A SEN (Special Educational Needs) teacher and a Designer/Developer combined their skills to develop teaching software for children.
Adele and Quentin Devine are a husband and wife team who took her experience with TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-handicapped CHildren), ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis), and PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) and his 10 years of experience as a designer, animator and programmer, and created SEN Assist.
Reading skills are crucial for a child’s success in school. “Of every 100 children who leave first grade as poor readers, 88 will still be poor readers at the end of third grade, limiting their chances of academic and future workforce success.” (NLC Institute for Youth, Education and Families) With the start of the academic year, many children will require extra tutoring or additional tools to supplement their reading lessons at school.
Hooked on Phonics Deluxe Edition uses a multisensory approach to work on reading skills with children ages 7+. The product comes with four chapter books, 64 story cards, CD-ROMs, a parent guide, and a progress poster with stickers. Children advance through four levels of increasing difficulty. The retail value ranges from $159.96 to $199.96.
I have not personally used this product, so I did some digging around for my readers so that you can decide if this might suit your needs. Here is what I found:
Amazon has 14 customer reviews. Twelve of those reviewers gave this product a 5 out of 5 stars, one 
customer gave it 4 stars, and 1 customer gave it 2 stars. A 5 star customer who said her son “was falling behind in reading skills” continued and said “I would recommend this to any child who needs some help with reading. It works!” The one customer who gave the 2 stars was upset because the product is not compatible with Macs, but went on to say “This is a great product…”
Successful Homeschooling described Hooked on Phonics and requested readers to submit their reviews. You can read their likes and dislikes on a number of different Hooked on Phonics products at the blog site. Overall, the reviews were very favorable.
