THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 20, 1994 TAG: 9412200056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY THOMAS BOYER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
MY 5-YEAR-OLD daughter ran to the living room, shrieking. A giant purple cat had poked its head into the living room window on her computer screen. For a moment, it was very real.
The best educational software for kids has that kind of power. Taking advantage of high-quality graphics and sound built into most of today's home computers, software makers are churning out some remarkable work.
Heady predictions that the computer would be the greatest learning tool since the chalkboard don't sound so pie-in-the-sky anymore.
Recently we've witnessed the arrival of talking electronic books, zoo programs that let you match animals with their roars and hisses, and writing programs that will read your kids' writing aloud.
Parents are catching on. PCs are selling by the tens of millions this holiday season, and surveys suggest that more than half of the purchases are being made by parents wanting to give their kids a boost. Software stores are full of puzzled parents.
It's a perilous marketplace, though. There's as much schlock software out there as there is good stuff, and with prices of $30 to $60, taking chances is no fun.
Industry watchers predict that software prices will start to come down as the kid software industry changes from a niche to a mass market. A hot-selling CD-ROM title used to be one that sold 20,000 copies; now companies count on a million. The CD-ROM that's now $50 should be $15 in a couple of years, but in the meantime, you have to buy very carefully.
More and more software stores are taking returns of rotten or misjudged software, and some are finding ways to let you try before you buy. One big kids' software maker, Davidson, advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee.
We've spent months trying software and consulting with experts to come up with our list of recommendations. With hundreds of new titles being issued each month, our list is just a starting point.
What are the keys to good software for kids? To begin with, it has to be more than a video game dressed up in school clothes. It's a waste to make a $2,000 computer imitate a $200 Sega machine.
``Some titles can teach kids to use a mouse and negotiate a screen,'' said Charles Hohmann, who reviews software for the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. ``It should do more than that. ''
At the same time, some researchers are wary of programs that are overly didactic. A drill-and-practice math program may reinforce some skills for kids who need extra work, but it won't substitute for a good teacher.
``There's nothing that will make a mathematician out of a kid,'' said Leah McCoy, a Wake Forest University associate professor who specializes in math education. The best programs are bright and cheerful, offer a cornucopia of activities and let kids learn through natural play with objects on the screen - just like kids learn through playing with toys. Millie's Math House, a preschool math program that has won just about every industry award, strikes the balance.
Visitors to Millie's place learn about sizes by fitting shoes on three potato-like characters named Little, Middle and Big. Our kid testers had fun putting little shoes on Big - they roared at Big's pained expres-sion.
Other programs do a great job of putting powerful, complex creative tools into kids' hands in an interface that is as easy as a kid needs it to be. The Kid Pix drawing program is a perennial best seller because it entertains and challenges kids of so many ages and skill levels.
Increasingly with kids' software, there are no buttons or commands; the picture on the screen is the screen. Kids use their mouse to click on things they're interested in and see what happens.
Broderbund's Living Books series lets kids listen to a brightly illustrated story, then click on characters to see them come alive.
For grade-school kids and older, perhaps the most durable genre of software is simulations. Instead of having a program trying to teach you something in exchange for points or a reward, the computer puts you in charge of something, like running an ant colony, as in SimAnt.
``Rather than have a goal to reach, you have some system to maintain,'' said Sally Vandershaf of Maxis, which produces SimAnd and several other simulations.
But perhaps the most important advice for parents is to share the experience with their kids.
``If I would say one thing about what has to happen, it's don't put your kid in front of the computer by themselves - sit next to them,'' said Anastasia Samaras, director of teacher education at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
KEYWORDS: COMPUTER SOFTWARE CHILDREN RATING SURVEY by CNB