REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Learn to Read 1
by Fisher-Marriott Software, Dave Eaton
Macmillan Software Ltd
1983
Crash Issue 25, Feb 1986   page(s) 45,46

Producer: Sinclair/Macmillan
Retail Price: £7.95 each
Age Range: Younger children
Author: Fisher-Marriott

The five programs in this series are from MacMillan Education's best-selling reading scheme, Gay Way, which is widely used in primary schools. Educational consultants for the programs were Betty Root and Diana Bentley, of the Centre for the Teaching of Reading. The programs form a carefully structured sequence, beginning with letter recognition and sight vocabulary, and building up to the concept of positional language (words such as under, on, inside) in Program Five.

The excellent booklet which comes with each package has a lot of useful, practical advice to offer parents who want to help their children to read, and the contents of the various programs are clearly described.

When playing the games, it is possible to return to the menu at any time when the prompt 'Press A Key' is displayed on the screen, but a major snag with all the programs in the series is that a child inadvertently pressing BREAK on the Spectrum will crash the program altogether. The series, though, is fun to use with a strong emphasis on learning through play. The popular animal characters featured in the Gay Way reading books are also prominent in the programs, and are illustrated on the attractive packaging.

COMMENTS

Control keys: moves from PRESS A KEY and PRESS A NUMBER to typing in the letters of a word.
Keyboard play: very good
Use of colour: bright and clear
Graphics: very attractive


REVIEW BY: Rosetta McLeod

Summary: General rating: A professional series of programs which are highly recommended

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 23, Feb 1984   page(s) 118,119

THE ABC OF SIMPLE KEYBOARD DRILLS

Theodora Wood looks at reading programs

The use of computers in teaching literacy skills, at a very early age and later as the child becomes more adept at recognising and communicating the written word, inevitably entails the gaining of skills with the computer. The use of the keyboard to answer on-screen questions and commands reinforces that aspect of educational computing.

That is nowhere more true than of the many alphabet programs on the market. Learning the alphabet requires not only the ability to recognise and differentiate between shapes but also to match shapes to their appropriate sounds. Without an adult to speak the sounds, the alphabet games become merely a matter of keyboard training. Letters and Numbers, Jimjams Software, Spectrum 48K, £4.95, is an example, where the child has to press the matching key to the letters which appear on the screen. If correct, the picture appears with sound and animation, unlike Alphabet - Widgit, Spectrum 48K, £5.95. The use of voice synthesisers should alleviate this problem somewhat.

abc... Lift Off - Longmans, Spectrum 16K, £7.95, is slightly different in that the child has to match a picture to a word and its initial letter in a game of snap; the child has only to press S to indicate a match. When six correct answers have been given, a rocket takes off. The action takes place quickly and is best-suited to be used as a consolidation routine, after a child has a knowledge of the shapes and sounds of the alphabet.

Alphabet Games - Blackboard Software, marketed by Sinclair, Spectrum 48K, £7.95, immediately seems better value in that there are three games in the one program. There is also the possibility of customising the program or incorporating routines from it into programs a parent or teacher may be writing, and the cassette gives hints on that.

Blackboard has allowed for that in all its programs, producing a degree of flexibility not found in other software. Once LOADed, the program offers the choice of three games, Random Rats, Invaders or Alphagaps. After the child's name is entered, there is then the choice between upper- or lower-case letters. The speed is fast, and can obviously be changed, but that adds to the arcade-style fervour of both Random Rats and Invaders. Both games are unashamedly keyboard trainers, matching lower- and upper-case letters. If played with a child who shouted the sounds while a parent types them it can prove to be a good practice session on this level.

In Random Rats, rats appear on the screen at intervals and a white block, the gun, moves across the screen. The child has to press the letter which appears on the gun to zap a few rats. In Invaders the child has to press the letter which appears on the alien spaceship to prevent it handing by blowing it up. At the end of both games the player receives a certificate if a ZX printer is attached.

The third program in Alphabet Games features training in another kind of skill that is the order of the alphabet, important in the use of indices for filling and retrieval purposes. Alphagaps shows the alphabet on the screen with some missing letters. The child has to fill the gaps with the correct letter from left to right.

Sinclair has also released five programs recently which foster the whole word approach to reading as well as the use of the alphabet. Learn to Read 1-5 - Sinclair, Spectrum 48K, £9.95 each, provide a range of activities with a structural approach to teaching the reading process.

All the programs feature the animals from the reading scheme, Meg the hen, Sam the fox, Jip the cat, and so on, and are very simplistic in their textual content. The year 1950 was, after all, pre-television for most children and the lack of sophistication is evident in 1984. They eschew such criticisms as sexist, which are directed at many of their contemporaries such as Janet and John, but overall have little connection with real life.

