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Vocabulary and Spelling -- a great learning tool for kids and adults

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 31
Date: November 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My Word Coach DS (we liked the Wii version so much that we also bought the DS game - the DS stylus makes it easier to write, but my son likes the Wii's fun factor, and the Wii remote seems to keep him more involved in the learning process) - Do you have a kid who hasn't read enough to build a large vocabulary and strong spelling skills OR a kid who finds words fascinating? This game works for both, and provides lots of word practice with a series of different games -- my kid seemed almost surprised at the end of his first series that he had learned so much. There's lots of reading (definitions, etc.) which I think would make it tricky for kids much younger than ten. The game has progress graphs and high score history for encouragement and provides a word review after play. There are vocabulary games (e.g. Split Decision where you match the word on the screen to its correct definition) and spelling games (what could be more fun than grafitti-style spray painting to fill in the missing letter or correct a wrong letter?), with six training games in all and a couple of 'recreational' DS games. There are lots of options to keep a player's interst as the game gets harder -- for instance, both definitions may be wrong in Split Decision. My soon-to-be eleven year old plays until the professor tells him to stop for the day (after he's mastered a profile-determined word list). There's a slight learning curve, but he figured it out on his own without getting frustrated. He intuitively began picking up on clues such as how to guess a word from the definition. My son says it's "lots of fun -- almost, but not quite, like a regular game." I predict libraries and after-school programs will be holding lots of competitions with this game.

Finally, a comprehensive language game experience on the DS.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 31
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

While some other "nongames" provide limited access to linguistics-based challenges, this is the first I've seen to really capture the joy of engaging with language. I am seriously impressed with this title, and I've been recommending it to parents and colleagues alike.

The good stuff:
- All six training games are engaging, and they never get old, since the words are always changing.
- Even the games that focus on spelling are simultaneously engaging you with definitions.
- The training games feel intuitive with the DS stylus, moreso than I imagine the Wii Remote might feel.
- The games are physically fun to play. Move, arrange, rotate, or draw objects. It's more than just writing.
- The game has intelligently tracked my vocabulary level; I constantly feel challenged, but not overwhelmed.
- The unlocks come frequently, but the pacing is deliberately gradual to retain words in active memory.
- A great experience for 10-30 minutes a day.

What to watch out for:
- As far as I can tell, there is no left-handed support for the one training game where you hold the DS vertically. This is actually a pretty unforgivable oversight. If you are left-handed, you may want to think twice about this purchase.
- Remember that you can turn off the music in the settings screen, and that you will probably want to.

Another review mentioned the lack of pronunciation guide as a problem. I agree that it's a missed opportunity, but it's not a dealbreaker. The lack of southpaw support might be, though, if you happen to be left-handed.

Great vocabulary builder!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 26 / 37
Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

To the person above that said that left-handers couldn't do this game is wrong. I am left handed and when I read the review that left handers may not enjoy this game at all, I thought oh no. I purchased this game anyway because I have Spelling Challenge DS and loved it and was excited to see that they made another word game!

Left handers out there, no worries. The game does not decrease your fun at all.

The vocabulary game is so much fun that I, an adult gamer, am certainly learning many new words! This game is fun if you love vocabulary and spelling! Great for teens and up!

Games include:

Fill in the blanks,
Match the meanings to the word given
Word stack (find words as letters drop down before they hit the top)
Unscramble words
Spell the mystery word faster than your computer opponent

As you play, you unlock more games!

Who would have thought spelling & vocabulary is fun!

