Customer Reviews

Disney's Adventures in Typing with Timon & Pumbaa

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is not one of those cutesy titles that only pretends to be about education. This is an extremely well-designed, well-thought-out program that effectively teaches typing (i.e., keyboarding). Anything even remotely associated with The Lion King may trigger the gag reflex in survivors of the whole Lion King blitzkrieg, but rest assured: Timon and Pumba do not have center stage here; the lessons do. Never sacrificing the functional for the cute or gimmicky, this program is structured, yet adaptive, and uses a gradual progression of exercises to provide just the right degree of challenge as the user progresses. In other words, the program captivates by providing variation (to keep things from getting dull) and by making the goal seem easy while maintaining just the right level of difficulty. Both my wife and nine-year-old were instantly hooked and have progressed dramatically. I do have a few minor complaints (for example, icons for navigating through the program could be more intuitive or--Heaven forbid--identified with actual words), but overall, this is a finely crafted tool that condenses a one-semester high school typing class (of yore) onto a single CD-ROM--but without the boring teacher.

This game was purchased for my six year old. She is a pretty active kid...not a lot of computer experience yet. When she first began to play, she was very tempted to look at her fingers...I sat beside her and held a lg. piece of paper over her hands, which solved the problem. The first night she learned to type f,d,j and k. She liked to "shoot bugs" (by typing the correct letter) but mandatory pages of just letters was a bit frustrating for her. I think that this game should go a little slower and therefore be more of a game and less work. I rate this game a solid B. It seems that it would be perfect for an 8 or 9 year old.

I consider keyboarding essential, especially once children have transitioned to cursive if not before. As an educational consultant, I wanted to actually try keyboarding software for younger children before recommending it. This title was by far the best of five I tried, with the most potential for children to place fingers correctly. It was one of the titles including posture and position illustrations at the beginning. While entertaining, the cartoon motivation and reinforcement moved quickly, so practice really is required. I didn't like the weird cave activity, but children are keyboarding adequately before they get to that last level. Designed well, the title I recommend for those too young for Mavis or when a lighter approach is needed.

This program is a terrific typing teacher for the youngest beginner. My daughter is 5 and has been wanting to "use the keyboard" for a long time. She has really done well on her own to follow the directions of Rafiki who makes her practice many more times than he did me! So it really is true that the program adjusts for different levels. This program really is all I had hoped it would be from just reading the box. At the time that I ordered this program from Amazon.com there were not any customer reviews.

My seven year old son rushed to my compter as soon as the Amazon box arrived. He was not disappointed as he was easily able to put the CD in my I-Mac himself and click on the icon to start the adventure. It held his interest for an hour as he moved through the excercises guided by the Disney characters. When I wanted to work at my desk our son simply moved to his dad's PC and with a little help was able to install the typing tutor at Dad's desk as well. The typing excercises and games are perfact for a young child and my son is not even aware that he is learning to type. We have had the CD for 3 days now and Patrick sits at the keyboard with his hands in the correct position and is able to type simple works without even looking at the keyboard. He has learned all on is own with no help for us. For my son it is essential that he learn to type as soon as possible. He is dyslexic and is struggling with writing and spelling. Soon he will be able to use a keyboard with a word processing program in school but he must first learn to type. I highly recommend this software. I rated it a 5 but Patrick says it is a 4 because he says it is not his absolute favorite thing to do but it is "really great!".

This is a great game/teaching tool which will help any youngster ages 4 - 15 to use a keyboard. It keeps your attention via interactive voice and animation as well as frequent games which test your skill. The scorecard reports on your progress as well as identifying where you need help. In one week, my children's typing skills increased 10 fold. I recommend this to anyone.

OK, it's a fun way for my young kids to learn the basics of typing - splatting bugs by pressing the right keys is pretty fun. The price was unbeatable.

The down side: It teaches only basics - letters and numbers. No shifted keys. No ten-key. It also runs only with the CD in the drive. It is also very difficult to install on Win2000/WinXP - you have to create a shortcut on your desktop for the setup.exe program on the CD, change the shortcut's compatibilty mode to Win95, then install the thing. Yeesh. BTW, don't accidentally hit (or rest your wrist on) the Windows key while you're typing; it royally messes up the color palette - to the point of having to quit and start over.

It got my kids started with typing in a fun way, but it was a bit of a pain to get it working. You win some, you lose some. This was a draw.

:-|

The last thing my son wanted to do over the Summer is learn typing. But his handwriting leaves a lot to be desired, and they allow lap tops in his school so they want the kids to know how to type... and this program appeals to his sense of humor and fun. He doesn't mind doing the lessons even though they are quite challenging once you get into it. There are certificates to be earned and lots of encouragement from Rafiki. I recommend it. Even though my son is 11, and older than the recommended ages, it's still a lot of fun. He's also ADHD, but it manages to hold his attention!

This program has been the most successful program I have used with children who are early school age and who need to learn to type due to writing difficulties. It is very colorful and seems to hold the interest of the children. I recommend it to parents all the time and I am sorry that it is so hard to find.

My wife (Ettin Cub) wrote a review today and was a little unfair. If you go to the Disney Interactive website you can download a patch for free which will resolve any issues the program may have with windows XP.
That said, it's an excellent program. Our children are begging to play, and are getting to be almost as fast as typing as we are. Well, maybe not as fast as I am.