Our reviewer picks his favorite reading programs

By Russell Smith

In the market for good reading software? In my work at a regional technology center that serves 43 school districts, I'm always on the lookout for CD-ROMs that will help kids with their reading skills. And I've found some real gems lately. Most are cross-platform, and most are designed for use in elementary schools--although I've found a few goodies for older students as well. The phone numbers and Internet addresses should help you find programs suited to your computers, your needs, and your budget.

Elementary programs

Here are the new reading programs I like best for younger students, along with a few golden oldies:

Alphabet Zoo. (2nd Story Productions Inc.) (800) 876-3875. Ages 3 to 6. Seven different modules--featuring a concentration game, a silly-story writing activity, phonics practice, a hangman game, movie clips of animals, and activities involving first-letter skills and letters associated with animals--make this disc excellent for preschoolers and kindergartners. Alphabet Zoo comes in a PC format only and requires a minimum of 8 MB space on the hard drive (31 MB for full installation). You'll also need a fairly modern video card, because this program really needs more than the old 256-color mode.

Arthur's Teacher Trouble and Just Grandma and Me. (Brøderbund Software) (800) 521-6263. Ages 6 to 10. These two classics are the Gone with the Winds of CD-ROM reading software. The funny aardvark and other furry characters from Marc Brown's books are brought to life in a hilarious and educational software setting. The interactive play mode and the highlighted spoken words in these programs have been widely imitated in the new generation of CD-ROM educational software. Menu choices allow you to choose narration in English or Spanish--"Just Grandma and Me" also offers Japanese--so the discs are valuable for language classes as well as early reading.

P.J.'s Reading Adventures. (Microsoft) (800) 426-9400. Ages 5 to 12. This one's a bargain because you get three individual CDs with three captivating narrations of folk tales. Whoopi Goldberg narrates "Koi and the Kola Nuts," an African tale about a young boy's journey to find his rightful place in the world. Jonathan Winters narrates "Paul Bunyan," about America's legendary lumberjack; and Danny Glover does a wonderful job of retelling Rudyard Kipling's "How the Leopard Got His Spots." (Warning: In full-graphic mode without the text displayed, Glover's accent may be difficult for very young children to understand.) The discs also include camouflage coloring games, musical games, and the story of South Africa's past--which by itself is worth the price of the program. I highly recommend this interactive reading software program as a supplement to regular reading instruction.

Bears at Work. (Palladium Interactive) (800) 910-2696. Ages 3 to 8. Another children's book that's been turned into software, this one is based on characters created by artist and author Gage Taylor. Among the exceptional activities: The Big Fun House, an activity center where kids practice writing stories and coloring pictures; Storybook, where kids learn about 26 fun jobs; and Real Bears, where kids learn facts about the furry critters. The program also provides web access for online activities.

Kid Phonics 1 and Kid Phonics 2. (Davidson) (800) 545-7677. Preschool through fourth grade. Here's a great pair of CDs for growing readers. The award-winning Kid Phonics uses colorful graphics to help children develop key reading and vocabulary skills in prekindergarten through first grade. Then Kid Phonics 2 picks up with the same cartoon characters, leading students through a rich variety of activities involving homonyms, rhymes, word building, compound words, and silent letters. Superb graphics and music support the Wild West theme. Installation is a no-brainer; the program uses AutoInstall and creates a Desktop Shortcut in Windows 95.

Reader Rabbit's Interactive Learning Journey (ILJ). (The Learning Co.) (800) 852-2255. Ages 4 to 7. Reader Rabbit ILJ is another classic, a topnotch CD-ROM reading program for the youngest readers. Kids follow the adventures of Reader Rabbit through 40 multimedia storybooks as he helps Sam the lion find his castle and crown. A program options pad--Nat the Mouse calls it POP--allows teachers to customize the settings for different reading levels. A deluxe version includes printed copies of the storybooks.

Reading Blaster, Reading Blaster 2000, and Reading Blaster Jr. (Davidson) (800) 545-7677. Ages 4 to 9. The graphics, music, and interface of the original Reading Blaster are great, and the new offerings just seem to keep getting better and better. The junior version of Reading Blaster starts out a little slow, but it quickly makes up for lost time with a bevy of fun activities in Cosmic Word Builder, Land of the Storyheads, Lunar Toy Station, and other space-age activities.