My Word Coach - Cool Vocabulary Game with Nice Features

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 19
Date: January 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ubisoft has created a new line of language games, starting with My Word Coach for Nintendo DS and Wii My Word Coach. The game design is very similar to Brain Age in structure, geared towards a daily quota of game play. These games help you improve vocabulary and communication skills. Despite a few hiccups, this is a very fun game that can be enjoyed by all, including lefties. :)

Pros:
+ Games are well designed to take advantage of the touch screen
+ Great games that stay fresh with frequently updated words
+ A good system for improving handwriting! (This should be required training for all MDs)
+ "Results" charts and scores allow you to track your progress and compare
+ Games and difficulty levels are added to improve and remain challenged
+ Included definitions allow you to learn word definitions, which is especially great for kids
+ 4 Characters which can be chosen through your profile, to guide you through the game
+ Detailed instructions are also great for kids and allow them to go on auto-pilot
+ Customizable, including turning off the music, altering your profile, etc
+ Glossary of words for reference
+ Only takes 10-20 minutes a day to meet your word objectives; play more if you like!

Cons:
- Somewhat long instructions, particularly the first time you play it
- Some of the hand-writing games require some adjustment to have your letters consistently recognized
- The falling "Block letters" game requires you to turn the DS sideways. You might block the words if you hold your stylus left-handed. Hold it at an angle and it's no sweat for me, but some people may be bothered by this
- The "daily training regiment" is based on the regular clock, meaning night owls will have their after-midnight game play count towards tomorrow. Not a big deal for most people, but could have been more thought out.
- I would have probably preferred some "play anytime" options that are not so geared towards word acquisition alone
- Some games, like the missing letter, present options that could be solved with more than one letter. Once again, not a big deal for most people and sure to be improved in the inevitable sequel to this game.

The game is designed so that users will play every day up to a minimum number of words. When you reach your daily quota, the game gives you an "Expression Potential" or EP, out of a possible 100%. It seems the game is designed to start you low, in the 20s or 30s, regardless of your vocabulary, in order to give you an incentive. After each day's play your EP is recalculated. You can plot your progress with included graphs.

In addition to answering the questions correctly, you also get extra points for finishing before the allotted time. The scores you get on "recreation" games don't count towards your daily quota. These games appear as you progress over time.

There are four main components:
1. Training games you use to calculate your EP
2. Recreation games you use to stay sharp
3. Progress functions you use to chart your progress
4. Customize options you can use to change profile settings or turn features on or off

There are six main games in the "training" group that count towards your score.

1. Missing Letters - fill in the missing letter and thus identify the word
2. Split Decision - select a word's definition from two choices
3. Pasta Letters - rearrange letters to spell a word based on a definition
4. Block Letters - spell words using falling blocks before they pile up too high
5. Word Shuffle - match words to their definitions
6. Safecracker - guess a word using a safe combination knob before the computer

Once you get past the first level on these games, other "recreation" games are added. For example, there is "Speed Letters," a game where you try to quickly write characters as they run across the screen.

There are also foreign language games for Spanish My Spanish Coach and French My French Coach, and more are bound to be on the way.

Overall, this is a great game that will keep you interested for a while. It's fun for adults and great for kids. With the DS being marketed as the gaming platform for learning, It's only a mystery that nobody thought of this sooner. I would characterize the positives as awesome and the cons as relatively minor. Get this game! Enjoy!

Good but not great!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 32
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is a week attempt to "Improve your Vocabulary". One of the most important parts of learning a new word is how to pronouce it. This game does not do that. I had hoped the game would say the word and at a minimum show how to pronounce it. During game play, only music is played.

There are only two games that help you build your vocabulary...there should be more (increasing your vocabulary is not easy if your memory isn't great, so repetition is key). The other games challenge your spelling.

Before playing any of the games, the first step should be to learn a new word and it's definition. And then based on that, these games should then challenge those new words and definition. Instead you are challenged on words and their definition without having learned them first and of course, if you aren't familiar with a word and it's meaning you lose points if you guess wrong. This game also lacks a word usage challenge. By the way, if you are not a fast reader, you won't do so well at playing "Split Decision".

This game gets 3 stars because the graphics and usability are good and the games are challenging and fun. I hope in it's next version, all these issues will be resolved.

I don't recommend this for anyone younger than ten. I'm sure it's rated "E" because of the lack of sexual content, inappropriate language and violence.

