Elementary School Success 2005

We purchased it for our 2nd grader son mainly for math and reading. The software is not scalable. It is more an exercise in mouse skills and understanding a British Accent than it is learning about math and reading. The software should start easy and build up. My wife and I were completely astounded how poorly written and designed it was. Avoid is my rating. Wish I knew this before I bought it!

I agree this software is poorly designed. My nine year old (3rd grade) daughter found the characters and games mostly corny and "annoying"... the tone seems more appropriate for younger (preschool or kindergarten) children than older ones. I went for this software because it seemed to cover a lot of topics, unfortunately they don't do a very good job. I wish I would have bought a narrower-focused software that was better designed.

What a HUGE disappointment. I was looking for an alternative to the Summer Bridge books for my [...] son to finish out the summer and thought that, since computer time is prized at our house, he'd be motivated by CD-ROMs. After only an hour and a half with these CDs, we're both perplexed and annoyed.

1) Installation: Each CD must be installed separately - language arts, phonics, math, etc - so they don't talk to each other about your child's performance. But it turns out, that would require waaay more thought than has been put into this software.

2) This one's the clincher: The box says ages 6-12, grades 1-6. However, when you sign in, you're not asked your child's age or permitted to create any kind of profile apart from entering his/her name. This seems odd because, you know, how do you get to the lesson content that is age-appropriate. Short answer? You don't!

TOPICS has tried to create single lessons that work for 6-12 year olds! That's right. For each course, there is just one little set of lessons. Earth Science, for example, contains two stories - one about earthworms, the other about moths. That's it for 1st graders and 6th graders - one set of lessons, one set of puzzles and games to reinforce ideas. Instead of being just right for my 3rd grader, oddly we found that the lessons were either too hard or too easy.

3) Typos: Besides being age-inappropriate, the lessons and games all contain significant typos that threw my son off. With the little content that is provided, you'd think they could've read for context rather than just run spellcheck. Examples: "Washington" was spelled "Washinton." In one 2-paragraph page about earthworms, we were told that earthworms don't have but do need eyes underground (a do/don't typo), that they are burned by UV rays the same "hat" (should be "that") cause sunburn, and yeah, there was another typo I've forgotten. But, yes, 3 typos that misled my son on one page of text. Awful...By then, he was saying, this is JUNK.

4) Interface: There is a bizarre game which is the only way to work on History/Social Studies course material. The game itself made no sense to either of us. Help was no help. A Prewriting exercise gives you some instructions, and then just stops. No explanation. No feedback. What about this could I not have done on my own?

5) And yes, that voice is pretty unbearable. It's a bad recording of a woman with a stuffy nose and a harsh tone to her voice.

At $40, it is a CRIME that you can't return software. If this is the best of what's out there, I suggest signing up for some supplemental courses with an online education provider or signing up for something similar at Kaplan SCORE or Huntington Learning. These CDs will only frustrate and discourage your kids.

By contrast, do check out Chessmaster, 10th edition. It does allow creation of profiles with age and experience level, and has boards for kids which give feedback in an encouraging way. TOPICS could learn a lot from this software which we purchased the same day.

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