Jumpstart Phonics 2003

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Summary: Jumpstart Advanced Toddler 2003
Review: I bought this for my son's 2nd birthday. He enjoys the 2nd cd because of the songs, but it should have more songs. We're sick of it already and he's only had it a week. The cd is not nearly as interesting as the Reader Rabbit Toddler software. It's something we'll use to reinforce his skills

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Summary: A great product to teach your children to read
Review: I bought this product after my neighbor's daughter taught HERSELF to read just by playing this game. It has lots of fun activities and is easy for kids to figure out. My son may not learn to read as quickly as our neighbor but he'll sure have fun trying.

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Summary: Can't see the letters!!
Review: I bought this software for my daughter a couple of years ago to learn typing because she really loved other Jumpstart programs. This one seems to be a lot of fun, but strangely, the letters on the screen are so tiny that it is really difficult to see them well enough to type with any rapidity. It's a pity because the program itself looks promising. If Jumpstart has fixed this bug, pls let me know ...

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Summary: I was amazed
Review: I could not typ if my life depended on it before I got this prodect but it taught me how to typ in a fun way and I went from novice to advaced withen a year but keep in mind that I used this program very spare seced of my time

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Summary: Software glitches with the sound
Review: I had to go to the web site for the makers of this and find out why the sound often didn't work. It turned out you had to turn the volume indicator higher and also the background music off in the exact way the web site said or it wouldn't work...this means, we had no Spanish sound for every activity and every time my son who just learned to read English would put the cursor/mouse of a picture only a written Spanish word would show up and not the word said out loud through our computer speakers. I resent how so many children's software are not tested enough before being sold to us. We pay our hard earned money for these and are trying to teach our kids with them, but instead I got to have a frustrated son who didn't want to learn Spanish at all. Now that I got the settings corrected (and i hope that is all that is wrong!) I still may not be able to convince my son to bother with this game, after all the pain and frustration we went through just to get it working decently.

Rating:
Summary: Must be good!
Review: I haven't tried this one out yet, but I will go out on a limb here and say this is probably a good choice. Why? I purchased the original Jump Start Preschool for my 4 year old son and not only does he love it, it's really educational. It teaches memory, numbers, letters, etc. all in a fun way. I don't see how you could go wrong with this one.

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Summary: I think this is great
Review: I haven't used this software yet, but I think it's great that there is something for young kids to start learning foreign languages. I know that when I tried to learn Spanish, I was already in the 7th grade.

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Summary: Does not resize for screens larger than 640x480
Review: I installed this on my child's PC running Windows XP Professional with a 17" CRT set at 1152x864 pixels. The games and other features look more suitable for an elementary school age child than Mavis Beacon. However, unlike Mavis Beacon, Jumpstart Typing 2003 is not designed to rescale its window or change the resolution of the screen. So, what appears on the screen is a tiny 640x480 VGA-sized window with tiny and difficult to read characters. I manually resized (the graphics card in the PC doesn't have one of those status bar applets that let you resize quickly) the screen to 800x600 (it does not have an option to go to 640x480) to get the on-screen letters large enough for comfortable reading. My other complaint is that like many children's software, it asks to install Quicktime. I knew that the version I already had on the PC was the most current and elected not to install the CD-ROM supplied version. However, it does not check for a current version and warn that you may be installing an older version over your current installation. Were it not for the screen issue, I probably would have given this product a 3-star (maybe even a grudging 4-star) review. However, there is no excuse for the lack of screen size (or re-sizing) management in 2003.

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Summary: Jumpstart typing is not for beginners
Review: I ordered jumpstart typing to teach my child to type. It seems it is only for practice. Immediately they have your child practice combinations of letters, and never introduce them one at a time. The children can not access the games until they demonstrate a certain level of competancy (they need to type letter combinations over and over- even I was bored and I can type.) I thought the games were supposed to help them learn. I am very disappointed in this software and do not recommend it to anyone

Rating:
Summary: Looks good.
Review: I personally think this game is good for kids to practice; not too hard to play. Well, actually, two (crab and space shooting) of their three sub-games seem to be very hard to play if you select to difficult mode. Crocodile game seems to be fun.