Clifford: The Big Red Dog -- Reading introduces children to reading through the antics of the title character, his owner Emily Elizabeth and a cast of other characters. Three levels of play include easy, which requires some knowledge of the alphabet, medium and hard. At the medium level, players are expected to know the sounds some letters make and the hard level requires the skill to sound out words.

Six areas and activities are available on Birdwell Island, where Clifford and Emily live, including Dad's T-Shirt Maker (spelling) and Grumpy Neighbor Phonics, which consists of two separate games involving identification of items and beginning, middle and ending sounds. Dunk the Dog focuses on word recognition with Mr. Darnell while Theatre Letters centers on letter recognition with Nicky. The final two activities include Drawing with Monique, requiring the user to make words of four letters or less, and Parrot Phonics with Loretta (sound recognition).

Successful completion of the activities earns prize tickets -- six automatically takes the player to the Prize Booth where he or she deposit tickets and pick a prize. There are 14 prizes consisting of printable items that can be played or colored. Prizes range from games to trading cards and posters and are stored in a special box in Emily Elizabeth's room. Additionally, when all the letters and sounds in each lesson are mastered, a special book is awarded and stored on Emily's bookshelf. ~ Lisa Karen Savignano, All Game Guide