Language Arts Software

Rating System Key
Products are rated A (highest) to F.
Access = Accessibility, Ed Val = Educational Value, Appeal = Deaf-child appeal.
A (cm) for the educational category means the product has classroom management features.

Titles are listed in alphabetical order. Click a title to read details.

Titles RECOMMENDED for deaf children in a school setting:

Titles NOT RECOMMENDED for deaf children in a school setting:

Details of RECOMMENDED products

Rigby Plus grades K to 2, Publisher Rigby

Bottom Line: Recommended for educational value for children learning English for the first time in school.

Content and Accessibility:
This is a set of five CD-ROMs that progress from early first-grade reading level to higher first or second grade levels. The order (early to later) is Magenta, Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. The programs use a series of leveled reading books that are available in print. They provide activities in vocabulary, comprehension, word families and creative writing. Each CD-ROM has 16 books. The books are interesting, well illustrated, and carefully sequenced to help a new English-learner to learn to read.

Read to Me - This activity begins automatically when you start the program. The book is read aloud with no print to accompany it. It's not accessible, but you can click out of it.

Read the Book - Read the book on-line. Accessible.

Follow the Book (Magenta only) - Click the words in order as you read through the story. Accessible.

Match Letter to Picture (Magenta and Red) - Three pictures are shown with the word below. After a brief time, the first letter of each word is removed and appears in a random order below. You drag letters up to the correct picture. Accessible.

Match Letters (Magenta, Red and Yellow) - Match upper-case letters to lower-case letters by dragging them next to the one they match. Accessible.

Complete the Sentence (Magenta, Red and Yellow) - Choose the word that belongs in the blank in a sentence from the book. The three choices appear below the sentence and you drag the correct one into place. Accessible.

Rhyming patterns (Yellow, Green and Blue) - This is a word family activity. Three words in the same word family are shown with pictures for a brief time, such as "sleep", "deep" and "peep". Then the beginning letters drop off and appear in a random order below ("sl" "d" "p"). You drag them back where they belong. Accessible.

Match Sentence to Picture (Red, Yellow and Blue) - This tests comprehension. Choose which of two sentences goes with the picture from the book. Accessible.

Quiz (Green and Blue) - Here you answer questions that are dictated. Not accessible.

Make the Sentence (Green and Blue) - Unscramble a sentence from the book. The correct sentence appears below the picture from the book very briefly and then reappears scrambled. You must drag the words to make the sentence. This activity can be quite challenging for a new English learner as there can be a lot of words in sentences from these higher level books. Accessible.

Choose the Word (Green) - Choose the word for the blank in the sentence. This cloze activity cycles through 3 possible choices for each blank. Accessible.

Writing (varies for each CD-ROM) - These printable activities are very simple and short, ranging from creating a bookmark with a few words to a 3 page book using illustrations from one of the books on the CD-ROM. Accessible.

In all the games above, for correct answers you see a dog or cat (depending on the CD-ROM). For incorrect answers, you see a grayed-out version of the dog or cat. Four correct answers result in an animation featuring the dog or cat.

Deaf-child appeal:
Because all the games have the same reward structure and basic format, the product isn't highly appealing.

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Rigby PM Collection grades K to 2, Publisher Rigby

Bottom Line: Recommended for educational value for children learning English for the first time in school and using the Rigby PM books in their reading program.

Content and accessibility:
This is a set of eight CD-ROMs with two CD-ROM's per level. Each CD-ROM has 8 books. Levels are (lower to higher): red, yellow, blue, green. Each CD-ROM has a set of common activities as described below. In addition, each level has two special activities appropriate to that level, which are described below.

The set accompanies a collection of progressively and carefully leveled texts designed for English language learners. There is a strong picture-text match that helps children find meaning through context. New words are introduced at a measured rate and the text uses high-frequency words, phrases, and sentence structures. The software provides activities in reading, spelling and comprehension using the books in the series. Teacher options let you set program features and track individual student's time spent on books and activities.

- - - - Common Activities (on every CD-ROM):

Read - As the book is read aloud, each word is underlined. The print is accessible.

Slide - This is a spelling activity where you click on letters to spell a word from the book. Since the word is dictated, deaf children play this as a hangman game. They can find out the first letter and how many letters are in the word. They can then page through the book to find the word if they need extra help. In this activity the letters must be chosen in order. When the word is spelled a pirate slides down a slide.

