Reading and Me

Reading and Me is a collection of games and activities designed for beginner readers, ages 4 to 7. The game is not as fun as Davidson's other games-- perhaps because the company is better at designing games for older kids than toddlers. Still, the lack of variety in the game is compensated by the fact that there are few good reading programs in the market.

Reading and Me provides four games or groups of activities: kids will learn how to match upper and lower case letters, match initial letters with pictures of objects, and place appropriate words into sentences. The last game, tell the difference, does not so much teach reading as perception: kids are asked to pick out an item on screen that is different from the rest.

Although the games in Reading and Me are well designed, the examples within each game lack variety, and the games become a little too repetitive. Kids who get to know the examples may quickly and tend to lose interest at this point. Although designed for young kids, Reading and Me is best played with an adult on their side, as some controls are difficult for kids to do and some sentences too difficult to read. Overall, it's not a bad effort, but it doesn't have the same stellar quality as the Math Blaster series. Pleasant graphics and decent speech support make it worth a look, however.