English for Wizards

Phonics can be fun

By John Moore

フォニックスが学習できる Reader Rabbit のソフトは、アマゾンなどで購入できる

Amazingly, Peter says it is easier to read Japanese than English. Surely 26 letters are simpler than thousands of kanji, I thought. But no. Although English has few characters, it has many sounds, and you never quite know how to pronounce the letters. Does that "c" sound like an "s" or a "k"? And the vowels are ridiculous. The letter "a" can have at least five different pronunciations. For example: "Aw! A cat ate father!" (That's not funny, Peter.)

But believe it or not, there are some rules to pronouncing English, and these rules are known as phonics. A long time ago, people thought phonics was really boring, but now it is back in style, thanks in part to a whole lot of wonderful, colorful computer software for kids.

Today, let's look at one software title called "Reader Rabbit: I Can Read With Phonics" (www.readerrabbit.com). In this program, Reader Rabbit and his friends, Matt the Mouse and Sam the Lion, take kids on a journey down the "Road to Imagination," in which they must read through 30 short lesson books. Each book has 10 short pages, followed by one comprehension question and one "Use your Imagination" question.

First, Reader Rabbit reads, as each word is highlighted in yellow. You can click on a word to hear it again. You can even record your voice to check your pronunciation.

Unfortunately, Reader Rabbit cannot tell you what the words mean, since he doesn't know Japanese. But the vocabulary is very easy. This program is actually intended for American second-graders, which means the English level might be good for Japanese high-schoolers or other low-intermediate learners. Peter got more than halfway through before deciding it was too childish.

Anyway, to make progress down the "Road to Imagination," kids must also solve various word puzzles. The four types of puzzles are called "Rhyme Time," "Silly Syllables," "Word Bridge" and Peter's favorite "Sound Sorter" with Mit the Monkey. And when that gets tiresome, another part of the program offers some games, such as fishing in the "Vowel Pond" or hunting through the "Word Mine."

Reader Rabbit is just one of the dozens of English-learning software titles available. Now for the bad news: It is not free. You can't even download it from the Internet, but you can order it from e-commerce sites such as Amazon (www.amazon.com). They will deliver it in about a week, and the price is just ¥1,000 or so.

Shukan ST: April 11, 2003

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