Early learning through play! Simple, fun, and effective games to help children read and count. 101 games to help your youngsterread and count including phonics, number, shapes and memory puzzles. Ages 3 to 5. Windows 95/98.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

102 games to help children write and calculate! Contains an extensive assortment of games that will encourage children to practice counting, calculating, reading, spelling, thinking, memorising, matching and creating. Ages 5 to7. Windows 95/98.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

A good all-round educational CD-Rom The CD-Rom covers basics of literacy, numeracy and science in a bright and colourful way. Children really enjoy the challenges of over 350 activities and will come back for more. Win 95/98/ME/2000/XP.Learning Ladder Years 1 and 2 is an extremely good CD-ROM aimed at children aged 5-7. It presents a huge number of activities that would help to support the school curriculum.

Children can navigate their way around the playroom, which will develop their confidence with the mouse. Children will enjoy making things move on the screen. There is also a range of fun activities, such as painting and copying the tune.

The program also helps to consolidate and reinforce what children are learning in literacy, numeracy and science at school. There are games involving identifying sounds, making words, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and much more. Children are rewarded with stickers as they complete activities correctly, which they will love collecting and putting in their own sticker book. --Amanda York

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Effective and works on MAC, 05 Jul 2006
Just to let anyone know who is interested, this CD-Rom does work on Mac. I have a recent Mac, and when I put the disk in, my OS 9 system kicks in. It works without any problems.

As far as the game itself, I was very pleased and have not found any difficulty in understanding how it works, but I suppose instructions would no be a bad idea!

We are using this CD to help my son, who has never been to school in England, and I find that this is a very effective way to work on his grammer, etc. He is not a big reader, like his brother, so this game has been a very helpful tool. He finds it fun and ejoys getting the stickers.

I am probably going to go on to year 3, but will have a look at other games, as so many people seem to think that there are better ones out there.

Don't buy, 03 May 2006
Needed to spend ages re-configuring my PC to actualy get it to run. This program objects to standard Windows settings.

Too old to bother with, 28 Jan 2006
If you're happy enough to search the software company's website for some clues, fiddle around with your PC's virtual memory settings a few times and reboot the machine three times, you might get it to work for five minutes before it crashes.
My advice would be not to do all that with your child sitting on your lap: there were a lot of tears at the third reboot.
Save your money.

fantastic, 17 Nov 2003
i bought this CD ROM because they use it in school. My 3-year-old loves it, it goes on when he comes in from school and stays on with him playing visits to it throughout the day. I find it colourful and very entertaining as well and being educational. My son loves it when he wins the stickers for his sticker book and he knows the words on it word for word. I would highly recommend this CD ROM.

Disappointing, 16 Sep 2003
No instructions, no help. The 'friend', Woody tells you nothing and is nothing more than an irritation. The exercises are not explained. Eager children quickly loose interest.

Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure is another excellent program developed by Dorling Kindersley. It is aimed at children aged 5-7 years old and helps to develop a wide range of literacy skills through four fun games.

There are very clear instructions and each game is initially demonstrated, so children will quickly be able to develop confidence and independence. The games, which can be played at three different levels, have been carefully developed to practice the skills that children are learning as part of the literacy hour in school; for example, spelling words by choosing the missing sounds and putting words in the correct order to create a sentence. There are also two storybooks that children can choose to read together or alone. If children want a break from the games there is also an excellent printing section where children can make their own stationary and create lists, cards, writing paper and signs. This is a brilliant way to encourage children to write for a range of different purposes.

As children play the games they collect snowflakes and they are then rewarded with a sticker for their sticker album. When all the stickers have been collected they can print out a certificate and listen to the reward song.

There is an excellent guide for parents that discusses the skills the games are developing. The child profile shows parents how many times children have played each game and at what level and also suggests follow-on worksheets that can be printed out and used with children.

Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure would be an excellent buy for parents or teachers to use with children aged 5-7 years. --Amanda York

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Effective and works on MAC, 05 Jul 2006
Just to let anyone know who is interested, this CD-Rom does work on Mac. I have a recent Mac, and when I put the disk in, my OS 9 system kicks in. It works without any problems.

As far as the game itself, I was very pleased and have not found any difficulty in understanding how it works, but I suppose instructions would no be a bad idea!

We are using this CD to help my son, who has never been to school in England, and I find that this is a very effective way to work on his grammer, etc. He is not a big reader, like his brother, so this game has been a very helpful tool. He finds it fun and ejoys getting the stickers.

I am probably going to go on to year 3, but will have a look at other games, as so many people seem to think that there are better ones out there.

Don't buy, 03 May 2006
Needed to spend ages re-configuring my PC to actualy get it to run. This program objects to standard Windows settings.

Too old to bother with, 28 Jan 2006
If you're happy enough to search the software company's website for some clues, fiddle around with your PC's virtual memory settings a few times and reboot the machine three times, you might get it to work for five minutes before it crashes.
My advice would be not to do all that with your child sitting on your lap: there were a lot of tears at the third reboot.
Save your money.

fantastic, 17 Nov 2003
i bought this CD ROM because they use it in school. My 3-year-old loves it, it goes on when he comes in from school and stays on with him playing visits to it throughout the day. I find it colourful and very entertaining as well and being educational. My son loves it when he wins the stickers for his sticker book and he knows the words on it word for word. I would highly recommend this CD ROM.

