School Zone Alphabet Express Preschool

Other products by School Zone

Product Features

• Alphabet Express introduces skills that help children learn to read and spell. This award-winning program combines games, songs and more for hours of fun practice. System Requirements: MAC REQUIREMENTS Mac® OS X 10.4 10.3 10.2.8, PowerPC™ G3 233MHz (or equivalent). 128MB of RAM. 640x480 32-bit color video. 50MB of available disk space. 8x CD-ROM drive. PC REQUIREMENTS Window

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005A8OO
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 6, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #746 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  #2 in	Software > Children's Software > Age Ranges > 2 Years
  #5 in	Software > Children's Software > Age Ranges > 3 & 4 Years

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
The 26 letters of the alphabet equal 26 opportunities to explore, listen, and learn in Alphabet Express Preschool. Add to this a handful of added-on games, imaginative short films, and freeform activities, and this CD-ROM has both appeal and staying power.

As a trainload of critters chugs around the onscreen alphabet, kids click on a letter, and uppercase and lowercase versions fly, bounce, or pour onto the scene in a Sesame Street moment. The letters dissolve to a garden scene for G, an orchestra for O, and so forth. Click on the onion in the orchestra pit, and a kid's voice intones "Onion!" while the squirrel holding the thing begins to cry piteously. There are similar scenes for every letter of the alphabet--though designers cheated a bit and combined X, Y, and Z. Kids can also paint different alphabet-emphasizing pictures, play a sounding-out/letter-matching game, and look at instructions on how to write each letter. A separate section of activities includes find-the-hidden-letter games, dot-to-dots that teach alphabetizing, and mazes that must be conquered by matching objects to their beginning letter. Finally, and most delightfully, there's a movie theater where kids can watch a couple of priceless animated shorts: one is a James Brown-esque ditty belted out by a chicken, listing the (alphabetized) items that make Hearty Chicken Alphabet Soup so special. Anchors, basketballs, and carburetors are a few of the secret ingredients.

The animation in Alphabet Express isn't smooth, but the audio is lush: O's orchestra section is replete with the dissonant sound of strings tuning up before the symphony; the tired old ABC song gets a hip-hop makeover; a host of different (and non-annoying) kid and adult voices pronounce letters and guide visitors. Even if this weren't a strong CD-ROM, it'd be worth checking out, just to learn the remaining ingredients in Hearty Chicken Alphabet Soup. (Ages 3 to 6) --Anne Erickson

Product Description
Alphabet Express introduces skills that help children learn to read and spell. This award-winning program combines games songs and more for hours of fun practice.System Requirements:MAC REQUIREMENTS Mac® OS X 10.4 10.3 10.2.8 PowerPC™ G3 233MHz (or equivalent). 128MB of RAM. 640x480 32-bit color video. 50MB of available disk space. 8x CD-ROM drive. PC REQUIREMENTS Windows® Vista XP 2000 ME 98 - Pentium® II 266MHz (or equivalent) 64MB of RAM 640x480 32-bit color video. 16-bit sound card. 50MB of available disk space 8x CD-ROM drive.Format: WIN 9598XP/MAC 8.6-9.X (CLASSIC)X10.1 OR LATER Genre: EDUCATION Age: 076645087010 UPC: 076645087010 Manufacturer No: 08701

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alphabet Express is fun!, January 4, 2002

By	J. Hsu (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My son who is just over two got this for Christmas and he loves it. There are so many different activities in it that he can be occupied for 20-30 minutes - amazing for a 2-year-old boy. His favorite thing is to "paint" the different pictures. They are so detailed and well animated and there are lots of colors - not just the typical 4 or 5 in some programs. He's not quite ready for some of the more advanced activities that ask you to match letters with pictures of objects that start with that letter. But this just means he'll have plenty to grow into. It's a really good choice.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Learning Software for Pre-School / Kindergarten, March 20, 2007

By	T. Barton "Middle School Teacher" (Broussard, LA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My four year old daughter is attending a pre-school where they learn a new letter every week. I bought this for her to reinforce what they are doing at school.

I taught Kindergarten for a short while and I can tell you without a doubt that this program is excellent for very beginning alphabet awareness.
The program won't teach them if they don't know anything, but with a little help or with a little knowledge of a few letters they can really get going. I love it.

There are several games to play from mazes, to matching letters with pictures. These games are a little more advanced, so even Kindergarteners and first graders should have some fun with it.

The part my daughter is working on right now is the very basic core of the program. Each letter has a picture loaded with clickables. Each clickable starts with the letter you are focusing on. It will even say the name of the thing you click on so you can hear the sound. My daughter is beginning to associate the things she clicks on with that letter and she is putting nouns that start with the same letter together in categories. She'll say, "I want the one with the bear and the boy and baseball."

After the clickables, there is also several paint pictures they can play with which are great. All the nouns that start with that letter are on the page and they can use the paint brush on the screen to paint everything. Using the mouse is something else my daughter has had some problems with and this is really giving her practice and she is really improving.

There is also another game where they match pictures of things to the letter that you are working on. It's pretty amusing to watch. When you get something right, a fireman dog climbs a ladder and pulls an elephant's tail to make him put out a fire. The elephant puts the fire out a different way each time.

I also love the fact that the little letter is used and referred to as well as the big letter. Even the matching games use both the big and little letters - separately even, so it reinforces the knowledge that they are different letters with the same sound and not just two letters stuck together.

We have really enjoyed this game and I can see us getting a lot of use out of it. I walked my daughter throught it once together and then after that she was plaing on her own.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love this game, October 27, 2005

By	ski_tahoe "ski_tahoe" (El Dorado Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

We got this for my 3 year old's birthday present and he loves it. It was unbelieveable how fast he mastered the mouse. He is able to play on his own but it is fun to play with him too. He has learned a lot from this game. We also stocked up on cheaper games, but they are worthless - this is definitely worth the $20.