71 of 84 customers found the following review helpful:
 Not at all age appropriate!, 2003-05-20
Admittedly, my Kindergartner is an advanced reader (reading at an early 2nd grade level). Nonetheless, I figured that a product that was supposed to cover 1st - 3rd grades would be beneficial over the summer. I was way wrong.First of all, the Learning Company has pulled a fast one. They market this as appropriate for ages 5 - 8, and have stamped each disc in the set with that age range. However, when you look closely at the box you will see that one of the titles shows an age range of 3 - 5; another 4 - 7; and the other two 5 - 8. So right off the bat, one of the products (Baily's Book House) is aimed at preK - K. The next one (Lets Go Read: Island Adventure) is a letter by letter phonics program. I don't think that our school standards overly high -- this is definitely a skill they should have before finishing Kindergarten! So not appropriate for rising 1st graders...much less 3rd graders. In addition, it moves at a snail's pace. I can see that kids would get frustrated because you cannot move at your own pace or even choose which letter you want to learn. It starts with T, then A, then H (so far). And you cannot choose to move to a different letter until you have completed the one it has assigned to you. Oh - and you should have a microphone (I don't). It'll progress without it, but try explaining that to your 3 year old ("he says to say 'tuh' into the microphone!") The next disc (LGR II: Ocean Adventure) is slightly more complex than the LGR I. But it does revisit the pre-K and K, skills explored so deeply in LGR I. Finally - the last disc - is a reading comprehension program. Finally, one that my son can use -- except, in order to really progress, he has to know how to type on the keyboard. So it doesn't matter that he can read the story himself, or express the main ideas and characters in detail -- he has to type them (or I should say I have to type them). Fortunately, there are other games that don't require typing. My last complaint is that there was NO documentation included with this -- not even a "read me" file. These games are not very "intuitive", so I have had to go through them on my own to see how to tell my children to use them. FORTUNATELY - I have a 3 year old at home. She definately can use the first two discs - and will probably have started Disc 3 well before Kindergarten. So at least it wasn't a total waste of money. Really, for her - it is perfect -- and that's the only reason it got 3 stars.
26 of 28 customers found the following review helpful:
 Four award winning games, newly repackaged., 2003-02-27
This is a great value! The package contains four highly rated games -- Let's Go Read 1: An Island Adventure, Lets Go Read 2:An Ocean Adventure, Bailey's Bookhouse, and Stories and More:Time and Place. The games individually earned an average of 4.3 stars from the Children's Software Revue. The Learning Company must have bought the rights to these games and repackaged them, but they changed the age recommendations. Bailey's Bookhouse was originally marketed for ages 2-5, and I think it it is probably best for 4-5 year olds . The graphics aren't as flashy as those of newer games, but it is engaging and fun without a lot of high-tech animation. My four year old also enjoyed the first Lets Go Read Title (originally marketed for ages 4-6) which has well sequenced phonics activities that include use of a microphone. Stories and more is still above her head. It requires reading, and was originally marketed by Edmark as a game for grades 2-3. This is a great buy. Get it when your kids are pre-K or K age to get full use out of the games in the package.
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Amazon Sales Rank:#2573