Happy Learning...

Only seems good at first, but would take much longer to learn anything.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 25 / 40
Date: January 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

At first, I thought this game was great. After playing it almost every day for about 5 weeks, I have a very different view.

Pros-

Most of the games are actually fun at first. You'll probably learn some words and their spelling. Easy to pick up.

Now for the much longer list of cons-

This game does a terrible job of gauging your current level. It asks you far too few words, almost all of which are highly advanced, and placed both my friend and I FAR lower than it should have. There's nothing you can do about that. I'm 24 years old, and after 5 weeks of updating my expression potential to 34%, I'm still seeing words like kettle, jaguar, squirt, traumatic, solitary, airfield, canine, rephrase, acoustic, receptive, sparrow, nutrition, slang, stumbling, optimism, and so forth. I would say 80% of the words I've seen on here are elementary school level, while the other 20% are middle-school level. I have not "learned" a single word that I would consider calling high-school level.

You'll learn very little for the time you spend playing. Of the few words that were new to me, hardly any of them were repeated more than a few times, often in the same day. You are bombarded with far too many words over time, when it should just be reinforcing groups of words before moving on to more. Also, the only time you actually learn anything is when you read through the definitions after each game. There's nothing at all to be learned by playing the games. It teaches you like a dictionary does. But the worst part is that there is no context or pronunciation! After playing for long enough, you will eventually unlock a game that doesn't count toward your EP, but does have recordings of the words being spoken as well as context examples. However, you can only access these one random word at a time. You are given very little time to read the examples. This means that pronunciation and context are on the game, but you can't look them up or access them at all while supposedly updating your potential to express yourself with words you don't necessarily understand.

The definitions are often VERY weak. The part of speech (verb, noun...) is not given at all. If a definition is too long then it simply cuts off rather than allowing you to scroll down to read the whole thing. Many words appear in their own definition, which is never acceptable. Words with multiple definitions will only have one of them provided. Some definitions couldn't possibly be more wrong: inflammable is defined as, "Things that burn very easily. Not only is it the opposite of the true meaning, but it's also defining a noun, whereas inflammable is an adjective.

The simple little games become mundane very quickly. You would have to play this game for several months to really get that much out of it, but it will get very boring long before that. Most of what your coach says to you is hardly better than mindless dribble. The graphics are quite simple and the music is extremely limited and dull. One day it randomly told me that the word of the week is minstrel. Apparently the word of the week means a word you won't be learning, because it never gave me the definition or even put it in any of the games. It's not that uncommon for it to tell me that my EP has been updated when in fact it is exactly the same.

Ultimately, the developers were too lazy to provide the necessary elements for learning a new word, make it accurately gauge your personal level, come up with enough games to keep it interesting for a long time; they didn't even make sure they got the definitions right! They started with a great idea, and released a product that falls unforgivably short of its potential.

Great concept, fairly lame execution

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: December 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I really wanted to like this product. I love some of the other learning products that my kids play on their DS's, like Big Brain Academy. I've been looking for a way to help them build their vocabulary, and I could use a refresher as well. Unfortunately, this product does not really offer a very enjoyable gaming experience. You'd have almost as much fun with flashcards, and would probably learn as much. If you want something to save you the trouble, though, this wouldn't be a bad product. I expect to tinker with it a few minutes each day, and see where I am in terms of vocabulary after a few weeks. A few features may bug you a little bit, though.

First, you turn it on and a professor type explains the program and its importance. You set up a profile and the program introduces you to games one at a time, and explains how to check your stats. You are encouraged to play each game every day, about 15 minutes daily, and as you play and get better new features and play levels are introduced. Some of the games are okay, and others are a bit silly.

