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Glad I bought it; will use it for all my, and other people's, children

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 11, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought SpongeBob Typing because my autistic eight-year-old son has severe graphomotor delays, and can't keep up with his classmates when writing in the classroom. So his teachers and I have incorporated the use of a school-provided laptop in his IEP for his class writing so he won't fall behind. But that means he needs to learn to type--a year or two earlier than his peers will. Just because he thinks it's fun, my six-year-old son is playing with the tutorial too, and learning to type. When they're ready, I'll let their little sisters join them.

This typing tutorial isn't perfect, but it addresses the needs of the student well. SpongeBob's presence and humor, and the memorable games keep my sons interested. We also bought another tutorial, Typing Instructor for Kids II, which had very high reviews, because I was concerned about this game after reading the one review above mine. And because I struggled to believe SpongeBob was compatible with education. But Typing Instructor is so desperately boring that neither of my sons could stay with it. I ran it myself to find out what their whining was about, because at first I thought my sons were just being difficult, but no, it really is awful. The characters are undynamic and so uninteresting, and the games were unengaging as well. Look for a used copy of Typing Instructor II from me for sell soon ;) .

You can't just pop in the CD and walk away, though, expecting your child to be able to type in a month. Some shortcomings of the game are that there's minimal initial direction; as a parent you must listen to the instructions, the lengthy instructions, to find where the lessons are so you can avoid the games section that your children are not ready for. Admittedly, I prefer to be a part of my child's learning anyway rather than let entertainment and someone else's education parent my children, but I was surprised at how much I was needed to help my sons get started. However, once they are started and familiar with the game layout, they do pretty well on their own. Both of my sons get excited to see their words-per-minute scores rise steadily. It's also easy to see, by a "map", where your children are in their progress.

It would be nice if SpongeBob had more variety to what he says -- there are a good number of different comments to add interest while the children are practicing home row, but every once in a while I would hear one of my sons sigh and tell SpongBob to shut up. My oldest has figured out that SpongeBob sympathetically says "Yeah, I used to make that mistake too." even if Andrew doesn't make any error. While that can be annoying, the boys still laugh uncontrollably every obnoxious time SpongeBob yells "Are you ready to rock the keyboard!" While I'm convinced I've heard it enough, my children can't get enough of it, and so are typing. I do need to check on them every once in a while to be sure they're still using good posture and position, but they're making progress.

I do recommend this tutorial, but encourage parents to at least be a part of the beginning of the lessons, if you can't be there more than that, to help guide your little keyboarder.

Not a Good Program for Little One's

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: March 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My son is 6 1/2 and this typing program was not well suited for his age group. His fingers still can't reach alot of the keys, and the games are timed which only makes searching for the correct keys even more frustrating.

We put this away almost 20 minutes after opening it. We might try again in a few years, but I would say this program isn't appropriate until the are closer to 10.

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