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This rather smart video-type case includes a useful teacher's or parent's booklet and two cassettes containing a total of four related programs. These are designed to help early readers with their vocabulary. The four topics have been well selected, and include transport and clothes, as well as sections on In My House and Building A House, all of which can lead to much useful activity at home or school to complement these attractively designed programs.

Each of the four sides loads identically, with two small loaders leading to the main file. There is then in each case an identical choice of activities to select from.

Learn Word does precisely that, and offers a menu of words which are involved in a particular topic. The arrow keys move an asterisk until it is opposite the required word, when pressing Space will show a simple but effective drawing of the object with the word written below. This may not be the most stimulating part of the tape, but the initial messages have to be well received first.

More to most children's tastes will be Word Games, in which a series of six well-drawn pictures is drawn on screen in a grid. A word appears below, and the cursor keys again control the movement until the child selects Space to indicate a choice. A correct answer brings a tick, another figure is added to replace the one just guessed, and on goes the child looking for six correct answers. Actually, wrong answers are impossible for the program will only react to a correct input. This is fairly sound in the early stages, as it gives the child greater confidence to try. I was a little concerned at first to see the cursor keys used, but even the five-year-olds I tried this on showed on problems whatsoever.

Big/Little shows a big object, and the same object much smaller, and the child is then asked to say which shapes are big and which are little. The last choice, slightly odd, shows lots of the same object all over the screen. It left me wondering why it was included. However, this minor criticism aside, it is a very useful and attractive program for young readers.

Phil Tayler