Customer Reviews

Spongebob Squarepants Typing Win/Mac

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Our children LOVE Spongebob, but we were disappointed in this program. After trying Spongebob for a few days, we bought Mavis Beacon's basic course. Our children caught on immediately with Beacon and have continued to use it instead of Spongebob.

Beacon's course starts off with the basics (home-row keys) and gradually progresses from there. It actually "teaches" and automatically reviews particular skills that the typist is having trouble with. The Spongebob program seems to take for granted that one already knows the basics of typing. It provides little more than practice tools.

In a nutshell, Spongebob is probably good for an advanced typist, but Beacon is better for a beginner.

My kids are Spongebob fanatics and having recently finished learning the basics of touch typing, thought they would like to continue learning with their favorite silly sea-dweller.

Instructions are scant. To learn typing basics, one needs to go to the Krusty Krab Typing Tournament (which seems it would be a place to go after one learns to type). The see-through hands and constant encouraging words from Spongebob do help new typists learn. To reinforce the letters learned, there are typing breaks with the games from Glove World.

Alternately, one can go directly to Glove World and play the challenges. My kids are nuts for Senseless Patrick, a truly clever maze you clear letter by letter to find Patrick's missing five senses. It's the most unique game on the disc and is truly compelling. The snail races are fun, and the boat ride, too. Sandy's hoe-down gives you music as you touch letters, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to musicians, as a single note can be any number of letters. Also the game where you type words to dress Patrick ends with a fun payoff (Patrick in a crazy outfit) but it isn't clear how he gets the different parts of his outfit so duplicating something silly is pretty tough. All games can be completed at three different levels of difficulty so they do remain challenging as skills build.

The games make it worth the price tag. Though the typing drills do deal with nautical themes, they're merely average. There are other typing programs with more interesting games and drills but if nautical nonsense is something your kids wish, they'll like this game.

Spongebob typing is a good solid game. Its cute and more fun than I expected. The kids love it when we race the boats! Its worth having in your collection.

My kids (ages 7 and 10) have enjoyed this program very much. It seems to be improving their typing and is not monotonous with all the various games and challenges included. The only minor annoyance is hearing SpongeBob repeat some of his encouragement phrases over and over but the kids do not seem bothered by it.