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Selladore Tales comes from education specialists Sherston Software, and is in the best tradition established for this type of product. There are versions for the A3000/Archimedes (which cost the same) as well as 8-bit machines. It is a review of the latter, of course, that forms the substance of this month's Beebug Education.

The package comes on two discs. The start-up disc is copyright protected and cannot therefore be copied. The 'user' disc should be copied. Both are 40 track DFS format. Also in the A5 size plastic wallet are a slim teachers book, a dozen or so activity and word sheets, a keystrip and an attractively produced version of the text.

Selladore Tales is described as "an easy read adventure" by the package's authors. It is designed for use by younger children with reading difficulties - especially those at Upper Junior level.

This is reflected in the quality of the contents - the subject matter will appeal to children of 10 or 11 years, and older. The language content and accompanying work, though, is more appropriate to those with a slightly lower reading age. There is also a big-print version for pupils who may prefer it or who are partially sighted. Back and foreground colours are selectable for extra clarity. It is possible to use a Concept Keyboard too.

The story has two components. The "Curse of Zorin" is a text adventure which introduces the main characters and leaves them in a predicament taken up as the computer game, "Black River Quest". The genre is not unlike Lord of the Rings, full of action and fairy-tale plot, but with a storyline that neither patronises nor bores.

Booting the start-up disc happens in the normal way; if you are using a machine with sideways RAM, you can take advantage of this. The teacher's book also explains that certain ROMs can clash with Selladore Tales and explains how to overcome this. After a few seconds (during which there is some measure of feedback on the booting progress) you are prompted to remove the start-up disc and insert the user disc.

It is possible at this stage to reload an old, previously saved, game. Otherwise you start from scratch. The screen now contains text and graphics. The graphic at the top gives a clue as to your location and the text lower down contains three elements: the last instruction you issued, messages from the adventure itself and a prompt for your next instruction.

In many respects the program behaves like the conventional "take lamp"/"go south" text adventure. Upper and lower case are both accepted. A card lists the keywords to which the program will respond and the usual "list" and "stop" commands.

The graphics are imaginative and plain, carry meaning but take between about 3 and 5 seconds to load - every time. This could become a slight annoyance when all the pupil(s) are doing is routing back over familiar territory. In other respects, the screen is clear and appealing. The keyboard buffer is flushed at each entry so as to prevent errors due to enthusiastic typers ahead.

On the whole, the adventure is challenging and will involve most children, though there is at least one inconsistency between the spellings of written cues (in the teacher's book) and what is accepted on screen ('mellon', 'melon').

As is the case with much educational software of this kind, it is what goes on away from the computer - or how another use altogether is made of it - that helps to single out the good from the bad.

A text file of the story is available and can be used in the formats of various other programs. The manual explains quite clearly how to copy these onto a second blank disc before using them with Pendown, Writer, Folio, Interword and WordWise Plus.

More significantly still, the text can be loaded into that excellent suite Developing Tray. This will allow various types of interactive language activity to be performed on it, including cloze (basically gap filling) and quasi cloze procedure. It will also allow material with which children will be relatively familiar (having used and read Selladore Tales) to be investigated with all the near magic of what Tray can do.

In the classroom, use will depend on teaching style, resources and the children and their needs. Selladore Tales could form the backbone to a topic on fairy lands, dragons and 'the unknown'. It would be helpful to allow other children to participate in work inspired by the world that is created by the package so as not to emphasise unduly that it is intended for children who find reading difficult.

At any level of competence, discussion will be required to solve the adventure (there is a crib in the teacher's book!) and a co-operative approach will be found the most productive despite the fact that the scenario is of modest length though challenging - appropriate to target users.

Alternatively, the program - with its ability to save and restart previous sessions - could form the basis for small group work on an ongoing basis, even as part of a specific reading programme for targeted children - so much a day, if that is your preferred style. It is certainly flexible enough.

The teacher's book explains how the text has been subjected to two respected reading level tests. Acknowledging that this is a controversial area, Sherston assess the material to be appropriate to pupils whose reading age is between 7 and 9 years. This should be taken as a rough guide and factors such as motivation and pupils" involvement in the subject matter will have a bearing on its success or failure too.

The activity sheets each cover a specific part of the story and are of four types: cloze procedure, word searches (left to right horizontally and diagonally downwards and vertically downwards only), crosswords and sequencing. For the lazy or busy teacher the solutions to most of these activities, too, are provided in the teacher's manual.

All in all this is a good selection of techniques and they could provide in themselves more activity - the compilation by the pupils of word searches for their friends to solve, for example.

There are sheets to stimulate free writing, and several useful and feasible suggestions for use of the text files - loading them into a word processor and searching for the actual characters' names to replace them with those of your own pupils, for example. All of these are sound and educationally valid. There is a shortlist of children's books likely to prove relevant and interesting in supplementing Selladore Tales.

Sherston has established a name for reliable, well researched and well-written software for schools. Selladore Tales hardly breaks new ground. What it does do is address a specific area of school experience, language development, in a sensible, down-to-earth and accessible way. It has been done well, attractively presented and thoroughly researched. It is also sensibly priced. Recommended.

Product: Selladore Tales
Supplier: Sherston Software, Swan Barton, Sherston, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 OLH. Tel. (0666) 840433
Price: £24.00 ex. VAT