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Educational: 4.4
Overall Design: 4.4
Ease of Use: 4.3
(4.0 = good, 4.5 = very
good, 5.0 = excellent)
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Program Description Commentary Who Is This Program For
Why We Selected This Program Computer Requirements
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This package contains four programs that all focus on fundamental literacy and numeracy skills that were, at one time, stand alone good quality programs. Here is a description of one of the programs, Arthur's Reading Race that will give you an idea of the nature of all four progams. Arthur's Reading is an animated story telling and reading experience that introduces young children to the world of books and the enjoyment of reading. The program's main area - Read To Me - is a 12 page story that is a combination of written word and narrative, plus an animated story with Arthur and D.W.
The program has 3 areas - "Read to Me ", " Reading Race", and "Let Me Play " .
In "Read to Me", Arthur and D.W take a walk through town and Arthur bets D.W. that she can't read 10 words that they will find on the signs in town. Arthur plays I Spy with D.W. The narrative of the story is read. Words appear on the page so the viewer can track the written words as they as spoken. The user also learns words by watching D.W. respond to Arthur's questions.
You also can play I Spy yourself on any page. D.W. will show you a printed word. Then you click on the object in the picture. The story is animated with lots of chats between D.W. and Arthur which adds to the spirit of fun.
In " Reading Race", you play a board game with D.W. and Arthur. You are presented with a written word and you match the word to the right picture. Your final destination and reward is the ever tantalizing "ice cream" store.
In "Let me Write", you select an object from the screen and place it into a written sentence and the picture transforms itself into a written word. You then see how the word can fit into a simple sentence. You can change the subjects, verbs and objects of any of the sentences and create new sentences and have them read back to you.
The program allows you to choose from 3 levels of difficulty in any of the play type activities, and provides lots of hints to help the user find the right answer.
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" I really liked listening to D.W and Arthur" - Ketrio, age 5
" I reaaally liked it when I got to the ice cream store. I chose "frog fripple". Ewwww, it was funny when I ate the ice cream. A frog popped out." - Connie, age 7.
" It was fun when you clicked on things in the picture and all kinds of funny things would happen." Jennifer - age 7
For any young child for whom you want to encourage the love of reading and provide exposure to and practice in written word recognition and basic sight reading skills.
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Arthur's Reading Games has been designed to use the software medium at it's best, by making listening and participating in story reading a lot of fun and enabling the child to play and learn the basics of reading in ways that a written story book can't replicate. This particular junior reading program stands out because of the high quality of interactiviity compared to many other junior reading programs, where you are left wondering why not just read the book instead.
The animation of the stories combined with the written and spoken narration, really allows the child to follow the words as they are being spoken, as well as play along and enjoy the story with D.W. as she finds the right words that Arthur is asking her to spot. The music in the background heightens the children's engagement in the program.
There are lots of opportunities for the child to directly participate in finding and matching words to pictures, making this program highly interactive. Our testers loved this program because the characters, the story line and most importantly, the level of interactivity that was so engaging for them.
We liked the way the program actually taught the users the basics of word recognition and provided the practice experience of starting to read along with the story. The program also communicates the joys of reading. As Arthur says at the beginning of the story "Books are magic" and so, in our view, is this program.
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Pricing and Online Ordering
(or call toll free -1-800-250-9229 )
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Platform: Macintosh®, CPU : 68040 or better, RAM : 8MB, Hard Drive: 80MB, Video : Super VGA (640x480x256color) CD-ROM: 2X or better,
Platform: PowerMac™: CPU : 68040 or better, RAM : 8MB, Hard Drive: 20MB,Video : Super VGA, (640x480x256 colour), CD-ROM: 2X or better
Platform: Windows® 95/98 - XP,CPU : 486/66Mhz or better, RAM : 16MB, Hard Drive: 80MB, Video : Super VGA (640x480x256 colour) CD-ROM: 2X or better, Sound : Windows compliant sound device.
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or see other reading programs
Disney Ready to Read With Pooh - ages 3-6
Clifford the Big Red Dog: Reading - ages 4-6
Clifford the Big Red Dog: Phonics - ages 4-6
Let's Go Read 1: An Island Adventure - ages 4-6
Ariel's Story Studio - ages 5-9
Carmen Sandiego Word Detective - ages 8-14
Robinson Crusoe - ages 8 -16
Language Trek Grades 5 & 6 - ages 10 -12
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