Reading Blaster Kindergarten

Copyright: KBkids.com

This new kindergarten program constitutes a major upgrade for the Blaster series. Gone are the annoying Blaster songs, and arcade-style drill. Your kids will still thoroughly enjoy this program, but you as a parent will find the educational content vastly improved.

Blasters, and his helper G.C., are on the hunt for undersea treasure. In order to obtain the treasure, your child must earn five stars. Winning this game doesn't take long, but there are many more treasures to find, and levels to conquer. Each of the five activities contain five skills and eight skill levels each.

Sand Dollar Matching: A concentration game covering letter sounds (special kudos for making pure phonetic sounds!), letter combinations, opposites, and rhymes.

Clamshell Scramble: Put letters and words in the correct order. Skills range from simple three letter words, to four word sentences, and include consonant blends.

Letter Dive: Help Blaster vacuum up bubbles undersea. Skills here include letter recognition, upper and lower case matching, and ABC order.

Hidden Pictures: This great categorization activity includes sorting thematic groups, beginning and ending sounds, rhymes and beginning blends. Hidden pictures are uncovered as your child sorts the objects.

Seahorse Race: The more answers your child finds, the faster his or her seahorse will go. Skills here involve shape identification, word identification and letter combinations. The object here is speed.

In the Treasure Room, your child will receive 'B-mail' from pretend friends, can read stories, print flashcards, and design a message board. There is also a special section where your child can design Blaster stickers, or visit the Blaster web site.

Children who are just tackling letter sounds, and beginning reading skills will benefit from this well put together program. Reading Blaster Kindergarten is a vast improvement over previous Blaster programs, and well worth purchasing, even if you have not liked older Blaster programs.

Bottom Line: A major upgrade! Worth looking at even if you did not like previous Blaster programs.

Ratings: (based on KBkids.com's 4 star rating system)

Overall: 4

BrainGain: 4

FunFactor: 3 1/2

EasePlease: 4

This product is now called Reading Blaster 4-6

Buy Reading Blaster Ages 4-6 at Amazon!