Sound It Out Land - Software for Autism, Asperger's and PDD


Ages	3-6
Skills	Phonics, reading skills, music
Cost	Sound It Out Land CD - Home Version	$40
	Sound It Out Land DVD	$29
	Sound It Out Land CD + DVD	$69
	Sound It Out Land School Version - CD + Course Materials	$60
	Windows Macintosh

Sound It Out Land CD

Help your child learn to read on their own with Sound It Out Land. This best-selling CD-ROM uses music and games to teach basic phonics, phonemic awareness, and reading skills. Children move step-by-step from learning letter sounds to reading words and sentences. Each of the 12 lessons contains an original song-video and a reading game. As an added bonus, all the songs play on any music CD player.

The Sound It Out Land Reading Kit is divided into three levels, each with four sections. The characters Sing-Along Sam, Vowel Owl, the Reading Robot, and Toucan Read lead one lesson in each level. All letter sounds are taught in the context of reading whole words, with pictures on the screen for each word or sentence. The table below shows in which lesson each concept is covered.

The school version contains a comprehensive teacher's guide 3-ring binder. The guide contains innovative lessons plans both for intervention with at-risk students and whole-class instruction using the program. The CD-ROM contains special features for the classroom or computer resource teacher, including student tracking, student status printouts, and control over how students progress in the program. This program is proving effective to help at-risk, ESL, and special needs students begin to read on their own.

Children learn single letter sounds, vowel sounds, how to read a three-letter word with blending, ending two-letter consonant blends, beginning two-letter consonant blends , vowel blends, sight words, long vowel sounds, how to read long words, break words into syllables, word families and how to read a sentence.

Sound it Out Land DVD

Turn your child's TV time into reading time! Sing-Along Sam and his friends teach your child to read through phonics as they travel on a musical journey. This DVD features sing-along songs and games to help your child learn to read.

Phonics 1, 2 and 3 videos are contained on this DVD.

Phonics 1 helps children begin to sound out words on their own. Teaching content includes the letter sounds, short vowel sounds, and decoding three-letter words. Phonics 1 matches level 1 of the Sound It Out Land CD-ROM.

Phonics 2 teaches beginning and ending consonant blend sounds (like ch and st), vowel blends (like ea and oo), sight words (like the and a), and how to read sentences. The five original songs, four reading games, and innovative animated words help children to learn the concepts of reading and quickly begin reading on their own. Phonics 2 matches level 2 of the Sound It Out Land CD-ROM.

Phonics 3 includes five sing-along teaching songs and four learning games. The program covers Silent E/long vowels, reading multi-syllable long words, advanced vowel blends, and word families / rhyming endings. Phonics 3 matches level 3 of the Sound It Out Land CD-ROM.

Sound It Out Land and Autism

Sound It Out Land Reading Program is helping children with autism learn to read. This wonderful musical program features sing-along teaching songs, animated videos, and interactive games. Through these enjoyable activities, students learn a step-by-step complete course in phonics and early reading, including letter sounds, word decoding, and sentence reading.

Students with autism face a number of challenges when learning to read, including difficulties with attention, lack of motivation, and problems with word decoding. Sound It Out Land uses attractive Videos and Software to overcome these hurdles and let the student rapidly begin reading on his/her own.

The most effective way to put Sound It Out Land to work with a child with autism is to start with the Phonics 1 VHS Video, playing it several times each week or daily. Have the child sing and read with the program. Then introduce the self-paced CD-ROM software and let him/her play on their own. The child will automatically move from letter sounds to reading words and then sentences.

Here is an excerpt of a letter from parents about their son age four with autism: "In a few short weeks that we have had Sound It Out Land, Bradley can independently manipulate the mouse to get the lesson that he wants to play with. What is most surprising to us is that Bradley says 'Sam' and knows who he is. Although Bradley can verbally label many things he has only used a name once before. Imagine our shock when one day Bradley brought up 'Toucan Read' and he independently answered every question correctly. He hums along with the music; this a child who can barely communicate. We wish to applaud whoever developed this program. It is a tremendous learning tool for our son whose own abilities are so very limited."