Reading Blaster 2000 continues where Junior Blaster leaves off, providing serious intellectual challenges for older elementary students. Six thought-provoking activities in nine levels of difficulty help students with reading comprehension, vocabulary, and phonics. In different modules, students learn to complete words, draw conclusions, read for detail, and discover relationships and similarities between words.

P. B. Bear's Birthday Party. (Dorling Kindersley) (800) 356-6575. Preschool. Coming from the fine line of DK software (which includes some exceptional science CDs), P.B. Bear's Birthday Party is another oldie but goodie. It allows kids to see and hear a story about a teddy bear's birthday party, and it offers a Playtime box with activities that are a cut above the usual click-and-watch-the-funny-pictures. In a game called Balloon Race, kids use their mouse pointers to pop released balloons before they escape through the top of the screen. A game called What's in the Package? asks kids to identify by shape several different toys wrapped for P.B. Bear.

Reading Who? Reading You! (Sunburst Communications) (800) 321-7511. Ages 5 to 7. This program contains some great games aimed at teaching phonics and other skills. I particularly like the Truck game for sentence building, the Poem game for word recognition, and the Dinosaur and Three Windows games for phonics. A spiral workbook for teachers accompanies the disc. The program takes minimal space (700 KB) on the hard drive and asks if you want to install QuickTime Movie player. I always advise advanced Windows 95 users to get the freeware Microsoft ActiveMovie player off the Internet to replace the QuickTime movie player module for any programs that need a movie player.

Richard Scarry's Best Reading Program Ever. (Simon and Schuster) (800) 910-0099. Ages 3 to 6. Kids will love Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, and the other Busytown characters who have become familiar from Richard Scarry's books and videos. This recent release--Simon and Schuster's first foray into the reading software market--has 15 educational activities that focus on language, phonics, reading, and reading readiness. This is an excellent program for preschool through first grade, and it installs easily on both Mac and Windows computers, but it doesn't tell you how much space it will need on the hard drive (6.7 megs on the PC), and it doesn't have an option for an automatic Desktop Shortcut in Windows 95.

Sleeping Cub's Test of Courage. (Davidson) (800) 545-7677. Ages 3 to 9. Part of Davidson's Magic Tales series, this CD is based on a native-American folktale and teaches life lessons as well as reading skills. With wonderful songs and music, cinema-quality animation, and an interactive play mode similar to the format in Brøderbund's Arthur discs, it's truly a treat to use, and I highly recommend it for reading enrichment. My only complaint is that it could use a faster exit; there's no need to watch credits roll by for nearly a minute.

Secondary programs

As kids get older, the learning-to-read software is replaced by software designed to help students understand literature and develop language skills. A few programs stand out:

Bookshelf. (Microsoft) (800) 426-9400. Ages 10 to adult. A standby in many libraries and classrooms, this reference disc includes a thesaurus, a dictionary, a collection of quotations, and more.

Bookworm Student Library. (William K. Bradford Publishing Co.) (800) 421-2009. Grades 7-12. This full series of multimedia secondary reading software includes a large selection of classic literature titles by the likes of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and William Shakespeare. Archaic terms and expressions are highlighted in red on these CDs, so you can click on them for definitions. A nifty mouse tool allows you to highlight in color specific passages. Best of all, texts are contained in QuickTime sound files so students can hear as well as see the words. All provide excellent biographical information, illustrations, and discussions of literary techniques.

Romeo and Juliet: Center Stage. (Sunburst) (800) 321-7511. Ages 13 to adult. Available in Macintosh only. An impressive 85-minute Apple QuickTime movie in this program shows Shakespeare's play being performed by high school students in Springfield, Mass. The basic package includes a spiral Teacher's Resource Guide. A deluxe version includes a videotape of the Springfield performance and a behind-the-scenes videotape. Until digital video disc (DVD) arrives with its promise of higher-capacity format, this program is as close as you can get to marrying the two technologies of video and computer.

New technologies like DVD promise even more exciting possibilities for the future--but they also remind us how quickly the technology we invest in becomes obsolete. When the 10-gigabyte discs become available later this year, they'll make our CD-ROMs look like the old clunkers that ran our floppy discs. Don't get me wrong: Our CD-ROMs will continue to run just fine for years to come. But the new software and hardware coming down the pike looks so good that it's a pity our budget-strained schools can never stay current technologically on a districtwide basis. The inevitable obsolescence means we can only struggle to replace our oldest technologies--and yearn for something more.

-- Russell Smith is a technology consultant at the Region 14 Education Service Center in Abilene, Texas.