Scetlander
£9.99/£14.99

Attention parents! Halloo out there! Remember how your delightful offspring conned you into buying a Spectrum? 'Awww, but it'll help me with my school work!' Remember that? Well, here's your chance to get your own back with Scetlander's latest learning game Henrietta's Book of Spells, designed to improve the spelling of 7-10 and 11- 14 year olds. Like Scetlander's previous game Hooray for Henrietta (maths for 7-11 year olds), Book of Spells combines an exercise in spelling with a fun and on-screen to prevent any interest wandering off.

The story and animated sequences concern hopeless Henry who, as a result of being too happy for his own good, has been turned into a fat frog by the evil witch Morgan the Morbid. Only by correctly completing a series spelling games can Henrietta discover the magic word to return Henry to his human self.

There are five different spelling games to play: Flash flashes a word on the screen and tests the user's ability to memorise and repeat the spelling, Complete puts up a word with the vowels missing, the user has to complete the word. Crack-it is an alphabet-based code breaking puzzle, Hang-up is a hangman game and Jumbles tests the user's ability to recognise words from anagrams. The user can select to play the five games with words five to nine letters long. The editor is one of the most appealing features: this allows users to create their very own dictionary of words to implement in the game.

For the 11-14 year olds, the very basic graphics and animation within each game will seem pretty poor compared to the stuff they're used to playing, and the story's a bit soppy for them (the hard nuts!). However, works well and should appeal to the 7-10 year olds and improve their spulling, erm, spelling.

Label: Scetlander
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £10.99
Reviewer: Ian Watson

Educational software tries to put the fun into learning for kids. Our kid, Ian Watson, improves his spelling, counting and shape and colour recognition and finds it's not all Child's Play.

The first in the closely linked series of three educational programs designed for the basic tutoring of the under fives and upwards. Hooray For Henrietta is a maths program that couples basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems with a storyline that involves a clueless fiancee, various items of clothing and a vat of custard. The four screens also feature a different activity (climbing, rowing, hurdling and demolition) and with 8 levels and separate questions for 5-8 yr olds and 9- 12 yr olds you can't really go wrong. A lot of thought seems to have gone into the staggering of the levels and the fabulous graphics and enjoyable sound all make for a fine program. Hooray for Henrtetta! Next up is Henrietta's Book Of Spells, in which Henrietta has to brave a wicked witch, find some magic letters, turn her hapless husband back into a human xxandxx tackle some word games. Blimey! There are five games in all (complete the word, unscramble the word, remember the word flashed on the screen, hangman and crack the code) and two skill levels (7-10 yr olds and 11-14). Other features include a variable word length, a range of libraries, and a high score table. My only grumble about this and HFH is that the keyboard seems to be fairly sluggish, something that's sure to upset an unconfident chid, and both programs' tendency to crash if left for even a short time - most annoying! Otherwise a fine effort. Lastly there's Mix And Match, a program for the under fives that helps to develop recognition, discrimination and memory skills with games such as Two Of A Kind, Odd Man Out and Forget Me Not, where using the space bar the child has to pick the relevant symbol. There are five different types of symbols to choose from (pictures, shapes, numbers, small case letter and large case letters) and despite the lack of any discernable storyline the program should prove to be more than enticing. The only down point is that the Spectrum version does not include progress recorder, switch facility, clock and calendar and results monitoring service. But it does come with a rather fine glossy badge, as do all the games. And if that doesn't entice you to buy the games nothing will. Kids eh?

Who'd have em!?!

GARTH:
A fine set of word games that's challenging even on the lower levels. Guaranteed to improve the word skills of even the most word-shy child.

Lander Software
Phone: (041) 357 1659
Tape: £12.99
Disk: £15.99

It's back to school time again and although most of you may not like the idea lets face it, things could be worse... You could be facing a firing squad or being horribly tortured with some matches and a pair of pliers, or, even more terrifying, forced to watch a Bob Monkhouse TV show with special guest stars Bruce Forsyth and Jeremy Beadle. See, going back to school isn't THAT bad.

Although Mr. Brown in 4C with the long nose, dandruff and bottle bottom spectacles might be a boring old fart there are in fact far more enjoyable ways of learning. One of which is right here on your Speccy - educational software. It's puzzling, informative and fun, and best of all, it gives you an excuse to play on your Speccy during time normally allotted for homework without incurring the wrath of your elders. (It also gives you a chance to slip in the odd arcade game for mental stimulation, though don't tell your mum I said this.) There are a wide variety of educational games available so here, to help you choose, is a selection of those currently readily available and a quick guide to their usefulness.

Henrietta's Book of Spells is featured in its 11 to 14 guise on the Great 8 this month, so you can try it out for size. The games involve memory testing, anagram breaking, code breaking, and a word completion 'hang man' game. There is a difficulty control which allows you to use words of between 5 and 9 letters long and some of these games will stump the average adult for a while. There is also a 7 to 11 years old version for those not quite ready to take on the longer words and more difficult puzzles. Once again graphics are basic on the Spectrum version but the puzzles are very involving and there's no doubt that this is a learning package. (See page 29 for special offer.)