FlashBooks - back to top

In the simplest terms there are three major ingredients to early reading. You must have a base library of recognizable images, you need to have the spoken word labels for those images and finally you need to be able to associate images to the sounds and written word or word components that describe those images. It then massively helps to be able to recognize around 400 key words that make up around 60% of the 'average' book and the 70 spellings of the 44 sounds (Phonics) that help you to decipher the rest of the language. FLASHBOOKS present uncluttered, accurate images and interesting information that are key to early reading. This is the best place to start in the ReadingMaster System for children in the 0-6 months age group together with reading all the stories in the 10 Sounds Readers - that will expose your child to all of the sounds they will later need to associate to words and individual letters and combinations of letters.

Sounds Readers - back to top

"Sam sings songs for Sue. Sam sometimes sings the same song six times." This is what sounds Readers do - in this case present the two sounds of the letter "S" in high concentration. They are fun to read to children from birth, and later, because of their highlighted phonics, great to practice reading with. By 6 months old the 100 key words that appear for whole word recognition in the front of these books can be shown in sets of ten to your child. Three or four sessions a day of 10-20 seconds (spending around 1-2 seconds on each word) is more effective than spending a long time on each word or spending 10 minutes on a over lengthy single presentation. You can use these words together with 3 inch high labels of things around your home to accelerate your child's whole word recognition skills. Between 6 and 24 months children process words as though they were pictures anyway and retaining and growing this ability through the first 4 years is an important skill, particularly for children who have a preference for Visual Learning. The first 12 months of life is also a great time to use the Flash-to-me-mode on the CD-ROM and watch the Encyclopedic video.

Sounds FlashBooks - back to top

The Sounds FlashBooks contain all 70 spellings of the 44 sounds in English together with an associated image that assists in remembering the sound the letter or combination of letters make. From 12-24 months these "phonograms" and the associated image can be 'flashed' after each other in exactly the same way the images in the FlashBooks and the whole words in the fronts of the Sounds Readers are. Despite some educators suggesting that the phonograms should be presented in a graduated format - easiest to hardest, it doesn't make any difference to do this for the child. The child sees a single letter or combination of 4 letters as a single unique image at this age. In fact the practice of presenting the sounds of single letters first, then blends and then complex multiples, may actually make learning all of the phonograms more difficult. For instance the letter b only has one sound 'bih' but the very first letter in the alphabet - usually presented just as 'a as in apple' has 4 sounds that need to be known ( a as in apple, a as in baby, a as in water, a as in aquarium). If just one is presented much confusion will result later on. Our assessment of what is easier to learn is presented in Sounds FlashBook 1 and an adult perception of what is more difficult is reserved for Sounds Flashbook 5 - because it is important to separate the phonograms into presentable ideal session length packets, more than it is to graduate or categorize, them we believe.

FlashBook Readers - back to top

FlashBook Readers are true-to-life, stories that build upon the information presented in their associated FlashBooks. They are wonderful to read to children from an early age and once words and phonograms are being recognized, they are true-to life first readers.

Phonic Videos 1 and 2 - back to top

The Phonic Videos present half of the 44 sounds each indispersed with animated versions of the Sounds Reader story books that use those sounds in high concentration. Phonics Video 1 also presents 100 key words for whole word recognition. In the top right hand corner of the screen on both videos someone can be seen pronouncing each of the phonograms as they come up on screen. This technique has assisted ReadingMaster to be the tool of choice for people of all ages who wish to learn English as a second language and for teachers/parents to get there pronunciation and technique correct to teach the students in their care. These videos are useful to be played in the environment of very young children to listen to the sounds, ages 1-4 will enjoy them and learn from them. Age 3 and up have the fine motor skills and may prefer something more interactive, choosing the interactive modes of the CD-ROM for this material.

Encyclopedic Video - back to top

The Encyclopedic Video presents some of the flash images from the FlashBooks followed by an animated version of the appropriate FlashBook Reader. Some of the Flash images are thereby put into the context of a true to life story. Hearing words describe discreet, unambiguous and precise true-to life images is an important first step to early reading. This video is suitable from birth. Age 3 and up have the fine motor skills and may prefer something more interactive, choosing the interactive modes of the CD-ROM for this material.

CD-ROM - back to top

The 21st Century edition of the ReadingMaster CD-Rom contains all 27 books in the Reading Master system in FOUR modes to cover the three major Learning Styles and the combinations of these styles. With over 900 links and 860 simple animated sequences, the RMCD-Rom works through associations just like our brains.

• In the Flash to Me mode, images whole words and phonograms are presented on screen at the optimal learning speed. (If this seems fast for you as an adult - it is not for your child who prefers to view much often rather than trying to study it and remember it once.
• In the Read to Me mode the 27 books are presented with non interactive animation and each sentence highlighted as it is read. This is to facilitate the understanding that words combine into sentences and are read top down on the page before going to the adjacent page.
• In the Read to Me (one word at a time) mode - each word is highlighted as it is read, reinforcing whole word and the left to right, top to bottom convention of books in English.
• In the Let Me Play mode all 27 books open up at once and all the associations between, images, whole words, phonograms, spellings and where each of the books in the system are set on a globe of the world (in our solar system) can be clicked on for a truly investigative, self paced learning experience. Children pursue their interests across books instead of linearly progressing through them. This method of learning the ReadingMaster material - the key building blocks of reading English, actually mirrors the way the brain stores and retrieves this information when applying the knowledge to new books, knowledge and words not immediately recognized by the young reader.