Clifford the Big Red Dog: Phonics is based on a series of picture books created by author Norman Bridwell about the big red dog and his owner, Emily Elizabeth.

The carnival has arrived on Birdwell Island, and Clifford and friends are excited to attend. The host of the carnival has lost all the decorations for the parade float, and is counting on Clifford to find them by completing five activities. As each activity is finished, the player is allowed to choose a prize from a display, which is then placed in the float tent ready to use for decorating. Navigation and game play use the mouse - the player clicks on arrows to the right and left to move from screen to screen, and playable activities elicit sparkles from the arrow cursor.

Inflate the Balloon - Clifford has broken the parade balloon and must make more by matching words and pictures on the balloon machine.

High Dive - help the elephant fill the high dive pool by selecting the bucket picture that starts with a given letter.

Ferris Wheel - match children and their letter balloons to words on ferris wheel cars that are missing their beginning letters.

Silly Stories - fill in the blanks to create a silly "mad-lib" story; this is a printable activity.

Tightrope - find the ball with a picture that matches a spoken rhyming word, then fire it from a cannon to load the tightrope walker's balancing pole.

Cow Herding - cull cows from a browsing herd by matching their letters to a letter carved on the pasture gate.

As well as the activities, there are five carnival games centered around letter recognition, including Whack-a-Letter, a Strong Man/Silent E game, Wheel O' Words, and more. When the player has collected prizes he can go to the float tent and select a float to decorate, which can then be printed out. The ultimate goal of the game is to participate in the parade, which honors the player by name and showcases the balloons and floats he has created.

This game uses an automatic leveling system, and a progress report showing levels achieved, number of rounds completed, and the skills covered in the activities is available by pressing CTRL + L.

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