Content area
Full Text
With practice in math, language, art, creativity, and sometimes a bit of science, foreign language or social studies, the multi-subject CD-ROM is a burgeoning new software genre that shows signs of being here to stay.
First introduced a couple of years ago with Knowledge Adventure's JumpStart Kindergarten, CDROMs that offer a variety of activities specifically tied to grade-level objectives are showing up from more and more publishers. Multi-subject titles now available target a broad range of user groups-from pre-K youngsters up through fifth-graders. Designed first for the home market, some promise to get children "ready" for the next grade with a leg up on the full year's curriculum. In fact, these titles are most appropriate and useful as supplements to classroom instruction in progress, offering appealing animated characters, music, sound effects, and rewards that make practice and review of important basics fun. Standard features include student progress trackers and multiple levels of difficulty that grow with students as they gain proficiency. In general, this type of program tends to stick with tried and true game formats as opposed to the more experimental approaches taken by strategy and logic titles, such as Humongous's Pajama Sam series.
For this roundup we have chosen to focus on the numerous firstgrade multisubject CDs now available. In them students will recognize such familiar friends as Reader Rabbit, Frankie the dachshund, and Madeline, and also meet newcomers Gregory Woodpecker and the Brightly Twins.
With much in common, the titles all cover such basics as early phonics, word-building, spelling, addition, subtraction, telling time, and counting money. (For a title-by-title breakdown of topics, see the chart on page 22.) Some also include creativity options, like simple music composition games and paint tools. Although there are limited opportunities here for kids to apply their developing literacy and math skills in creative ways, the engaging activities and positive reinforcement will go a long way toward helping them develop their feelings of competency in academics. Here-with settings as diverse as Paris, an enchanted forest, and a firstgrade classroom-we present the five programs, each with its own distinct style. Read on to see which seem best suited to your students.
Big Thinker's First $#ade
(Humongous Entertainment)
In this second release in a new series (following...