JumpStart Reading for Second Graders
Knowledge Adventure	Ages 6 to 8

Rating Scale 5 = great,    1 = poor

Educational Value 4.0

Kid Appeal 4.0

Ease of Use 4.5

System Requirements

PC / Mac Price Survey

Product Support

JumpStart Second Grade Reading has a fun adventure theme with an Indiana Jones-like frog named CJ and his sidekick , a firefly named Edison. The two are on a quest to find the lost city of Ursulab. They have been trapped in an archelogical dig site by the evil Dr. Listick who has stolen part of the tablet that will lead them to the lost city.

CJ and Edison must collect jewels from various ancient ruins around the world to free the elders who will help reveal the lost city of Ursulab. In order to collect the jewels CJ and Edison need help to complete various puzzles. These activities require some basic reading skills and some fine motor ability to navigate characters in order to avoid minor setbacks.

Educational Value

As a 2nd grade reading program, JumpStart Second Grade Reading assumes a level of begining reading ability. This program involves some excellent practice with some basic 2nd grade reading skills. Children will have practice recognizing parts of speech, including: nouns, verbs and adjectives. They will also blend letter combinations to form words, find hidden words in puzzles, practice creating their own words with a given set of letters, and distinguish verb tense and correct contractions. In addition, they will have the opportunity to classify words as synonyms, antonyms and homonyms and practice their reading comprehension skills as they listen and answer questions about some short stories read to them by a dingo from Ayers Rock in Australia.

Each activity in JumpStart Second Grade Reading has three difficulty levels, and the levels get progressively more difficult as the child plays. The difficulty level can also be set higher as needed.

JumpStart Second Grade Reading has tutorial aid that provides instruction when a child is having difficulty with a certain skill. After repeated attempts without success at a particular skill a tutorial notebook appears to provide some assistance. This notebook explains to the child the specific skill being used and shows an example.

JumpStart Second Grade Reading includes a report the user can check to verify a child's progress. It shows percentages of success in each skill area and can be printed out. Also included with the program is a printable workbook that reinforces the reading skills being used.

Kid Appeal

The adventurous activities with CJ and Edison will be fun and entertaining for a typical 2nd grade student. The puzzles and games are both educational and enjoyable and the animation is well done. The games are not so difficult as to make them frustrating and the characters themselves are quite funny, especially all the characters CJ and Edison meet along the way.

Ease of Use / Install

JumpStart Second Grade Reading installed without difficulty on our test machine. Program navigation was never a problem, and printable progress reports are easy to access and simple to understand.

Best for... / Bottom-Line

JumpStart Second Grade Reading assumes prior basic reading skills. It offers good practice of the neccessary Language Arts skills required of a 2nd grader. Children 6-8 years old should enjoy this program.

See SuperKids' comparisons with other Reading software titles, and the Buyers Guide for current market prices of the PC and Mac versions of this program.

PC: Windows95/98, 486DX2/66 or faster cpu, 15 MB hard drive space, 16 MB RAM , SVGA 256-color graphics adapter, 4X CD-ROM drive, MPC-compatible sound card, mouse.

Mac: System 7.5 or higher, PowerPC cpu, 15 MB hard drive space, 9 MB available RAM , 256-color graphics display, 4X CD-ROM drive.

Reviewed on:

Pentium 200 with 64MB and 32XCD

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