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One of the points made by many infant teachers about the use of micros is that the keyboard is composed of capital letters, while infant children are more familiar with lower case. This program has gone a long way towards solving this problem by showing the relationship between the two systems. It contains a suite of five options which cover matching and identifying letters, with a delightful screen presentation which appealed greatly to the children I tried it on.

Five letters are displayed on one side of the screen, each with a fish lying behind it. Another letter moves slowly down the other side of the screen, pausing next to each of the five. When the two match, and if the child correctly signifies this by pressing the RETURN key, the little fish swims across and collects the pair of letters. Then it smiles and swims back to its place. When the sequence of attempts is over, a beautifully drawn crocodile appears at the bottom of the screen.

Those fish whose answers were correct can swim away, but wrong answers are gobbled up to shrieks of delight. The child making a wrong answer is given another chance, so hopefully most of the fish escape.

The first three options cover matching either lower case letters, lower case words or matching upper/lower cases. The remaining two options provide necessary practice in finding the letters on the keyboard - a major stumbling block even with 10 or 11 year olds.

The time delay allowed by the program can be varied, so that the child can be tested against his previous results.

Monitoring the children's scores is done very well indeed. The adult can not only see the scores of each child, but also the incorrect responses made so that the problems can be readily identified.

Happy Letters is a fine example of a tape which uses the micro as a valuable tool rather than merely as a gimmick. Everything about the program seems to have been well thought out, from variable difficulty levels to an excellent 16 page booklet for parents.

Phil Tayler