Hi, does anyone use Starfall.com? If so, what ages are/were your children when you use(d) it? Do you feel that it is beneficial? And has anyone seen their new curriculum-- I know it does not officially come out until next month… but I read that they have been testing it for the past four years, so I was hoping someone here might already know about it!
Thanks for your feedback!
I have been using starfall from last 1 month . my son enjoys it a lot. he now knows a few alphabets their sounds and also some words…
i think starfall is great! we did ybcr very early and have always sung the alphabet but i really attribute starfall to my dd’s (22mo) ability to recognize letters. we started when she was maybe 16mos. the quality of animation has gotten better over time which is helpful for those of us that are design/aesthetically inclined. some of the songs will stick in your head and drive you nuts but then i always find those to be the most successful so who am i to say (that warning goes double for ‘d’ and that dinosaur song!). we’ve stopped doing it for some time because of just being a little too early to move onto the reading section… it just seemed almost too cumbersome to tackle when she was 18mo. maybe now though since she’s started recognizing her site words in books.
exciting that they will have the new curriculum… you can see how much they have advanced in the last year so i don’t doubt it will be good.
We love starfall. My 6 yr old son started using it to help him catch up in kindergarten. Then my daughter wanted to try it so we would explore the alphabet and the phonics alphabet song. Now she can nearly sing the whole song by herself (at 2 yrs 20 days old). She also sporadically recognizes a letter or two. We just started YBCR 2 months ago, and she is learning to recognize some words by sight. I’m hoping it all merges together to help her decipher written language intuitatively. We’ll see.
My 3 year old uses Starfall. He clicks on everything by himself. He loves dragging the “A’s” apples to the capital “A” basket and the “a’s” apples to the lower case “a” basket.
since I am started to teach my daughter to read, she really loves to use the starfall. she even try to pronounce the phonics and when she do that, I was really happy… 
she really likes the alphabet but at the moment keep distracted when it is the time to do the exercise after the presentation, maybe she doesn’t really understand what to do with that… :happy:
At what age do you think you can start using this site?
we found that at 16 mos was good for us. i think any kid that can sit up and get interested in the computer screen will like it. it just means the younger they are the more mommy or daddy drives. the alphabet section is like the shallow end of the pool. perfect for long term entertainment until you start wading into the waters of reading. there are ‘games’ at the end of each letter but we found even if we drive the mouse and baby watches it is still productive and very soon (dd started around 18mo) they can point to the screen and participate in some of them.
I have been using Starfall as a remedial program with many students of different ages and abilities. As an educational consultant, I find the site to be GREAT. The fact that it is free and easily accessible is even GREATER.
Their free downloads are also very beneficial and material rich.
I am looking forward for their new curriculum.
I have been using starfall from last 3 month . my 2 years son enjoys it a lot. he now knows a few alphabets their sounds and also some words…
i try this starfall to my (son 33month), and he loves tounge twister. since he can talk very well on 20 month, so he decide to use his ability on this section, maybe… haha lol
I’m just wondering if we use starfall to teach abc, will it interfere with Doman’s method of teaching sight words? He’s recommending abcs only at a later age after we’re done with single, couplets, phrases, sentences or even books.
very good question, can we unit more methods of learning without stress that it will interfere?
by using them in the separate parts of day?so raight brain education at the morning and normal things like abc’s, numbers at the evening?
ed.
Hi Octaviaorca and others,
Has anyone figured out the words sung in the “D” Dinasor dance song? There are a few words I can’t distinguish in the song…Like the word right after “T-Rex”… We love Starfall! My son is 21 months old and have been using it since we started YBCR about 4 months ago…
I don’t really see the conflict in teaching him letters or words…I biggest thing about Domain that I think applies is that the baby has so much capacity for “new stuff”…Don’t bore him or her…keep giving them “new stuff”…We went fast throught YBCR and keep skipping around- but he got pretty bored of it quickly…The songs are what he still has interest in…
Thanks,
Eric
I started to teach the phonetic alphabet when my daughter was 18/19 months old after 6/7 months of teaching whole words, phrases and sentences. She cannot read books out loud yet and teaching the phonetic alphabet is actually easier for her at this stage because she can say the sounds. I have not started starfall yet, but will probably do so in a month or twos time. Once she knows the phonetic alphabet I plan to start teaching her phonics with two letter words that she already knows how to read, but a lot of this will depend on her ability to speak at that stage - I feel that phonics is more about the spoken language than reading whole words is.
how does it work Doman and Starffal togheter, is this good way to unit this opposites?
ed.
All I’ve done is continue to show my daughter whole words every day just as normal and she is also being shown sentences with the whole words she knows and stories on Little Reader and then at meal times I bring out a set of phonics cards (at this stage it is just the alphabet in small letters) and tell her what they say - I am not teaching them to her in any particular order right now. When I get to two letter phonics I will make special cards for that and also for the three letter basic phonics words and from there on to phonemes.
When I start Starfall I will just use it as a totally separate exercise and continue the sentences and whole words as necessary. I do plan though to teach as many of the words on Starfall as whole words first (or at least a few of the set so she can get the phonics ideas off words she already knows and then use the concept to work out a few words she does not know.
[quote author=etfremd link=topic=5416.msg32459#msg32459 date=1242955064]
Hi Octaviaorca and others,
Has anyone figured out the words sung in the “D” Dinasor dance song? There are a few words I can’t distinguish in the song…Like the word right after “T-Rex”… We love Starfall! My son is 21 months old and have been using it since we started YBCR about 4 months ago…
ha ha ha! i am sure i should but i can’t let myself etch it into my grey matter! it sticks as it is! we sort of flub thru it.
and da*n if she doesn’t love the letter D!
I’ve been using Starfall with my 4y.o. since she turned 2. I think you can give your child a head start by teaching whole words at a younger age and by two they are ready for phonics.
T-Rex, Long-Neck and you,
trees, leaves and flowers too…
That’s what my kids sing for the Dinosaur Dance, 