Get Ready For School, Charlie Brown PC CD learning game

In Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown!TM the Peanuts gang teams up to help children learn vocabulary, spelling, and reading through a variety of letter -- and word-related activities. By spending a day in the life of Charlie Brown, children can learn new words, practice spelling, create sentences and stories, read comics, and play games with the Peanuts kids.

The day begins in Charlie Brown's bedroom as he prepares for school. Children can click on almost any object in the room to bring the object to life or hear a humorous sound effect. When they do, the object's name is spoken and the word appears at the bottom of the screen. At any time, children can view a dictionary entry for the word simply by clicking on the word.

This title is one of the few spelling programs that incorporates a dictionary. Integrated into the program is an illustrated, 1,000-word dictionary. Whenever a word is displayed during a scene or game, a click will take the child to the word's dictionary entry. Here, a Peanuts character will pronounce the word, define it, and use it in a sentence. Users can even see the word used in an original Peanuts comic strip. Cross-references are available to enable jumping quickly to related words, and a central index makes it easy to find a specific entry. From almost every screen in the program the dictionary is no more than a click away, encouraging children to use it.

There are many titles designed to help kids learn spelling and vocabulary--some are worth owning, while others are not. Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown!TM is one that is worth owning. An intuitive user interface, coupled with top-notch music and animation, makes it fun to use. Its activities, like Hangman and the Spelling Bee, may seem like old standbys, but the title presents them with an entertaining, Peanuts-style twist. More important, they are challenging and effective at improving spelling and vocabulary. While no one will view the integrated dictionary as a substitute for a full-featured multimedia dictionary, its entries are all first vocabulary words and the program fosters its use. With Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown!TM parents looking for a way to improve their child's spelling skills may find themselves encouraging him or her to spend a day with Charlie Brown.

For Windows/Mac