The Man with the Yellow Hat has promised Curious George a present, but George doesn't know where they are supposed to meet. What's worse, the note the man left for George has ended up in pieces! Putting it back together is going to take a little work not to mention some help from a clever young friend.
Curious George Reading and Phonics is a five-part activity game designed to teach children ages 3 to 6 the basics of letter recognition, the principles behind sounding out words, and other fundamental reading techniques. As Curious George searches for the scattered pieces of his note, players practice simple spelling, work to distinguish between letter sounds, and sort out words that rhyme. Along the way, they earn bananas that take them, step by step, closer to their meeting with the Man with the Yellow Hat.
For children who are just beginning to learn the alphabet and venture into reading,
Curious George Reading and Phonics provides a relatively easy route to skill enhancement. The drills are simple and can be set to one of three levels of difficulty. They are also broken up by low-key arcade sequences that reward success and allow children to take a breather, jumping George around in pursuit of bananas before he hits the next learning hurdle. The light expectations and gentle pace of the game make it a perfect choice for players who are resistant to learning, offering them lots of chances to get it right.
Kids who have already played more intense language games will polish off the drills in this package in short order, but
Curious George Reading and Phonics is still a first-rate choice for those looking to introduce a child to educational play. With clean, easy-to-follow activities and familiar, engaging characters, this is a game that will get new readers off to a solid start.
--Alyx Dellamonica
Reader Reviews
I bought this game as a Christmas gift for my twin grandsons, who are three years old and very adept at using a mouse. When we loaded the game, we were shocked to discover that it requires children to navigate using the arrow buttons and space bar, rather than the mouse! (Try to explain that to a mouse-savvy three-year old!) If this were the game's only flaw, I could have lived with it, since they eventually would get the hang of keyboard navigation. However, once they started playing the game, I was unable to exit from it. Clicking on the exit button produced no results. When I tried to exit by navigating through the windows menu, rather than shutting down, the game instead continued to run -- in two separate versions -- the audio portion only. We had to remove the CD-rom and crash the computer to exit. Needless to say, this did not make for a joyous Christmas morning! And since we opened the software, we cannot return it to Amazon.[com] Save your money for a game that preschoolers can actually play, such as Blues Clues Learning Time!
