Developed at Bangor University by a team that really understands the needs of children with reading difficulties and dyslexia, Sounds and Rhymes offers more than 20 games and activities that build awareness of basic letter sounds and their relation to written letters.

A bright, uncluttered interface ensures that the focus is on learning. Graphics and animation add visual interest, while sampled speech can be used to introduce letter sounds and words and teachers can select which sounds are practised in a session. Teachers can define the presentation of the program (sound effects, animations, graphic style). Each exercise is delivered in short sections because little and often is the recommended approach. Three main areas are covered: vowel sounds, rhymes and consonant blends. Activities encourage children to match vowels to pictures, identify initial vowels and consonants, sort objects into vowel groups, select missing initial and final consonants, make rhyming and non-rhyming words.

Most activities are drag-and-drop, or point-and-click. Pupils can also key in text to practise the spelling of consonant blends. User feedback reinforces correct answers with a tick andor graphic response (a picture fills a space in a grid, for example). If an incorrect answer is selected, it simply disappears. If two incorrect responses are made, a new word is presented. In this way, mistakes are never reinforced by negative feedback. A ‘Show Me’ feature demonstrates how consonant blends are constructed.

Report files record pupils’ responses and enable teachers to track progress. These are displayed in a browser and can then be copied into any word processor for printing. A basic user guide clarifies installation, setup, program contents and game instructions.

The program offers useful practice and the games are sure to be enjoyed by pupils, although the number of items available for some activities is limited (only 5 words are offered in the “initial letter” activity, whereas a greater number of randomly generated items would give more solid practice). Likewise, while it is possible to define which activities will run in a session, users are not able to select these freely from a menu and can locate a particular exercise only by moving through the games in sequence. But these are minor irritations: overall the program offers good value for money.

Claire Johnson teaches English and ICT at King’s School, Winchester