Because I just learned that ABC Mouse.com is having a
50%+ off sale for Cyber Monday, I’m resharing my review of the service for your your added edification and consideration.
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I learned recently that a friend of a friend’s child, who is 10 years old, has never owned a book outside of books assigned to him at school.
This child has every digital gadget, tablet and video game at his disposal yet has never been given an actual book to read for leisure ever in his life. Hopefully, he has educational games and access learning sites as well, but it’s not the same.
The sad reality is there are many homes like his and the children in them may suffer schools and risk lagging behind their peer who do read and have access to books.
Reading, and chapter books, are the building blocks to reading comprehension, composition and sentence structure, and command of language, orally and in writing. Many standardized tests require students to master these subjects, not to mention some school entrance tests.
To combat this reality, more and more schools are turning to electronic forms of games and software to reach children the only way some know how.
My children’s school, for example, use a nationwide program called First in Math. It is a competitive game where each child logs on and completes educational games and tests for stickers. The administrators and teachers can monitor when a child logs on and how many stickers he has accumulated. In our school, the computer teacher gets swarmed as he goes to the bulletin board to post the latest results of top students in each grade. It is a healthy way of encouraging competition for learning.
It is also a wonderful example of how digital games can be used to supplement children’s learning when they may not have adequate resources or parental support at home.
They are also great for supplementing information and materials your child may be learning at school.
My 6-year old for example went thru the
Starfall (free and paid) website instructions, and currently is going through the
ABCMouse.com program which costs about $7.95 monthly. It is totally worth it in my book because combined with some other video-based learning tools, that program helped her learn to read when she was 4-years old.
She does 2nd grade math and she is only in Kindergarten and her oral communication and vocabulary are tops, partially because of it. It helps that her school also has the software embedded in each Kindergarten class so she is very comfortable with it and gets a chance to get even further in the lessons daily.
It has
over 2,000 Learning Activities for 2-6 year olds. I love the fact that she gets to pick an avatar that has her skin color and hair type. When she completes a lesson, she gets to pick an electronic prize from play money she accumulates at each level.
Again, its the element of incorporating games fun with learning that makes it great! I purchased it after seeing a pop-up ad for it several years ago and renew each time!
Good luck and do let us know how it’s working for your little one!
