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71 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not at all age appropriate!, May 19, 2003
By A Customer
Admittedly, my Kindergartner is an advanced reader (reading at an early 2nd grade level). Nonetheless, I figured that a product that was supposed to cover 1st - 3rd grades would be beneficial over the summer. I was way wrong.First of all, the Learning Company has pulled a fast one. They market this as appropriate for ages 5 - 8, and have stamped each disc in the set with that age range. However, when you look closely at the box you will see that one of the titles shows an age range of 3 - 5; another 4 - 7; and the other two 5 - 8. So right off the bat, one of the products (Baily's Book House) is aimed at preK - K. The next one (Lets Go Read: Island Adventure) is a letter by letter phonics program. I don't think that our school standards overly high -- this is definitely a skill they should have before finishing Kindergarten! So not appropriate for rising 1st graders...much less 3rd graders. In addition, it moves at a snail's pace. I can see that kids would get frustrated because you cannot move at your own pace or even choose which letter you want to learn. It starts with T, then A, then H (so far). And you cannot choose to move to a different letter until you have completed the one it has assigned to you. Oh - and you should have a microphone (I don't). It'll progress without it, but try explaining that to your 3 year old ("he says to say 'tuh' into the microphone!") The next disc (LGR II: Ocean Adventure) is slightly more complex than the LGR I. But it does revisit the pre-K and K, skills explored so deeply in LGR I. Finally - the last disc - is a reading comprehension program. Finally, one that my son can use -- except, in order to really progress, he has to know how to type on the keyboard. So it doesn't matter that he can read the story himself, or express the main ideas and characters in detail -- he has to type them (or I should say I have to type them). Fortunately, there are other games that don't require typing. My last complaint is that there was NO documentation included with this -- not even a "read me" file. These games are not very "intuitive", so I have had to go through them on my own to see how to tell my children to use them. FORTUNATELY - I have a 3 year old at home. She definately can use the first two discs - and will probably have started Disc 3 well before Kindergarten. So at least it wasn't a total waste of money. Really, for her - it is perfect -- and that's the only reason it got 3 stars.
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