Easy Phonics

Phonics is defined as a method of teaching people to read, write and speak by correlating the letters in the alphabet with the sounds used to represent them in everyday speech. Now, there’s still some debate as to exactly “how phonetic” the English language is and how useful phonics is as a learning system, since pronunciations of certain letters can differ from word to word.

Still, we’re not here to debate the nature of English, but rather to review this neat learning program called Easy Phonics.

Easy Phonics has a very user-friendly interface; even though it may seem designed for a younger audience, it can probably be a useful tool for English learners of every age. Lessons are divided in units, each containing various consonants, vowels, letter combinations or tests.

The words are represented through pictograms, some of which are drawn with a bit of humor. When you click one of them, you first listen to the phoneme (which means a unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another) and then to the whole word that contains that phoneme.

The pronunciations of the words are clear and you can easily repeat them, even though not all recordings have the best quality. The tests are also a very useful feature, but whenever you make a mistake you are prompted to try again, during the same test. I’m not sure if this is the most efficient way for people to actually remember something from a test, but at least there are many questions that cover all the units.

I can only conclude that Easy Phonics is a great way to learn English pronunciation at your own pace and by just using a mouse. Even though you can’t get access the more advanced units without in-app purchases, the program could still be used as a teaching tool for explaining the many intricacies of the English language.