One of the better games encourages you to match words to a definition, or definitions to a word. Another game encourages you to supply the missing letter by drawing it with the stylus. While the program has some trouble differentiating between certain letters (it kept reading my Hs as Rs, my Is as Ts or LS, etc.), it is pretty easy to adapt to it and write letters in a way it will recognize. Still, I'm not so sure about the educational value of filling in missing letters: being able to complete a spelling is not the same as knowing a word. Of course, each exercise gives you the opportunity to review definitions of the words you've just covered, but that part -- which is where the learning seems to take place -- feels like those flash cards again.

One of the sillier (i.e. the most annoying) games is a sort of "Alphabet Soup" game. It seemed to be okay at first: a bunch of letters are in a soup and you are supposed to rearrange them to create a word that matches a definition that appears on the top screen. The problem is that as soon as the letters appear they start to sink back into the soup. You have to keep "mixing them" at the same time as you are trying to put them in order, so that the unplaced letters won't sink into the soup and be lost. What happens to me over and over again is that I get all the letters but one and then the last letter sinks into the soup. Then the game forces me to wait until my time runs out, which could be as much as another 30 seconds, before it goes on to the next word -- even though at this point it is impossible to finish the word since one of the letters is gone.

The most frustrating feature is that there is no obvious connection between the words I am tested on each day. As far as I can tell, I just get new words each day. What I'd like is for the program to help me systematically review the words I miss in each program and occasionally review words I've gotten right. Then I could have some sense that I was actually building my vocabulary, that I was learning to use new words on a regular basis. As it stands, I am likely to pick up a few new words here and there, but there seems to be nothing in the program that guarantees this. This is where, in my view, flash cards may be even more effective than this program. When I use flash cards I remember and set aside the words I miss and review them until I've gotten them down and secure.

I also have no clear sense that the exercises here are helping to create a usable vocabulary. For the most part I am tested on word recognition, and definition identification. There are no exercises that encourage me to select the right word to employ in the right context -- fill in the blank type exercises, and the like. So while this is a great concept, and while a good vocabulary builder would likely encourage me to take even more advantage of my son's DS, for now he can relax because this program is not really notable enough to win a lot of my attention.

Fun for children, a little boring for adults

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game can be fun for children but the vocabulary is far too simple for most adults to find challenging. If you are over the age of twelve this game is probably not for you.

A fun engaging skill builder

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 30
Date: December 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I like this game as it has the literary building skills not present in so much product these days.The word challenging could be upped to keep older players engaged,but none the less there are challenges here.
If you want to extend your vocabulary, My Word Coach is a decent mentoring tool. It raises a variety of challenges, but it controls much better on DS than Wii.

An Interface doesn't get much simpler, but the graphic look is clean and ledgible.
Not only engaging and challenging, but you will really learn new vocabulary while increasing expression.
No doubt,This product could be stylistically refined, however it is such fun to be able to engage in enjoyable activities- including word recognition, spelling challenges, and vocabulary definition. The game includes 16,800 words from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary! Not bad!!

When you play My Word Coach, it assesses, monitors, and rewards your verbal-Expression Potential, It scores your ability to actually understand, command and express the English language effectively. The higher your number out of a possible 100%, the better you are able to express, command words- and ultimately master language! I found playing with my daughter very engaging.She is 14,and told me it was her favorite game this year!!.

While the Wii(tm) version takes advantage of the Wii Remote(tm) through lively mini-games and user friendly controls, the Nintendo DS(tm) version makes full use of the system's dual Touch Screen.It provides me and my family engagaging skill building activity. My daughter is left handed and she had no problems with the controls.(others mentioned this as a possible factor)
All in all I like it very much!! Better yet, so does my daughter.If you like scrabble this is a game for you.

Left-handed people avoid.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: December 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Consists of various games to increase your vocabulary and general spelling. Good but not comparable to the general Brain training series as this amount of games are limited. Some games require you to turn the device sideways. As with other games this one however doesn't ask whether you are right or left handed and assume the first. It is therefore a real struggle to play a time based game with the information behind your writing hand. If you are lefthanded, avoid! This will only amount to hours of frustration.

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