Treasure - This is a spelling activity that deaf children play as a hangman type of game, since the word is dictated. You can find out the first letter and are shown the number of letters, so you can look up the word in the book. The order of choosing letters doesn't matter. For each incorrect letter a gang of pirates draws closer to the treasure, but if you spell it correctly before they get there you win.

Cloze (click) - Here you go through the book one page at a time and supply the missing word on each page from four possible choices. There is no reward for choosing the word other than going on to the next page of the story. Accessible.

Cloze (type) - Here you go through the book one page at a time and supply the missing word on each page by typing it. There is no reward for choosing the word other than going on to the next page of the story. Accessible.

Write - Each page of the book is shown with a blank space for you to type in your own words. You can print it when finished. Accessible.

- - - - Special Activities (unique to each level):

Letters (red level) - Here you match upper and lower case letters. The task can be customized for difficulty. Accessible.

Comprehension (red level) - Choose which of two sentences belongs with a picture from the book. Accessible.

Words (yellow level) - A word is shown for 1/2 to 10 seconds (teacher can set the duration.) Then the word disappears and you try to pick it from a group of 4 words. Accessible.

Phrases (yellow level) - Unscramble a sentence from the book. Accessible.

Rhymes (blue level) - A cloze activity, where you pick which of two rhyming words best fits in a sentence. Accessible.

Sequences (blue level) - Two sentences from the book are shown without pictures. Your task is to choose which happened first. Accessible.

Sentences (green level) - A part of a sentence is shown. You choose which of two phrases best completes the sentence. Accessible.

Word Starts (green level) - You are given a word ending, such as "_ate". Your task is to choose 3 of four word beginnings for it, such as "g, d, br, l". Accessible.

Deaf-child Appeal:
The Treasure game is the most appealing one, but deaf children learning English also find the other games engaging.

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Stickybear Kindergarten Activities grades Pre-K to 2, Publisher - Optimum Resources

Bottom Line: Recommended for Kindergarten or early first grade. Someone may need to help children find which kinds of icons lead to a game and which ones lead to a sound-based movie.

Content and accessibility:
Content includes ABC's, vocabulary, counting, shapes, music, color words, safety tips, manners, and creativity suggestions. You click on objects in the home and see the word for the object and an animation. Some objects have an icon beside the word which will either lead to a game (crayon icon), give you a safety tip (red cross icon), offer advice on manners (smilely face icon), or provide directions for a creative non-computer activity (folder icon).

The names of all the objects are shown in print and also spoken. All of the special tips on manners, safety and creativity depend on speech, so deaf children will miss out on tips and advice such as "Always put your toys away after you are finished with them." and "Be careful near the oven. It can be very hot."

Bedroom - Clicking on the blocks brings up a shape activity. You can drag shapes onto a background to make a design or picture that you can print. There are several backgrounds available. As you choose each shape you see its name. Shapes include triangle, square, rectangle, circle, diamond and oval. Accessible.

Bathroom - Clicking the bathtub brings up a color activity. You squirt shampoo bubbles at ducks swimming by and see words describing the duck you hit - "red rubber ducky". Accessible.

Kitchen - The numbers on the freezer lead to a counting activity, where you click on a number from 1 to 10 and see that many objects animating, as well as the words for the objects - "nine green helicopters". Accessible.

Living room - The TV leads to an alphabet activity, where you click a letter on a remote control to see an animation - "Aa airplane" (airplane flies). The clock leads to a simple clock activity. Click a number on the clock and the hands turn to that time. You see the words for that time as well - "one o'clock." Accessible.

Outside - The bird leads to a music activity where you click on birds and see them animate and sing a note. You can choose various instruments. When you've finished, you click the owl conductor to hear your whole tune. Not accessible.

Front Door - Click here to hear knock-knock jokes. Not accessible.

Deaf-child Appeal:
Children will enjoy exploring the rooms and replaying favorite animations. However, since there arenÕt any games (where you "win"), they may become bored after theyÕve explored it well.

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Stickybear Opposites E/S Grades pre-K to 2, Publisher - Optimum Resources

Bottom Line: Recommended, though one game isn't accessible. Pictures are appealing and response is reasonably fast.

Content and accessibility:
The E/S in the title stands for English/Spanish. Content includes many common opposites such as big/little, heavy/light.

Show It - Animations and text show each word and its opposite. Fully accessible.

Pick it - Players point to the picture/word dictated. The picture animates for correct answers. Not accessible.

