Disney's Phonics Quest

by Disney

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005JJEU
• Item model number: 2210501
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 27, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,431 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #10 in Video Games > Mac Games > Arcade
  • #28 in Software > Children's Software > Reading & Language
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From Children's Software Revue® -- "Subscribe Now!"

Unfortunately, sluggish games spoil the great music and Disney graphics in this collection of six phonics activities. Mickey has lost some pages of a magic book. His "quest" is to play six different games to get the pages back. For example, in Duckbill Printin' Press, Mickey helps Donald in his reading lessons by selecting words that sound the same. Strengths include a bookmarking feature, so that a child can continue a game from day to day. The record keeping system is detailed, and the program allows children to change levels on the fly. The game's primary weakness is that the actual problem solving is bogged down by the narration. Also, children have no idea how long they must work before they get the prize. Our final gripe is that while voice recognition is advertised on the box, we were unable to get it working. In sum, several of the games are unique, and the concepts covered are well selected, but this is not one of those programs your kids will ask to play.
Teaches:
Age Range: Copyright © 2001 Children's Software Revue

Product Description

Join Mickey on a quest as the Sorcerer's Apprentice to uncover the magic of phonics fun! Children will learn about: * Letter Sounds & Recognition, Vowel Sounds, Consonant Blends, Vowel Digraphs, Syllable Recognition, Word Building, Spelling, Multiple Pronunciations, Reading Comprehension, Rhymes, and more!

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good teaching tool, but not enough magic, November 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Disney's Phonics Quest (CD-ROM)

We just got back from Disneyworld so my daughter was very eager to play this new "game."

She is still playing it, but keeps asking: "where's Mickey?" The idea is that Mickey travels around trying to retrieve stuff missing from the castle. Each missing item can only be recovered after completing a lengthy phonics drill. During most of the drills Mickey and the recognizable Disney characters are off-screen. And you have to correctly answer a large number of questions before you get a prize. The cute animated graphics only briefly disguise the fact that these are pretty routine exercises.

The software worked very well on our old PC (AMD 500 Mhz, no graphics card). No problems installing or delays in loading etc...

The software automatically adjusts the difficulty level based on the accuracy of the responses. This should allow the software to be used for a long time as a child's skills improve.

The software comes with a microphone and voice recognition software. Unfortunately you have to "train" the voice recognition software to understand a user's speech patterns by reading lengthy texts into the microphone. Do you see the problem here? If my daughter could read those texts then we wouldn't be buying this CD... I can read the texts, but my voice is quite different from my daughters. The end result was that when a "voice recognition" opportunity appeared during the game my daughter would shout answers into the microphone and get no response.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Almost very good, December 30, 2001

By 

"jaclynns-mom" (Warrenton, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disney's Phonics Quest (CD-ROM)

My daughter is 4 and loves all things Disney. This game has a lot to offer and in the beginning she was very gung-ho about playing. But at this age, there needs to be rewards rather frequently to maintain their interest. In Phonics Quest, there are plenty of choices for her to choose from-which is great. And many of the games are quite educational. There is a game for sorting and listening skills. One for ryhming words. Another for patterns. There is simple spelling-fill in the missing letter, and so on. The problem with it is that the kids have to work for a long time to get each prize-the missing items from the castle for which Mickey is on a quest. By a long time, I mean that they have to answer about 20 or more problems in each of the 6 rounds. Then, there are 6 prizes in all to get. Now, after all of this hard work, one would expect a little fanfare for the kids to make it worth fighting for. But the fan fare is almost non existent and then just rushes you off to do it again. I find its the fan fare that keeps them coming back for more. Jaclynn has stopped coming back for more after about 4 rounds and dubbed the game boring.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Rewarding, February 15, 2003

By 

"mikensully" (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disney's Phonics Quest (CD-ROM)

In a word, disappointing. We purchased this game thinking it was representative of Disney interactive products. At first, our five year old son enjoyed playing it but quickly bored of it. Kids have to repeat the phonics exercises over and over and over again - sometimes more than 10 times - to receive any kind of fan-fare or reward in retrieving the Sorcerer's lost items. Excellent graphics and great activities but there certainly should be more verbal or graphic reward as incentives to make the child want to further pursue the game. Kids of this age react much better to more frequent reward...and this game just disappoints for computer active, advanced children. Other Disney products have been better received.