Inspired by the success of using "Hooked on Phonic - Learn to Read" product, I was trying to look at other advance level material for my child. I found, "Hooked on Phonic - Master Reader" and "Sylvan School Success".
To be honest I know nothing about the product when I made the purchase. I guess the best description for this product is as written in this website :
"Sylvan School Success is a comprehensive four-level program that is designed to prepare kids ages 8 to 12 for success in school. Using fun lessons on the CD-ROM and an assortment of customized school tools, kids will learn essential reading and organizational skills and test-taking strategies that can be applied to homework, book reports, and tests."
The program has 4 levels. Level one is regarding skills for reading fiction. My son has completed lessons on Level 1 in less than 2 weeks. He requested to do this whenever he is free. In Level 1, children learn the following:
Fiction
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Predict and Confirm
Predict and Revise
Visualize
Problem and Solution
Story Plan
I like the concept here because I believe that those techniques listed above are essential in reading. For instant, the program gave a few titles and requires the students to predict.. then confirm their prediction by looking at title and drawings on front page of a story book. I am sure in real life, this skill to "predict and confirm' and "predict and revise" will help them to get a better understanding even before reading the book.
The program also helps students to be organized by identifying the story-line, to visualize the story. For example, after reading a story, the program has a game to ensure students understand the "problem" of the story, and the "solution". It's true that every story has a "problem" and that problem is later overcome - "solution". The program also trains the children to write down story plan. The program has worksheet that children have to fill up some forms, quite tedious. I will not force my son to use all these in every story book he reads, but I will apply this from time to time by having conversation with him. I know that this is just a start and I need him to practice what he has learned.
I do not have a quantitative measure on the results. But I think the battle is half won as my son is interested in this. However, I think one key point is that we need to start this at the right time. Actually we started last year but this program was too difficult for him and we almost wanted to give up.
I believe this product is not in production any more. The disk can only be installed on Windows XP machine. Check out Amazon through the link if you are interested. From what I see today, Amazon offers the best price as of today. Some other website may even offer this close to original price of USD200. I bought this at USD60 many years ago.