Learn to Read 1-3 runs on a roughly similar format. Once LOADed, the menu appears, a box moves over the names of the activities and the child has to press a key when the box surrounds the chosen task. Names introduces new words on all three programs, ranging from the names of the animals to the last word in a sentence containing the words learned in previous programs. Those are shown at the beginning of the program to be read by an adult and then tested. In Learn to Read 1, one animal is left on the screen with a list of all the names; the child has only to press a key when the moving box is over the correct word. By the time Learn to Read 3 is attained the same task includes reading a sentence and matching two words with objects which appear at the top of the screen. If correct, the word is written in big lower-case letters.

Kim is the next program on the menu increasing in difficulty over the range. It is a simple memory game where pictures with words or sentences appear on the screen and then one disappears. The child has to spell the word on the keyboard; if correct, the picture and the word appear again. That is repeated until all the words have been tested.

Spell, the next game, is repeated on all three programs. In one all the animals appear on the screen and then each is labelled in turn; the child has to spell the word on the keyboard. After five attempts the computer gives the correct letter. In Learn to Read 2 bars of labelled colour appear at the top of the screen and then a sentence appears on the lower half, for example Meg the ---, and the child again has to spell the word; if correct, the animal is coloured by a dripping pot of paint and the sentence is completed, Meg the hen is yellow. A score bar builds at the side of the screen with each colour. Learn to Read 3 provides the child with a multiple choice of similarly-spelt words to fill the gaps in a sentence. A similar score bar operates as in the previous program.

The final choice on all three programs is a version of the perennial educational game pairs, called Card. Over the span of the three programs the number of cards increases from eight to 12, from matching pictures, through matching pictures and words to matching pictures with their initial sounds - the first introduction to phonics in the whole scheme. The child has to ENTER the numbers of the cards to turn them over.

Learn to Read 4 is devoted to teaching alphabetical order and is much more accessible than the previous activity discussed, Alphagaps, found on the Blackboard Alphabet Games. There are three choices - NEXT, MIDDLE and FIND. NEXT shows the complete alphabet, upper- and lower-case, printed to a catchy tune. Three letters appear on the screen in alphabetical order and the child has a picture clue to help ascertain the fourth letter, as well as the alphabet at the top of the screen.

In MIDDLE the child is presented with three boxes, the outer two of which contain pictures and letters and the child has to guess the middle letter. After five incorrect attempts at either of the activities, the letter is given. FIND can be slow or fast - pictures in alphabetical order move across the screen; when there is a gap the child has to press the appropriate letter on the keyboard. At the end there is a house with the entries missed in the windows.

The fifth tape is a series of examples and exercises to aid the learning of all those positional words, such as on, top, bottom. These words, although common in written text, often prove a stumbling block for early readers.

As all the programs are based on the same animal characters, it is more difficult to imagine using the useful routines found in such a program as Learn and Read 4 out of context, and Fisher-Marriot has allowed no provision, unlike Blackboard, for doing so; CAPS SHIFT BREAK causes the program to crash. Also because the scheme relies almost completely on three-letter words, there can sometimes be nonsense sentences for the child to complete.

For older children, Star Reader - Scisoft, Spectrum 48K, £6.95, is aimed at the six-to-11 age group and provides training in the meaning of words and their position in the context of a written piece of text. There are three levels of reading difficulty and two choices of activity. At each level a passage of text is shown on-screen with some words missing; the child has to ENTER the words from a choice given at the bottom of the screen. At level one the second choice of activity is to sort rumbled sentences, while the alternative choices for levels two and three concentrate on dictionary skills and filing activities, both useful for information searches.

Castle Spellerous - Blackboard, Spectrum 48K, £7.95, flashes the word on the screen before the child has to spell it. The object is to release the princess from the wicked magician's palace. It is well-realised graphically and interesting, with sudden surprise attacks fended-off by pressing the appropriate letter on the keyboard. There is a choice of 10 types of words, for example 'ea' words; the word lists can be changed and the exposure time to the word can be regulated to suit the child concerned.

Scisoft has produced a similar package in Wizard Box - Spectrum 48K, £6.95, - the words do not flash on the screen but can be recorded on tape. The problem of synchronisation could become acute for a child not accustomed to tape recorders. Hangman programs, either typed from books or akin to the version found in Punctuation Pete, are probably just as effective and interesting as a spelling tester.

Blackboard has also released four programs to help with punctuation - Capital Letters, Early Punctuation, Speech Marks and The Apostrophe Spectrum 48K, £7.95. The titles give an obvious hint to the contents. All the programs give examples of the use of punctuation and then test the child with a piece of text on which to practise. A little stick man moves over the text and the child has to stop him at the correct place to insert the punctuation marks.

