Kids! Spanish
Syracuse Language	Ages 6 to 10

Rating Scale 5 = great,    1 = poor

Educational Value 3.5

Kid Appeal 3.0

Ease of Use 4.5

System Requirements

PC Price Survey

Product Support

Kids! Spanish teaches beginning Spanish vocabulary in a simple, repetitious manner. Included words are grouped into five difficulty levels, beginning with basics like primary numbers and colors, and progressing through over 400 common words and expressions. Kids choose a level of difficulty and a subject theme, then click on colorful illustrations to hear the words spoken in Spanish. Students can record themselves as they practice speaking their new language and compare their pronunciation to that of the program’s unseen tutors. As students master both comprehension and iteration of the vocabulary in each section, they can move on to identification activities aimed at reinforcing recently acquired terminology.

Educational Value

Kids! Spanish stresses language immersion as an instructional method. Students are initially greeted with a cheerful "Bienvenidos a Kids! Spanish". Not a word of English is spoken -- students receive instructions, encouragement and praise through easily understood Spanish phrases. In this way, the tendency to translate back and forth between languages is discouraged. Kids learn to think in Spanish, and therefore develop a foundation for continued success with their new language.

Kid Appeal

Although Kids! Spanish teaches a large number of Spanish words and phrases, it lacks diversity in its drill activities. Because of this, many of our kid testers became quickly bored with the program. Those who fair better when presented new material in a low-key environment benefited most from the program, while those who become easily bored lost interest almost immediately.

Ease of Use / Install

Kids! Spanish installs without difficulty. It requires QuickTime 2.1.2, which must be installed from the program CD along with its counterpart, QuickTime 3.01. Those testers that already had both QuickTime applications installed on their systems quit the installation process with no adverse results.

Program navigation is simple enough for the youngest users to understand, despite the lack of English explanation.

Best for... / Bottom-Line

This Spanish language immersion software includes a large number of early vocabulary words and phrases in an easy to follow format. Unfortunately, its lack of diversity may cause kids of all ages to become disinterested in record time.

See SuperKids' comparisons with other Spanish software titles, and the Buyers Guide for current market prices of this PC-only program.

PC: Windows 3.1 or better, 486DX2/66 or faster cpu, 22.5 MB hard drive space for Windows 95, 9.5 MB hard drive space for Windows 3.1, 8 MB RAM, SVGA video display, Double-speed or faster CD-ROM, 16-bit sound card, microphone recommended (not required).

Reviewed on:

Pentium166 with 48MB and 12XCD

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