Early Ascent LLC, the creators of the award-winning Reading Raven app, has just released Reading Raven Vol 2. In this post we’ll talk about some of the challenges of developing a successful sequel to the original app. One such challenge was to build fun and engaging games that reinforce learning skills covered in Reading Raven and introduce additional reading strategies to advance young readers. We’ll also discuss how parents and educators can help children learn with Reading Raven Vol 2.
Learning happens best when there is a balance between repetition and variety. To learn, we need material that is familiar enough to help connect the new information or concepts to what we already know. And, the material needs to be novel enough to keep our interest.
As in the original Reading Raven, children again are guided by the raven who praises their efforts, sometimes encouraging them to “try again”. The game procedures are similar. Children read aloud and hear their own recorded voices. They spell (encode) and write words. Readers once again meet the characters Meg, her little brother, Sam, their friend Tim, and Gus the dog.
As to what’s new, Reading Raven Vol 2 presents all new scenarios, backgrounds and images and all new lessons to advance reading skills. Children have fun navigating through treasure boxes, dinosaurs, camera-friendly meerkats, and so much more that they hardly notice that they are learning! The child who plays the games learns to read blend words, silent-e words, and words of many types, grouped by spelling patterns, then mixed with others in sentences and stories.
Reading Raven Vol 2 HD presents an abundance of new material. Example: In Volume 1, the beginning reader learned to read “tan”. Volume 2 builds on this knowledge when the child learns to read “thank”. To read “thank”, a child must learn that the digraph “th” makes a sound that is neither a “t” sound nor an “h” sound. Similarly, he learns how to pronounce the blend “nk”, not the easiest blend, but learning with multi-sensory Reading Raven makes it fun and easy!
Parents and teachers can help children learn with Reading Raven Vol 2 by helping them see small differences in spellings, and by adjusting the settings to the appropriate level for each child. Feedback from all of our Reading Raven users indicates that skills learned from Reading Raven transfer very well to reading books of the same level. Parents and teachers can help enable this transfer by pointing out words in a book or on a sign that look “just like” or “almost like” words in Reading Raven.
In Reading Raven Vol 2, children learn to read more complex words, sentences and stories. They also find out what Meg wants, what little brother Sam learns about nature, and how Gus the dog surprises everyone! Happy reading!
Jeanne Voelker has been teaching children how to read for more than twenty-seven years. Through her program, Reading Before School, she has helped countless children, including some suffering from physical and learning disabilities, build a strong reading foundation. Many of her students have gone on to earn degrees and advanced degrees from major universities around the country. She has a BA in English literature and composition from the University of Washington and has published several short stories.
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