Software : My First CD-Rom: Starting To Read

Rating: - Too many bugs
Agree with other reviewer - very annoying that you have to wait for the quite lengthy instructions each time you start the game, or have to return to the how to screen.
Game also freezes regularly, (as I have read in many reviews of other DK software products) and the only fix they can offer is to press alt+tab and return to the game each time it happens, which means that you have to sit with your child the whole time and not just let them get on with it.
DK's technical support is very frustrating, as the only way of contacting them is via email and you have to wait for them to reply (or eventually just ignore you, after they have advised you that they have no solution to your problem...)
It is a real shame, as the actual games and activities are pretty good and my little boy rather enjoyed them!

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Rating: - Better than most
Useful parent section on this software enables you to monitor how your child progresses. Slow demonstrations, however I have found that my child appreciates these as they are animated. I have noticed an improvement in my child's listening skills since we have started this series of software.

bad point is that the puzzles have a limited range of examples. We found that in the rhyming game the same question popped up approximately 15 times out of the 25 needed to complete the section.

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Rating: - Too slow!
My three year old (just turned three mind you) enjoys the activities but finds that the speed of the games is too slow and the progression between stages of the games tends to be spoilt by long and repetitive voiceovers.

Once you are in a 'how-to' screen you can't exit until the demonstration is complete, making for lots of time sitting waiting if your child tends to click randomly in an effort to hurry things up.

He finds the activities interesting, but I don't see that this CD will hold his interest for very long once he has completed the games.

That said, it does have the advantages of an 'English' voice, as opposed to American, and the instructions and sounds are very clear and legible.

One other thing to note is that if you have your screen resolution set to anything other than 640 x 480 the game play area will be windowed. So if you have other things running at the same time there's the possibility that your child will 'overflow' out of the window into your work.

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Rating: - Review on my first starting to read cd rom
I only rated this cd rom with 3 stars as i thought it was a little hard for my 3 year. I feel that to get the most out of this cd rom the child needs to have a good grounding in the alphabet already. The idea of this cd i thought was to help them learn the alphabet so the ideal age for this cd would about 4 years i think. Like the rest of dorling kindersley products it is very well thought out and a good investment to give your child a head start.