If a ZX printer is attached, a certificate is printed with the number of correct answers and at the end of each set of activities there is a game. Heinemann has covered this ground with one program operating on three levels, Punctuation Pete. Unlike the Blackboard programs, there is no opportunity to change the text and it is therefore a much less flexible package.

Finally, 40 Education Games for the Spectrum, by Vince Apps, Granada, £5.95, is a cheap way of providing programs in this field. It includes a spelling test, Hangman, and speed reading as well as mathematics routines.

All the programs reflect current educational emphasis on drill and test, and are electronic workbooks. They familiarise a child with the keyboard but often than that offer very little which is new. A more creative approach in the field would be to concentrate on the computer as a writing tool, as adults would use it, to refine and correct a piece of written work.

Heinemann, 22 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HH

Jimjams Software, The Radleth, Plealey, Pontesbury, Shrewsbury SY5 0XF

Longman Software, Longman Group Ltd, Longman House, Burnt Mill, Harlow, Essex CM 20 2JE

Scisoft, 5 Minster Gardens, Newthorpe, Eastwood, Notts.

Sinclair Research, 25 Willis Road, Cambridge CB1 2AQ

Transform Ltd, 41 Keats House, Porchester Mead, Beckenham, Kent

Widgit Software, 48 Durham Road, London N2 9DT


REVIEW BY: Theodora Wood

Blurb: "The programs have little connection with real life."

Blurb: "Exposure time can be regulatedd to suit the child concerned."

Gilbert Factor7/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

ZX Computing Issue 12, Apr 1984   page(s) 29

SPECTRUM LESSONS

Mike Edmunds takes his Spectrum into school and reports on some of the latest educational software available.

With an increasing amount of educational software now on the market, we felt that we ought to have a special review spot for these programs. Mike Edmunds has enough computing experience to be able to assess the standard of programming and, as a professional teacher, can give a qualified opinion on the educational value of the cassette. Of course, he can also test out the programs on the pupils at his school - the lucky lot!

A series of programs entitled Learn to Read is one of the latest educational offerings from Sinclair in collaboration with Macmillan Education. Together they have produced a comprehensive package for use by both parents and teachers to take children through the early stages of reading. The programs are based upon the popular Gay Way reading scheme, but can be used independently or alongside any reading scheme, using such techniques as word recognition, phonics (the matching of letters with sounds) picture matching, match and spell and so on.

All the tapes are attractively packaged in a sturdy box and come complete with a detailed booklet which outlines the way in which the parent can help, as well as detailing the role that the computer can play in their child's reading development.

The programs have been designed to make full use of the Spectrums graphic and sound capabilities and in this they succeed admirably. Loading is reliable and the initial screen displays give a taste of the fun to come! in Learn to Read 1 we are introduced to colourful representations of Sam the fox, the fat pig and their friends and these characters play leading roles throughout the series. Familiar tunes accompany each stage of the programs and serve to enhance the excellent graphics.

Although the programs can be used by the child alone, active participation by an adult is encouraged and indeed is necessary for the early tasks. On screen instructions have been kept to a minimum, but initial 'reading aloud' by an adult is essential for the younger child.

All the programs in the series provide a substantial amount of activity and will keep any child entertained for a long time. Each section is very user-friendly and above all, fun to use, helping the child to realise that teaming can actually be enjoyable!

Learn to Read 1, 2 and 3 use the same format, consisting of 'Names' - an introduction to the characters and new vocabulary; 'Kim' - exercises in logical thinking and memory; 'Spell' - phonic and spelling practice and 'Card' - a pelmanism game for the matching of pictures, phonics or spellings. Learn to Read 4 deals primarily with alphabetical sequencing under the titles 'next' and 'middle'. 'Find', the final title, is a consolidation program. The last program in the series deals with 'positional' terms; inside, on, at the bottom of and so on using 'snap' and spelling games.

A lot of thought has gone into these programs. They are well structured and help the child move in easy stages towards becoming a reader. The programs aim to be diagnostic in approach, in that they gently prompt when an error is made, then reinforce by giving the mistake and follow it with an invitation to try again. Emphasis is placed on correct spelling at all stages but the necessary capitals and punctuation are built into the programs. Sinclair and Macmillan seem to be on to a winner here as this is an excellent series of 'teaching' programs. They are rather expensive but, in this case, the price is justified by the quality. However, as with all things, the proof of the pudding...

Learn to Read programs are £9.95 each and available from Sinclair Research Ltd.


REVIEW BY: Mike Edmunds

Transcript by Chris Bourne

All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB