Has anyone used Frontline Phonics... RECENTLY?
I recall when DS was about 5 years old, about 2003, I came across Frontline Phonics and their free first 6 lessons online. We really liked them, and they were actually enough for DS to get over the 'hump' and we didn't buy the program.
I've recently tried to find those lessons again... DD is only 3, but is almost reading (she can read some simple 3-letter words, knows all the letter sounds, etc... I was reading at age 3 too). We've done some Reading Eggs, which she loves, but it kind of went too far too quickly. Same with Starfall... it goes straight from learning the letter sounds (which she knows) to decoding many different words, without any intermediate step (that I can see anyway) of learning how to blend sounds together into words.
In other words, we recently did the '-at' family... with some manipulative cards and online. She can read 'cat', 'mat', 'vat', 'fat'... whatever you want, 100%, has a great time doing it too. Then show her the word "can" and she says "cat". She's just looking at the first letter, she's not 100% grasped that you need to look at the whole word. Personally, I find the "-at family" approach to reading to be a bit backwards -- literally -- because it expects the kid to look at the END of the word first, remember what family that is, then put the right first sound onto it. If anything, it would make more sense to do a "ca-" family... then learn 'can', 'cat', 'cap', 'cab'... heh, maybe I'll make up my own phonics program and sell it on currclick lol...
ANYWAY. I liked what I remembered about how Frontline taught 'blending' rather than word families. So I was looking for those free lessons.
First of all, I had to go to the Site Map in order to find them, they weren't linked anywhere else... I can't recall if it was like that before or not. Anyway, you have to fill in a form to register for them. When selecting the child's birth date, the latest available year is 2004. Yeah... And then when you SUBMIT the form, you get an error message "An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator."
There's another page which has a 'reading assessment', with a similar form to submit. That one goes to 2005... but same processing error.
And there's a popup every time you switch pages in their site, for their sweepstakes. With another form. That goes up to 2003. And yes, the same error.
The copyright dates on the site vary between 2002 and 2003, nothing more recent than that, as far as I can see.
I wanted to contact them about it, I actually had to go through a "company" page, which wasn't even linked to off most pages, before I could find their contact information. I did send an email, we'll see if there's a response.
I've tried googling for information, are they out of business? Other folks complaining about the same problem? Nope. The only stuff I can find other than reviews of the program (which are generally dated 2004 and earlier) is one or 2 complaints about not getting their refund. This does sound problematic, but on the other hand, it's only one or 2 complaints, so it COULD be just a legitimate goof and not a read red flag of a company up to no good.
But the website is woefully out of date and not "working". Does anyone here know anything about it?
I recall when DS was about 5 years old, about 2003, I came across Frontline Phonics and their free first 6 lessons online. We really liked them, and they were actually enough for DS to get over the 'hump' and we didn't buy the program.
I've recently tried to find those lessons again... DD is only 3, but is almost reading (she can read some simple 3-letter words, knows all the letter sounds, etc... I was reading at age 3 too). We've done some Reading Eggs, which she loves, but it kind of went too far too quickly. Same with Starfall... it goes straight from learning the letter sounds (which she knows) to decoding many different words, without any intermediate step (that I can see anyway) of learning how to blend sounds together into words.
In other words, we recently did the '-at' family... with some manipulative cards and online. She can read 'cat', 'mat', 'vat', 'fat'... whatever you want, 100%, has a great time doing it too. Then show her the word "can" and she says "cat". She's just looking at the first letter, she's not 100% grasped that you need to look at the whole word. Personally, I find the "-at family" approach to reading to be a bit backwards -- literally -- because it expects the kid to look at the END of the word first, remember what family that is, then put the right first sound onto it. If anything, it would make more sense to do a "ca-" family... then learn 'can', 'cat', 'cap', 'cab'... heh, maybe I'll make up my own phonics program and sell it on currclick lol...
ANYWAY. I liked what I remembered about how Frontline taught 'blending' rather than word families. So I was looking for those free lessons.
First of all, I had to go to the Site Map in order to find them, they weren't linked anywhere else... I can't recall if it was like that before or not. Anyway, you have to fill in a form to register for them. When selecting the child's birth date, the latest available year is 2004. Yeah... And then when you SUBMIT the form, you get an error message "An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator."
There's another page which has a 'reading assessment', with a similar form to submit. That one goes to 2005... but same processing error.
And there's a popup every time you switch pages in their site, for their sweepstakes. With another form. That goes up to 2003. And yes, the same error.
The copyright dates on the site vary between 2002 and 2003, nothing more recent than that, as far as I can see.
I wanted to contact them about it, I actually had to go through a "company" page, which wasn't even linked to off most pages, before I could find their contact information. I did send an email, we'll see if there's a response.
I've tried googling for information, are they out of business? Other folks complaining about the same problem? Nope. The only stuff I can find other than reviews of the program (which are generally dated 2004 and earlier) is one or 2 complaints about not getting their refund. This does sound problematic, but on the other hand, it's only one or 2 complaints, so it COULD be just a legitimate goof and not a read red flag of a company up to no good.
But the website is woefully out of date and not "working". Does anyone here know anything about it?
