Your child basically knows the alphabet, and knows -- pretty much -- the "main" sound each letter makes. Possibly a bit more. Imagine, for a moment, that you are your child.

You're sitting, either by yourself, or with mom or dad, in front of your computer, having started up KidsVoyager. You find that when you move the mouse over a paragraph, an animated character immediately speaks the words. You find that when you move the mouse off, he immediately stops.

You also find that if you accidentally move it off the paragraph, then click on the white background of the Web page, the talking begins where it left off. What a relief.

You soon realize that when you move your mouse over anything that looks like a "chunk" of text, like a heading, or a link, that only the heading or link is spoken, not the surrounding paragraph.

And if you're tired, you can simply click an icon, lean back, and hear the entire Web page. You enjoy learning about dinosaurs and other things, listening to stories, and sometimes reading along out loud.

And you discover, too, that if you click a word, it's pronounced, which helps you to learn it, and if you double-click it, a new version of KidsVoyager appears, showing a children's dictionary, with the clicked word filled in the search box!

One day in your Kindergarten class, they're talking about the solar system. And, now that you're home, you'd like to find out more about Mars.

Lucky you! Mom and dad have set your home page to a kids' search engine -- Yahooligans. You've discovered (with the help of mom and dad), that you can search on any word. That all you need to know is the sound it begins with and the sound it ends with.

And you already know all that. In fact, you've known it for about a year now. It took a little bit of practice to become second nature, but now it's a snap. You realize that all you have to do is click on several "Talking Phonics Icons" and, magically, the correctly spelled word shows up at the bottom of KidsVoyager, and in the search box of Yahooligans.

You've realized that this helps you to read and spell. You've discovered that by clicking on the icons, you see and hear all the different sounds that all the letters can make, sometimes in combination with other letters. You're learnig the rules that help you turn spoken words into a written words. Teachers sometimes call this "cracking the code."

Although you don't know it, this method of learning is called called phonics. You're also becoming more and more aware that words are made by combining individual sounds. Again, although you don't know it, this has a name too. It's called "phonemic Awareness", and it's extremely important. This will serve you well in the years to come, as it will make reading and spelling much easier for you.

You've discovered that usually, there's only a small group of words that have the same beginning and ending sounds. And when you see and hear this group words, by mousing over it, you've become aware of words you didn't even know existed. And sometimes ask your parents about it.

You've noticed that many words aren't spelled the way they ought to be! That laugh ends with a "gh"! Ha Ha!

You find out that by exploring and searching, you're learning to read and spell! And you're discovering more words. And hearing jokes to tell your friends. And enjoying stories, and reading them out loud.

And your amazed that other kids don't enjoy reading and learning stuff as much as you do.

The Intermediate Reader

Your child basically knows how to read and spell, but there are some words that are still not recognized. Imagine, for a moment, that you are your child.

You read stories out loud in school. But you find it somewhat stressful when you come across a word you don't exactly know. Some other kids may know that particular word, and try to say it, but the teacher says "Shhh!."

You discover KidsVoyager. You figure out all the things that the beginning reader found out, but don't need it all.

You sit in from of your computer, reading silently to yourself, and come across a word you don't recognize. You simply click it, and hear it. You do recognize it after all! Hopefully next time, or the time after that, you'll remember it.

But in the mean time, you continue your reading.

You basically know all the possible sounds that all the letters can make, but occasionally. you may forget that in "kn", the "k" is silent. You don't exactly forget it, but just don't remember it all the time when you write.

KidsVoyager helps out here too, because when you try and spell "know" with an "n", you notice that in the group of 4 words that begin and end with the "n" and "o" sound, you see "no" and "know."

Your teacher has told you that you need to make "mental pictures" of words. And you find that KidsVoyager makes this much easier, because it lets you have the pleasure of reading without the stress.

You can read any story, easily get the context, hear any printed word, and have opportunity after opportunity to make mental pictures of correct spellings.

When you're older, you'll come to understand that the mental picture is essential for good spelling, since English spelling is so complex. There are no rules that are not broken and most words could theoretically be spelled multiple ways.

One day, you will jokingly write "moast werds cud thearetikly bee speld multapel weighs!"