My friend has a daughter going into 4th grade and she is struggling with reading, spelling, and vocab. My friend's native language is spanish and she does not have great pronunciation skills and is looking for some tools to help her daughter in these areas. She asked me for direction as her daughter goes to ps and she knows I homeschool. Anyone know any links to online resources that can help her? The ps system has "labeled" her already! Thanks for your help!
It's not free or online but my struggling learner had great success with Hooked on Phonics Master Reader. It has a computer component, very informative articles that the kids read to themselves and then to an adult and each of the 4 levels has an end of level book. My daughter re-read these books because she loved them. We use All About Spelling for remedial spelling help (it has a pronunciation CD for sounds but not for whole words).
Ultimate Phonics looks promising. Its on the computer and has great pronunciation and is very thorough. I'm probably going to order it for the Fall to use in my homeschool Check out the demo video and I believe that they have a 90 day return guarantee. Its not a large scale commercial product, its a digital version of a small family owned and operated reading center and the intensive phonics program that they used there (I spoke to the owner/operator for 30 minutes one day). There is a book of sentences and words that go with it and the child can use the software to practice and review but should read the sentences aloud to a fellow English speaking human being. There are 262 lessons, but I expect that if she's done 3rd grade, she can finish it all in like 9 months, going at a relaxed pace. The vocabulary used in the lessons only reach about 5th or 6th grade, but the phonics are intensive and systematic so they could read a college textbook or anything written in English period.
Off the top of my head- I'd suggest http://www.wordlywise3000.com/ (click the 'student' link) for vocab and then use http://www.spellingcity.com/ with those words. Both sites will SAY the words so pronunciation will be addressed. I have lots of various grade FREE resources listed here that she might find helpful as well http://gapeachhomeschool.yolasite.com/language-arts.php One that isn't on that page she might like is livemocha.com it's a free site as well and it's to learn a new language. What I like about it is other members rate you. Like my native language is English, so when someone wants to learn English, I am sometimes sent an email to listen to them say some things in English and I can give them tis on proper grammar or pronunciation.
