Sesame Street: Let's Make A Word

$40, Windows CD-ROM

Teaches: reading, phonics, vocabulary, spelling, Spanish

CTR Review

Note: now part of the Sesame Street Learning Series: Get Set For Kindergarten. In this very child-friendly program, children join the ever-enthusiastic host "Guy Smiley" as he presents his game show, Let's Make A Word. As contestants, children can choose from six Muppet playmates and four discovery sites (farm, construction, park, and restaurant), resulting in 24 possible activities. At each venue, Elmo, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and others introduce concepts such as beginning letters and sounds, rhyming words and spelling. Rosita even teaches kids a bit of Spanish. The boisterous sound effects and zany animations made one four-year-old tester feel as though she were right on Sesame Street- she asked to play this program over and over again. At each site, children can choose from two modes of play- "free play" allows them to explore the setting and discover at their own pace what each Muppet guide has to teach them. "Game play" places the child in a more interactive situation where he or she plays one of six different types of beginning reader games. Random generation techniques are employed, so the play is novel each time. Clues are given if players get stumped, and some games have a "fluid" challenge level in that the activity gets trickier as the child's skill level improves. This program would be an entertaining and educational addition to both home and school settings. We ran into only one problem- sometimes Elmo's clues on the Spin and Spell game didn't match up with the word we were trying to spell. For example, Elmo might ask for something that starts with the letter H (where the answer is "hen" ... but children think the "hen" is a "Chicken" or a "bird"). This is a minor glitch when you consider how many engaging activities are presented in this program.