Customer Reviews

Spongebob Square Pants Typing [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

My 8-year-old niece enjoys using this program. Already in the first hour, she's gone from a 2wpm hunt & peck to a consistent 5wpm with her hands in the correct position. I don't know what the previous reviewer was talking about in regards to just throwing the kid into the progam. There are easy lessons that slowly build up the child up. For instance, lesson 1 is right-hand only: asdf. Lesson 2 is left-hand only: ;lkj. You'll still have to help your kid find where the lessons are and coach them to not look at their hands. You can't just throw them in and expect them to start typing. The previous user's confusion probably stemmed from the fact that the "Tournament" section is where the lessons are. Jumping into the "Practice" section is typing text from a script. In that respect, the game could have been better labeled. But my niece is having fun and laughing while learning to type and that is what makes this program great.

The two previous reviews here on Amazon were mixed, but I decided to give the program a shot as I figured that it would go well with the new SpongeBob movie that is on DVD.

The most valuable component to this program is....it is interesting to children and enhances their participation.

Here are my results:
1) My seven year old daughter was able to comprehend and apply each lesson, typing game, practice and drills without any difficulties.

2) Teaching method was good...with the assistance of a guided virtual keyboard on the screen to provide instruction.

3) A critical focus was the reinforcement of home row keys and keyboard awareness.

The program is addictive and had to pry my daughter from the lessons. Not only her...but her friends who are interested in learning keyboarding.

I highly recommend this program. If it doesn't hold the attention of adults...it does for kids. Best of all...visible and measureable tangible results.

My 11 year old loves it. He is already in the mid 30s wpm wise. Yes, he has questions once in awhile. Nothing that took more than 30 seconds to answer. He found lots of games to do, but ended up steering himself towards the drill so he could do better in the games. The disk got lost-he was bringing this to friends' houses and when he would go to the office with Dad for something to do. So we are buying a second one. This in my opinion is the highest praise--we liked it well enough that we are willing to shell out the bucks all over again.

I am 11 and I love this game. I was recently at the Apple I-pod store that sells this game and I have learned to type using the asdf keys and the ;lkj keys. This game has alot of different things to do. You can play games (Doh a dee or something like that is a good one), Go to the tournaments and practice.This game is really addictive and makes you want to keep playing.

I am 12 years old...yes 12 and at the apple store I clicked it just for fun. My mom had trouble pulling me out! I have some trouble typing with the right fingers and this was really starting to help me. After you accoplish something you do a little game like thing and go back to learn more. If you can't find the letters on the screen spongebob is typing the letters with you with the right fingers. I had fun!

This program taught my 8 year old keyboarding skills in one weekend. And, she asks to use it to practice. I am so impressed at how she is now typing her own emails to her grandmother and feels proud of how she knows how to not look at the keys and type properly. Worth every cent!

My eight year old daughter loves this game. This game teachs kids enough basic skills of typing but parents still need to be involved to make sure the kids use the right fingers.

(UPDATE: Based on another later review, it appears that several features I was looking for were present, but not identifiable from the menu. I will re-review the program, but the menu SHOULD make it clear how to begin the process.)

If you intend to use this product to teach your kids how to type, forget it, save your money. You might as well leave them in front of a blank Word doc, and tell them to start typing.

Yes, you get some short semi-animated clips leading up to the actual lessons. And it sure sounds like they used the original voice actors. But apparently that's where all the creativity stopped or the budget ran out.

The tutoring aspect consists of showing the student some Spongebob-related phrases, and telling them to type the same thing. Along the bottom of the screen, a translucent set of animated fingers shows which finger the student should use to hit the next key.

That's it.

No introductory levels. No practise on small words. No repetition so the student becomes familiar with the postion of each key. Just typing complete sentences.

And if you spell "SpongeBob" as "Spongebob", it counts as an error.

And to make things even more fun, the display of letters also includes the paragraph marks. My daughter was nearly in tears because she couldn't find a "backward P" on the keyboard.

Calling this program a typing tutor is the equivalent of dropping your kid in the middle of the ocean and calling it a swimming lesson.

A poorly designed rip off.

My son is 8. Once he got going on it, he was hooked doing it all afternoon. He liked the %grade he received while learning. Of course, Sponge Bob and team make it goofy enough to be really fun. The only hassle we had was getting the CD to run. I had to uninstall, then re-install...but then it worked great on XP. His teachers in school wanted him to work on keyboarding skills over the summer. This one does it! AND it works on XP, where Mavis Beacon did not, at least up until recently.

I bought this game for a girl aged 4 yrs 10 mo, it is WAY over her head. Due to inexperienced parenting, I didn't realize that older kids liked spongebob too. It is a great game, but definitely not good for under 7 yrs old. I didn't fully explore the game because she lost interest quickly due to its difficulty (for an almost 5 yr old) but I wish they would have had a little more "basic fingering" there's nothing stoping the child from doing hunt and peck... perhaps an in-game incentive for using the proper fingers... just a thought. Otherwise it is a well written game that I expect she will use in 2 years or so.