Promise kept

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The Word Games with the Mr. Men program follows in the same promising steps as the earlier Mr Men programs from Mirrorsoft.

This time the number of the little characters is reduced to four, but the graphics execution is greatly improved.

Mr. Noisy's Word Game features Mr. Funny and Mr. Silly as well as Mr. Noisy, and the clear intention of the series of activities is to practise opposites and comparatives.

Any of nine activities can be selected from the menu. These include options in which the child can conjure up on the screen any of the characters in any given dimensions, so that a tall Mr Noisy can stand beside a wide Mr. Silly.

The young children I tried this with enjoyed these activities. However my favourite program, and that of many of my fellow players, was Read with Mr. Bounce. There is a menu with five choices and this time the intention is to encourage practice in reading through the repetition of a number of phrases as the games are played.

As various phrases appear on the screen the child has to react to the correct one by pressing the Space bar. Actually some of the games use a strange choice of 1 for yes, 0 for no, which takes a little getting used to.

A fine program with a very real educational purpose, yet an equally high enjoyment factor.

Phil Tayler