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Educational: 4.7
Overall Design: 4.8
Ease of Use: 4.5
(4.0 = good, 4.5 = very
good, 5.0 = excellent)
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Program Description Who Is This Program For
Why We Selected This Program Computer Requirements
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The new Reader Rabbit Preschool is an animated adventure experience exploring the planet "Sparkalot" where you and Reader Rabbit are helping put the "sparkle" back in all kinds of objects that have lost their sparkle. The 6 activity areas within the adventure story, develop skills in basic numeracy, letter, word identification and attribute identification (matching similar items).
The program opens with an animated story with Reader Rabbit and Sam The Lion that has the viewer discover in the opening story, that some "bad" space pirates have taken the sparkle out of all the stars. Reader Rabbit and Sam then go to the planet "Sparkalot" to see if they can bring the sparkle back into all the many objects on the planet and restore the sparkle to the stars in the sky. Of course, they need your help.
The child then is introduced to the various activity areas on the planet "Sparkalot" where he or she can earn special gem stones that will eventually enable the child to bring the sparkle back to the stars. The child is free to choose which activity to start with and can easily move from one activity to another through the guide map of the planet. The program allows the user to stop anytime and when restarted will pick up where you left off. Many elements of the developing story are revealed as you move from one activity to another, helping to sustain the interest of the child and to continue with their explorations and involvement in the activities.
One of the design features that really stood out for us was that when you make an incorrect answer in a learning activity, you were automatically given some information by one of the characters that would help you get the right answer on your next try. Many software programs for younger kids often leave you guessing in this area.
Our very young testers found Reader Rabbit Preschool very easy to use and found the story line and accompanying music (including songs) very entertaining and engaging.
The program has three levels of difficulty that will scale up or down automatically to match the skill level of the user and provide more than adequate challenge to the user who gets better as they use the program again and again. As with all Reader Rabbit programs, this one will track the progress of up to 99 children making it useful for either a teacher or parent who wants to know on "how we are doing"
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Matching baby fireflies with their parents
"Counting astronauts"
Matching the right beginning letter to a word
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Reader Rabbit Preschool is suitable both for young boys and girls who are at the stage where they are just starting to becoming exposed to letters and numbers and starting the demonstrate some abilities in "beginner" adding.
In a pre K or kindergarten classroom setting, this would be an excellent program to engage the children and to help find out what is the level of capability of each of your students in their basic knowledge involving the alphabet and numbers. Keep in mind the program can track the individual progress and skill level of up to 99 different users
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Many of the past junior Reader Rabbit programs have been well designed and engaging. This new Reader Rabbit Preschool (part of a new 2001 series) demonstrates that they have learned from their past program development experience and have refined and improved many of the operating characteristics and design qualities to produce what might be their best ever program at this age level.
The refinements in quality are found in the ease of use for young users (i.e. lots of helping commentary from the characters), the quality of the music and songs, the animation, and the fuller and more engaging story line. As well, in an environment, where quite a few "educational" software programs have strayed to being more entertaining than educational, this Reader Rabbit program has stayed strongly focused on ensuring that basic letter and numeracy knowledge are solidly reinforced, through adequate repetition and duration of activity in all of the six learning activity areas.
In the past, many junior learning programs were just OK or had one or two areas of less than ideal in either technical or creative design. This new Reader Rabbit Preschool is very well done in every area of design from being entertaining and engaging, to educational, and is also very easy to use for young ones. This is an exceptionally well designed program from the Learning Company.
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Pricing and Online Ordering
(or call toll free -1-800-250-9229 )
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Platform: Windows® 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, Media: CD-ROM, CPU: 166 MHz Pentium® or faster, RAM: 32 MB, Hard Drive: 100 MB available , CD-ROM: 8x Speed , Sound: Soundblaster 16 or compatible, speakers (Stereo recommended) , Other: Mouse, internet access, color printer.
Platform: Mac System 8.6-9.1, and OSX, Media: CD-ROM , CPU: 180 MHz or faster, RAM: 32 MB, Hard Drive: 100 MB available, CD-ROM: 8x Speed, Sound: 16-bit Stereo Sound, Other: Mouse, internet access, color printer.
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or to see other early learning programmes
Elmo's Preschool Deluxe - ages 3-5
Winnie the Pooh Preschool - ages 3-6
Dr. Suess Kindergarten - ages 4-6
Reader Rabbit Kindergarten: Bounce Down in Balloon Town! - ages 4-6
Jump Start Kindergarten - ages 4-6
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