Zoophonics

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2002 : February : 1

Zoophonics
By Betsy

Have you ever heard of the program Zoophonics? I was just introduced to it this year, and wasn't too thrilled with it at first. It's a very simple, inexpensive program that incorporates animals and letters. The children
begin the year seeing cards that have animals shaped like lower case letters. Each animal has a name such as Allie Alligator and Zeke Zebra. The children are introduced to these characters and the sounds that the letters they represent make. They also learn a motion to go with it. As I said, I wasn't too excited about this at first because the materials aren't flashy, they aren't very

colorful, and some of the animal names are a little obscure (Umber Umbrella Bird for U). However, after only the first few weeks of kindergarten many of my students knew all the sounds, and were beginning to transfer the sounds to the letters the animals represented. At this point in the year I have only one student who does not know all of his letter sounds, and all of the students love practicing the letter chant. It took very little time to practice every day, but had big payoffs in the end. If you're interested in any more information email me. Hope this helps. I love the program, the kids love it, it's inexpensive, and it works!