My Personal Tutor

This program has been receiving much hype and prerelease publicity. My Personal Tutor has been billed as the beginning of a new era in educational software, although not in those exact words. Imagine my surprise when I turned on this program and found that I had already seen most of it! So have many of you! I actually saw the birth of this program several years ago on an office wall here in Salt Lake. I have worked with Waterford Institute in the past. They were one of the very first companies I worked with six years ago. Many of you have seen Rusty and Rosy Read with Me and Mental Math. I saw the starts of an idea for tying many programs and activities together in a new way. At the time I was told it was only for the school market because it would be too pricey for the home market. Well, time rolls on and now we have a very jazzed up, Microsoft endorsed version of Waterford Institute's software programs. It really took me by surprise to see my old friends Rusty and Rosy waltz on screen. My children became so nostalgic they had to go find their Rusty and Rosy music videos to watch. If you have no idea what I am talking about, please forgive the rambling. If you have seen this software in the past you may find yourself as surprised as I was.

The revolutionary ideas incorporated into this program involve individualizing the education for each child. Four CD's cover skills from preschool through first grade. As your child progresses from disk to disk, records are kept for you as a parent. It is nice to track your child's progress across each program. A personal tutor is included in each program. This 3D character, Professor Presto, steps in with an animated tutorial whenever it is sensed your child is struggling. While a few programs automatically adjust the skills level depending on your child's abilities, none that I have seen actually step in an do the real teaching often needed. Although much of this program is still in essence 'drill and kill,' this is the first step in what could be an exciting new direction for educational software. The entire program is not a tutorial. There are not tutorials for every activity and there were times I intentionally made errors to "try to get the professors' attention" and received no help. The basic idea is very good and I am sure we will see more of this technology from Microsoft in the coming months and years. You can't expect perfection with a ground-breaking move, so I am willing to cut them a little slack on the few weaknesses the program still contains.

Your child should start with the preschool disk if he is not ready for kindergarten work yet. Here a friendly monkey named Jub Jub will introduce your child to basic concepts like shape, color, numbers and more. Tutorials are available here for concepts as simple as the meaning of the word 'on.' As your child plays each of the games, he or she will earn toys to be placed in the toy store. There are not many creativity activities in any of these programs. The object here is to make sure your child understands concepts needed to move ahead in a sequential manner later. Rory the Lion helps your child learn about numbers and one-to-one correspondence as well as simple addition. The activities are good for younger children even if they are not terribly open ended.

A second CD contains activities which move your child a bit further along the road to reading. Here Rosy the Racoon helps your child learn about letters and letter sounds. There are cute videos throughout, as well as games such as Treasure Hunt (concentration,) and fill in the blank activities. You will not see the professor as much in this CD. He is saved for more skills based activities. The sound quality here still has a bit of an echo and hollow sound to it as it did with the original Rusty and Rosy programs. There has been some improvement, but you may still notice drops in quality at times.

Once your child knows basic letter sounds, he or she will move on to the Reading Railroad CD. This CD contains more intense reading activities. They have maintained the good blending activities found in the original program. I am still not thrilled that your child can blend words backwards, but it is not a major concern. There are few programs which actually help your child learn to blend letters into words. There is usually a jump from letter sounds to words. This program can help bridge that gap. Make sure your child is pulling the mouse slowly across the word so sounds are not missed. Reading Railroad contains twenty seven areas with approximately six activities at each stop. I did not care for the books which are read aloud to your child. An animated finger follows along each word and the result is a typical elementary sounding, choppy reading experience. The videos and activities here are very typical of the original Rusty and Rosy. They have been cleaned up, and elaborated upon. There are enough activities here to keep any child busy for a very long time! By the time your child has finished these two reading CD's, he may not be reading independently, but he will definitely know all of his letter sounds.

The fourth CD contains math activities and games. This is not like the old Mental Math program, but similarities exist. By the time your child reaches this level, the emphasis is on computation. If your child still needs basic number concepts, go back to the preschool CD. Fifteen coins must be earned in order to see a 'movie.' The skills range from simple addition all the way to double digit addition and subtraction with regrouping. The higher end of the spectrum is beyond what most first graders will tackle. Because it starts out at such a basic level however, this is a bonus. If your child is moving ahead he will not be stopped at the addition to twenty level. Many kindergarten children will find this area too difficult at first. Do not put them on this CD until you feel they are ready for addition and subtraction and feel very comfortable with numbers to twenty.

All in all this is a very good program with plenty of meat. For those who want something more structured for their children, either as supplement or as a full curriculum, this is a very good option. The fact that Waterford and Microsoft have taken a new step forward in technology is exciting to us all. Mark my word you will look back at this program some day as the start of a whole new range of educational software. You may think it is old and silly by then, but I am glad to see my old friends Rusty and Rosy taking another bold step forward.

Grading:

Educational value- 5
Entertainment value- 4

Age- 3-7

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