Stickybear's Reading Room Deluxe

Reviewed by Cynthia A. Sorrels
Published by Optimum Resource, Inc.

Age Group: Age 4 to 8
Type: Language Arts
Price: $60

PC version requires:
Windows 95/98

Mac version requires:
Version Available

Description:

This title offers word games in English or Spanish that include 1) Word Bop - use a cannon to shoot the graphic as it scrolls by and it turns into the written word which is spoken aloud. Shoot it again and the picture comes back up. Shoot a third time and the graphic disappears. The goal is to make all the pictures disappear. 2) Word Match presents six pictures with the written/audio instruction "Find the dog" - and the child clicks on the correct picture. The next question may show a picture of a parrot and the instructions are "Find the word" - to choose the written word. 3) In Word Book, children click on different "rooms" - as they do so, words appear and the name is spoken as the name sound plays. 4) Sentence Builder has children constructing sentences and then seeing the animation of their sentences.

Features:

  • Four fun word games.
  • Option of English or Spanish.
  • Encourages sight recognition of words.
  • Learn and practice the basics of sentence construction.

Technical Aspects:

We had no problems with installation or runtime on our iMac DV Special, which has a G-3 processor and 128M RAM. The graphics are bright and cartoon-like and the sound effects are nicely done.

Report and Conclusions:

This program is proving to be a very useful addition to our home software library. It has come in at an especially good time, since our 6 year old, Ryan, has decided that he wants to learn Spanish. He'll have an excellent head-start using this title, and I plan to use it to help reinforce his reading and language skills in both languages.