Spelling Bee is a recent release designed as a spelling aid for the young child. Forty pictures are used to elicit 100 spellings, which get progressively more difficult.

The use of graphics is a particularly impressive feature of this program. Some thought has been given to making the program user-friendly; for example, it asks for the child's name at the start and refers to the child by name during the spelling exercise. Although it claims to be an educational program for the very young, one does need to be able to read and write in capital letters to use this program - primary schools usually teach in lower case only, at least for the first couple of years. Some of the words are quite difficult too and I would have thought the seven to 10 age group would obtain the most benefit from this program.

There are ten series (each containing ten spellings) with five on each side of the cassette. Each series works by displaying a succession of pictures which the child must recognise and spell correctly. Only one word is accepted for each picture and the child is allowed two attempts and is given a 'yes' or 'no' as appropriate. After the second 'no' the correct word is displayed alongside the picture and the program moves on to the next object.

Spelling Bee is an exercise in recognition, and sometimes deductive reasoning, as well as spelling. Whilst the graphics are very good, they can be misleading - at first I thought the oven was a robot, and when I entered 'OVEN' I was told 'no', the correct response was 'COOKER'. Once familiar with the objects after the initial run through it does, of course, become solely an exercise in spelling.

After each series of ten objects, the child is told the score achieved and is rewarded with an animated display of some sort.

Whilst the first two series involve simple object recognition, the others are somewhat more difficult because a '?' is printed over that part of the object on display which has to be spelled - it is not always clear what exactly is being referred to. The program has apparently been tested by Image at playgroups and among schoolchildren where it is claimed to have stimulated considerable interest.

Designed as a spelling aid, this program will also serve to provide a useful introduction to computing for youngsters. A very good program indeed.

For those with the facility, there is a version in 'Q-SAVE' code recorded on each side, otherwise the standard ZX81 version takes about seven minutes to load. The programs are in Basic with some machine code.