Find it - This is a series of games where you match pictures to their opposite or to the same thing. You move through the series in order, playing a few problems in each, but can't choose a particular one for extended practice. The games are accessible if you know which ones are asking for the opposite and which are asking for the same thing. Most of the games ask for the opposite, so if a deaf child didn't know the rules had changed they would be confused when it switched.

Deaf-child appeal:
The graphics and animations are appealing in Show It, though children become bored with this activity quickly since it isn't a game. The Find It series is more appealing, since the activities are more game-like and there is a wide variety.

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Stickybear Reading Room Deluxe Grades K to 3, Publisher - Optimum Resources

Bottom Line: Recommended for beginning readers, first and second grade levels. Fully accessible, nice graphics.

Content:
This is a bilingual (English/Spanish) reading program. It includes vocabulary and simple sentence structure. The user guide suggests that this program encourages phonetic recognition, but there are no phonics exercises, and the vocabulary is mainly taught as sight words. The Progress Report Card includes the students' name and high scores for Word Bop. It also reports the number of attempts, number of correct answers, and percentage correct for Word Match.

Word Bop - This is an arcade-style game. You fire a cannon at pictures going by and they change to words the first time, then pictures the next time; and then they disappear. If you hit a star you earn an extra cannon ball. You earn points for your report card.

Word Match - The task is presented in large print: "Find the (word/picture)". There are 6 possible choices. For correct answers, the picture animates. For wrong answers, the correct answer appears after the allotted number of tries.

Word Book - You see a scene, such as a farmyard or Africa. Click on objects in the scene and see them animate with the word appearing below the object.

Sentence Builder - You choose a subject phrase (from 3 possible), verb phrase (from 3) and final noun phrase (from 3) and then click "play" to see the sentence animate.

Accessibility:
Fully accessible.

Deaf-child appeal:
Only the Word Bop game has high appeal, since it's an arcade activity. It's not clear whether the children learn the association between words and pictures from playing this, however, since they don't need to pay attention to the targets. The other activities are average in appeal. The Sentence Builder activity lacks humor for most sentences, which lowers its appeal from what it might be.

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Storybook Weaver Deluxe Grades 4 to 12, Publisher - Riverdeep (formerly MECC)

Bottom Line: Recommended. While the publisher suggests grade 4 as a lower limit, the product can also be enjoyed by children as young as first graders with help from an older person for writing the text.

Content and accessibility:
This is a creative writing tool with background images, resizeable objects, and spell checker, that allows children to create storybooks or web documents. It includes sounds that can be added to the stories, but these are optional.

Deaf-child appeal:
This title is very appealing to deaf children.

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Details of products NOT RECOMMENDED

Edmark Reading Program Level 1 Grades K to 3 (special needs), Publisher - Riverdeep (formerly Edmark)

Bottom Line: Not recommended. The content is available in other, less-expensive products and accessibility is a problem.

Content and accessibility
The program uses a whole words approach, short steps, and consistent repetition to present vocabulary. It progresses through a carefully sequenced series of lessons designed to teach the concepts to children with special learning needs. Unfortunately, some of these steps require the player to respond to spoken commands (find the word "house").

Deaf-child appeal:
Appeal is moderate or low.

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I Love Spelling Grades 2 to 5, Publisher - GSP (formerly DK Interactive)

Bottom Line: Not recommended. Only half of the games are deaf-accessible. A deaf child may need help to learn how to play. The vocabulary for the easiest level is still pretty advanced for second graders if they are new English learners.

Content and accessibility:
This title has 60 spelling pattern word groups and a classroom management feature. It has one- or two-player games, and you can set options for how much animation, "chat", sound, speed.

Planet Anagrama - Unscramble the word. You can get a clue, but it costs you points. Accessible.

Planet Aquatica - Burst moving bubbles to spell the dictated word. You can get a clue, but it costs you points. Not accessible.

Planet Arachna - Spell the dictated word by clicking on the letters. You can get a clue, but it costs you points. Not accessible.

Planet Amphibia - A "hangman" type game. Guess the word by clicking on letters to spell it. You can get a clue, but it costs you points. Accessible.

Shooting Stars - Click the correctly spelled flying words (1 target is correct; 2 are wrong). The word is dictated and used in a sentence, but you can also play it without hearing the word. Slowest speed is quite fast, however. Accessible.

Deaf-child Appeal:
Graphics and games are appealing and fun. Lack of access, however, dampens enthusiasm for this product.

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