children's software review

   

Review Sections: Product Overview  Entertainment Value  Technically Speaking  Design  Skills Covered  Replayability  Educational Value  Dollar Value   

 

Product Overview

Young children who are beginning to put together, and find meaning in, short words can always use some extra practice. Clifford Phonics offers just that extra boost in such a way that children never feel force-fed or overwhelmed. Set in a carnival environment, and featuring the lovable Clifford the Big Red Dog and friends, this CD-ROM offers targeted early phonics practice at every turn—and age-appropriate content for Clifford fans. 

Kids earn decorations for a parade float as they play the game’s main activities. Once each activity has been played a requisite amount of times, a parade sequence ensues. There are six activities in the game, as well as a handful of mini-games that take the form of language arts-boosting carnival games. Children help Clifford and Jetta inflate balloons by matching words and pictures. They create silly stories that are read aloud, work with word families as they match kids with correct Ferris Wheel cars, and work with rhymes as they shoot cannons in a circus tent. Work with letter recognition (both upper- and lowercase) takes the form of cow herding! 

Carnival games are freeplay-style. Kids simply play the games as they please, and when they do, they learn such important early reading skills as changing simple words by adding the “silent e”, adding different beginning sounds to words in order to change their meaning, and more. 

Once children have won prizes from all six activities, the tent opens and the parade begins. Kids can always continue playing and decorate the other two floats.

Technically Speaking
Minimum requirements are Windows 95/98/2000/Me/XP, a Pentium II 266 MHz processor, 64 Mb RAM, and 8X CD ROM. 

Skills Covered
phonics, word families, word-object association, letter/sound recognition, word building, letter recognition, letter sorting, visual discrimination, upper/lowercase letters, creativity, sight word recognition, fine motor skills, phonics, sound blending, sound recognition.

Educational Value
For light skills practice in an encouraging environment, this CD-ROM is ideal for beginning readers. It won't teach children to read, per se, but it will provide them with some solid practice in word recognition, letter sounds, and more.

Entertainment Value
The graphics are as big and bold as Clifford himself—very pleasing to the eye. This title doesn't have video-game-style appeal, but does feature a motivation system that children will enjoy and a theme that most kids like.

Design
The activities include 3 built-in difficulty levels, and become more challenging the more a child plays. The levels advance gradually and keep children at a comfortable level of challenge.

Replay Value
Average replay in terms of amount of content, but the fun theme and child-friendly activities boost up our expectations in terms of overall replay value.

Dollar Value
This title is reasonably priced at $19.95 US. 

 

 

Note: Now available as Clifford Reading Pack (DVD Box), a bundle that includes the Clifford Phonics CD-ROM plus 6 Clifford books.