed. The program takes a non-reader or a beginning reader to a mid-2nd grade reading skills in less than 30 hours of individualized online instruction. Eighty printed stories (including chapter books) and automated performance reports accompany the program.

How does Headpsrout Early Reading Work?

• 80 online lessons that cover the whole program curriculum.
• Balanced, phonics-based online reading instruction.
• Individualized, adaptive instruction for each student.
• Build-in assessment and performance reports.
• Easily implemented, minimal professional development required.
• Research-based, meets No Child Left Behind requirements.

What does Headsprout early Reading OffeR?

• Reading up to the mid-2nd Grade level.
• Fluent knowledge of more than 90 phonetic elements and more than 100 sight words.
• Potential reading vocabulary of more than 5,000 words.
• Progression from single word comprehension to building meaning and inferential story comprehension.
• Mastery of the skills and strategies necessary to succeed on standardized tests.

Review:

Upon being granted access, you are taken to your home page where you are instructed to either do the Early Reading program or the Reading Comprehension program (which is for older children). I clicked on Early Reading, as early literacy is most ultimately important to me at this moment in time.

You are allowed to click on an arrow that allows you to play episode 1. Episode 1 is part of 23 episodes in the “Crack the Code” series. In this particular set of 23 episodes, your early readers should be learning the following:

• Students learn letters represent sounds
• Students learn sounds go together to make words.
• Students learn the critical strategies of:
  • finding sounds in words (segementing)
  • saying contiguous sounds (blending)
  • saying the word based upon hearing themselves say blended sounds
• Reading vocabulary grows up to 50 words.

Knowing this is what the kids have to learn, I choose to view episode 1. It shows me a little red book called “See and Vee” and I know I will need to be checking out that book. However when I open my packet of Early Reader books, that particular book was not included. I received six books, and “See and Vee” wasn’t one of them. I am not sure if this was a packing error or if I misunderstood the directions.

The video is not just a video, but it is interactive much like a computer program and will require your little reader to follow directions such as “click on the spaceship”. We are introduced to a spaceship that says “Taxi” and the letter “s” and are told repeatedly to click on the spaceship, while S appears and reappears. Knowing that in order for kids to learn, there has to be a lot of repetition — this definitely happens. Even if you don’t immediately follow the directions, the directions will repeat until you finally follow them correctly.

In epsiode 1, after we are introduced to the letter S, we are given a series of numbers and letters that physically almost look like an S, like the letter 5. We are then instructed to click on the “Sssss” sound. This allows the child to have letter recognition as well as repeating the sound association. When you click on the S — the reader is given positive verbal reinforcement such as “Wow!” “Great job!”, etc.

I wanted to see what would happen if I selected the wrong letter. Would it play sad music? Would it give the reader a sense of failure? Absolutely not. It simply highlighted the S and repeated the direction. I am not an early reader, but I did not get a sense of disappointment or disapproval in the program for choosing the wrong answer, which may be important with the more sensitive early or struggling readers. Even though I was almost at the end when I chose the wrong answer, it did start me from the beginning of that particular game — which I agree with. It understood the reader was not fully understanding or mastering that particular skill and needed extra practice.

We are then introduced to the combo of letters, “ee”. After being introduced to both the sounds “s” and “ee” we are required to play a game to help the alien cross the planets to get to the other side by recognizing both sounds. Following are various games the child gets to play to show their understanding of both these sounds. While playing the games myself, I felt as if the child doesn’t even need to know the letter names in order to start this pre-reading program. As we go, the games get progressively harder.

I later discover that the book, “See” is probably more appropriate for me to need at this point in time, however I still don’t know where the red book is. It was never received on my end (although maybe it wasn’t meant to be received). But according to the sprout stories button, I won’t need the book SEE until after episode 5, where it is also printable by then as well.

If your child is having difficulty with Episode 1, it does give you the option of restarting episode 1. I will be restarting it with my best friend’s 4 year old to see how well she does at understanding both the concepts and the directions. I well then chat about her progress (granted I can convince Mom to let me school her kid) in the future, heh.

What I just noticed is that after I completed the first episode, it sent a progress report to the teacher and told the teacher (me, in this case) what skills were worked on and what I had accomplished. What a great connection to home and school. Your teacher will know exactly what you’re working on and will know what skills to reinforce in the classroom!

Another positive option with this program is that you can print out a progress chart and have your child color it. The program comes with stickers (although you can use your very own) and then you can laminate your chart and hang it so your child can see their progress. When they master each episode, you can put a sticker on that particular number so they can see how far they have come! I thought that was very cute visual motivation.

From what I can see so far, it definitely seems like a great little program to encourage reading in young children. It looks as if they will be able to read basic sentences and words in a very short amount of time, which makes it a perfect supplemental program to aid in their literacy development. I definitely encourage checking it out for yourself as it may be the key your child needs to succeed in reading!