Shareware Programs
for Children

Shareware programs for children allow you to try a module of the program for a period of time (usually 30 days) for free. After the trial period, you can either pay a fee to register the shareware and receive the full program or delete the shareware from your computer.

Most shareware programs are compressed before storage as a single zip file on the host computer. After downloading the file, you need to use WINZIP to decompress it before you can view its contents and run the shareware. Some shareware programs need further installation or setup on the hard disk.

My shareware selection criteria are as follows:

1. The file is not more than 1.4 MB.

This will enable me to distribute the shareware (if it is worthy of consideration) on a diskette to my friends. Moreover, any size bigger will mean a longer downloading time. A medium modem with an access speed of 28.8 kbps will take about 7 - 10 minutes to download a 1.4 MB file.

If you do not have a dedicated phone line for Internet access and you are using your one and only phone line, remember to disable the "Call Waiting" facility. Any incoming calls will disconnect you from your Internet Service Provider. This can be frustrating if you are near the end of downloading a huge file!

2. A good mix of education and fun to make learning the academics so much more fun for the children.

The download site for most of the shareware (listed on this page) is in Singapore. For alternative sites, please check out http://www.gamesdomain.com/tigger/sw-pc.html.

• Sea School … This shareware is Volume 1 of 3. It covers the following topics: counting, number sequencing, addition and subtraction. Sea School provides good variety to sustain children's interest as each topic is a different game.

Coins as rewards is reinforcing and the fireworks display at the end is arresting. The ranking (e.g., Sea Shrimp) is cute. Recommended for children ages 3 - 5. I have played with the registered version. Volume 3 is suitable for older kids ages 5 -7. Worth your money to register the shareware.

Only complaint is that it is a DOS program. You may experience difficulty running it if you do not know how to optimize the program for Windows.

• Amy's Fun 23 … This shareware covers number recognition, counting, music and songs. Recommended for children ages 2 - 3. Good first math software in that it cover basic counting and your child can use the keyboard if he or she has difficulty with the mouse in terms of hand-eye coordination. This also is a DOS program.

• Word Trix … This is a Windows program. It has four arcade-type games with an educational focus. It covers common phonics patterns which are needed to build a large sight vocabulary. The games are Word Invaders, Word Tag, Picture Tag and Make-A-Word.
  
  Highly recommended for children ages 5 - 8. However, be prepared to accept some American terms.

• Roxie's Reading Fish … A good complementary program to Word Trix. Roxie's Reading Fish is an intuitive and easy-to-use program. If your child does not know what to do, click on Roxie's face and she will tell him what is going on.

The program is patterned after the game "Go Fish" and is designed to help children recognize common sight words. If the child cannot read a word, click on the word card with the RIGHT mouse button and Roxie will read the word. The goal of the game is to get the largest number of books consisting of four of the same word cards. Recommended for children ages 5 - 7.

If you like a program for younger kids, try Roxie's ABC Fish. The shareware version is only for recognizing upper case letters and you are restricted to letters A to G. The shareware version of Roxie's Math Fish covers addition for numbers 0 - 12.

My complaint is that Roxie's games do not offer variety to sustain the children's interest. Although the educational contents are different, the game is the same and children get bored with the same old game.

• Dollar Skills … This is a Math program focusing on real-life math and business problems.

What I like about the program is that it takes a student through four steps in solving problems. Students will be asked, in step-by-step fashion, to look for: the EVIDENCE (the numbers needed to solve the problem); the STRATEGY (the word clues that indicate the method to use to find the answer); and the OPERATION (the mathematical method to arrive at the answer to the problem), before trying to find the SOLUTION (the answer to the problem). Good remedial tool. Fun element is missing.

• Developing Critical Thinking Skills (for Effective Reading) ...Good for students in upper primary and lower secondary schools. Reading materials cover topics like history and culture, music and the arts, nature and science, historical figures, famous personalities, entertainment & recreation and unusual facts.
  
  Emphasis is placed on thinking about word relationships and recognizing proper inferences, main ideas, and logical sequences of sentences. Each lesson is self-directing and self-correcting and presents both read-in-context word replacement questions and comprehension questions as well as crossword puzzles. Good alternative to assessment papers which are non-interactive. Fun element is missing.

• Diagnostic Prescriptive Reading ...The trial version focuses on vocabulary. The other reading skills covered in the full program are sequence, main idea, fact or opinion, factual recall and inference. Suitable for upper primary students. The contents are easier than those in Developing Critical Thinking.

• Word Problem Work-Up ... This is similar to Dollar Skills where the program gives step-by-step help in interpreting key words and solving problems. Students learn to read the questions carefully to avoid irrelevant numbers, to convert two quantities into one, such as hours to minutes, or to watch for important instruction words such as "twice," "half," or "each." The trial version covers multiplication and division. Good substitute for assessment papers. There is also a trial version that covers fractions.