ABC MAGIC PHONICS 5 Deluxe vs Oz Phonics 4

Learn The Alphabetic Principle. Develop Phonemic Awareness. Learn How Sounds Relate to Words. Learn Letter-Sound Correspondence. Learn How to APPLY Letter Sound Correspondence. Gain proficiency in the use of the sounds of the letters. Gain Proficiency with Auditory Discrimination. This app has all of the features and components necessary to give your child strong phonemic awareness. This app also has all of the features and components necessary to give your child strong letter awareness. These are the beginning steps to start your child off on the path to reading success. This game is part of the ABC MAGIC PHONICS series. We recommend the other ABC MAGIC apps as a means to expand and reinforce your child’s phonemic awareness and letter awareness. This app has 10 levels of sequential learning for English learners to master. The sequence is designed to take the learner from the concrete to the abstract; from not knowing anything about letters to having good phonemic awareness. The app starts with using sounds and finishes with the letter symbols for both lowercase and uppercase letters. This app is broken down into 10 lessons to create distinct and manageable levels of learning. Each level focuses on a particular step in effective learning of the Alphabetic Principle. Lesson 1. Sounds to Sounds Lesson 2. Sounds to Images Lesson 3. Images to Images Lesson 4. Lowercase Letters to Lowercase Letters Lesson 5. Sounds to Lowercase Letters Lesson 6. Lowercase Letters to Images Lesson 7. Uppercase Letters to Uppercase Letters Lesson 8. Sounds to Uppercase Letters Lesson 9. Uppercase Letters to Images Lesson 10. Lowercase Letters to Uppercase Letters This app features 12 words pictures for each letter. Each word in each of the groupings uses only the most common sound for each letter. For instance, igloo and inchworm would be used for the letter i, but not ice nor ivy as those begin with long i (the second most used sound for the letter i). It is important to start by teaching just the most commonly used sound for each letter. Sometimes unfamiliar words are used, in this app, to ensure that 12 words were used for each letter. Use this as a vocabulary building time. Even if the child does not know the word, the child can still listen for the beginning sound of that image. Another point is that this app is not a vocabulary quiz nor an object guessing game. Some pictures may seem indiscernible, but don’t worry, the objects, when touched, will ALWAYS say their name. The child NEVER has to know what the picture is ahead of time. Tapping on the image box will ALWAYS play the audio file that names the picture. Please note, that in this app, only the SOUNDS of the letters are used and NEVER the names of the letters. A child can actually read without knowing the common names of the letters, but a child only knowing the names of the letters cannot phonetically read. The ubiquitousness of the ABC song both at home and at school will surely give children the ability to name the letters. Many children, however, are not given the much-needed explicit instruction of the SOUNDS that the letters make. This app, therefore, is dedicated to helping children learn the SOUNDS that the letters make. These games are designed so that children can do them independently after being given the basic instructions of how to play the games. The app has built-in feedback mechanisms to help the child to work independently. These mechanisms allow the child to learn at their own pace and in their own way. The child does not need to be constantly supervised and told what the right answer is. This frees up the adult to be an observer of their child’s learning and to give assistance when invited.

Oz Phonics 4 has 5 lesson groups that build on the content of the Oz Phonics Intro, 1, 2 and 3 apps. Lesson group 1 introduces some new sound/letter relationships. The ‘c’ making the /s/ sound, as in ‘city’. The ‘g’ making the /j/ sound, as as in ‘gentle’. The /ng/ sound at the end of the word ‘ring’ is also introduced, with the letter ‘n’ by itself, also making this sound, as in the word ‘bank’. Lesson groups 2, 3, and 4 introduce the long vowel sounds(letter name sounds) and some of their spellings. These 3 lesson groups also follow the same format as lesson group 1, demonstration, missing letter exercise, word finder, reading practice. More long vowel spellings will be covered in the Oz Phonics 5 app. Lesson group 2 covers ‘letters by themselves” in a word (/long a/ sound in the word baby, /long e/ in the word ‘be', etc.). Lesson 3 covers “letters with an ‘e’ separated by a consonant” (tape, note, cube, etc.). Note that the ‘u-e’ combination produces two different sounds, /oo/ in ‘nude’ and /yoo/ on ‘cube’. Lesson group 4 covers “letters next to an ‘e’” (pie, bee, toe, blue). Also included is the ‘ye’ making the long ‘I’ sound as in the word ‘bye’. Lesson group 5 introduces r-Controlled Vowels. ‘er’, ‘ir’, ‘ur’ all making the same sound, and the sounds ‘ar’ and ‘or’. Visit ozphonics.com for details of other apps in our step-by-step series.