Disappointing, 16 Sep 2003
No instructions, no help. The 'friend', Woody tells you nothing and is nothing more than an irritation. The exercises are not explained. Eager children quickly loose interest.

An Abysmal Installing Adventure, 01 Jan 2009
Installing this in XP has been an excruciating waste of time. Initially it installed ok but insisted upon running from the CD alone. Why not install on the hard drive and let us run it from there? Every time it tried to undertake an action it accessed the drive, causing it to stutter. After three entries in the Spell It section, the whole thing hangs. Absolute rubbish.

There is an update for XP SP1 (what about SP2 and SP3?) and the instructions for it are buried in the help files. Once installed (so that the stuttering and hanging would resolve) it then failed to start, complaining about a sound card that didn't work (needless to say it did). So I uninstalled the whole thing and went through the process again.

This time it did work....except that the stuttering/hanging was back! At which point I gave up.

This is an old, poorly made piece of software. It may work on your PC or it may not - I'll be returning it to Amazon.

Dorling Kindersley should be ashamed of putting their name to it. Amazon should stop selling it immediately.


Failed Christmas Present, 26 Dec 2006
The initial loading of the program is frustrating and I certainly didn't expect to be downloading fixes on a new product. The screen does not maximise to the full size of the monitor and this cannot be fixed as mentioned buried in the help text. I would have expected both of these things to be mentioned in the advertisement of the cd rather than being hidden within the cd itself. I would expect better performance from D.K and indeed Amazon. This is the first time that I have used the internet to purchase presents and I will consider more carefully before doing so again. I will be returning this product as unfit for purpose.

Buggy Software, 04 Dec 2006
This software has been so frustrating for my 5 year old daughter to use; like other reviewers we experience the constant hanging of the program. Yes the workaround is fairly simple but this is a problem that should be fixed. I contacted the technical people at Dorling Kindersley, however they said they are aware of the problem but have no intention of fixing it. This is not what I would expect from a service orientated company and I would not buy a DK product in the future based on this experience.

That said, we have found the software to be somewhat limited, this was an experiment for us and I would have to say that learning to read is much better achieved the traditional way!

Fun and learning, 17 Oct 2006
This CDROM really manages to combine fun and learning in one. I bought it at the same time as I got Jump Ahead Year 1 (for age 5-6) and I and my son much prefer this one. Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure has a much more modern feel to it and the navigation is much more convenient. The little introductory sequences are easy to follow; the characters speak slowly and clearly, but at the same time they are appealing and funny.

Children actually have to read words (and even understand sentences) to win, they can't just use guesswork or wait until a voice reads it out to them. In each game you can see that a child will actually learn or practise something; they are not just for fun. But they aren't all hard work by any means; my son is not that enthusiastic a reader, but the games were good enough to make him forget that for a while! His big sister also wanted a go.

The words and sentences are age-appropriate and the font is the kind used in schools (a handwriting font). The voices and spelling are British.

The reward system works very well: my son wants to get all the snowflakes by playing a game several times, and then was really pleased to get a virtual "sticker" in his album, then wanted to fill the album to win a song.

We had the same problem others have mentioned with the game getting stuck, and having to use Alt+Tab to make it go on. I would have given it half a star less in the rating, but this CDROM is so much better than any others of this kind we've got that I didn't have it in my heart to take off a whole star just for that.

One Very Satisfied Customer, 22 Dec 2005
Couldn't agree more with all the other positive reviews. This is pure play for our 3, 5 and 8 year olds. The encouragement given by the characters is very warm and motivating. There are three levels and each has effectively three levels of difficulty within those as well. It has much more than you'd expect for the price. A long user life to it.
The bug another reviewer mentions is a shame but it is overcome by simply clicking out of the activity/CdRom window and back in again. Nothing too inconvenient even for the smallest children. Also, clicking anywhere on the screen moves the sequence forward, passed any introduction you may have heard before.
The CdRom, and equally so for their Big Maths Adventure too,Big Bear and Penguin, are not the passive, 'thin' characters. Frequently, they are a little comedy duo keeping the atmosphere light and enticing. All Fabulous stuff.

Play and Learn Reader Rabbit products are designed specifically to encourage your child's development. Since 1984 Reader Rabbit has helped more than 10 million children learn to reading, number and general skills. Includes multiple difficulty levels Tutor Technology with progress reporting. Windows 9x/ME/XP.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Effective and works on MAC, 05 Jul 2006
Just to let anyone know who is interested, this CD-Rom does work on Mac. I have a recent Mac, and when I put the disk in, my OS 9 system kicks in. It works without any problems.

As far as the game itself, I was very pleased and have not found any difficulty in understanding how it works, but I suppose instructions would no be a bad idea!

We are using this CD to help my son, who has never been to school in England, and I find that this is a very effective way to work on his grammer, etc. He is not a big reader, like his brother, so this game has been a very helpful tool. He finds it fun and ejoys getting the stickers.

I am probably going to go on to year 3, but will have a look at other games, as so many people seem to think that there are better ones out there.

Don't buy, 03 May 2006
Needed to spend ages re-configuring my PC to actualy get it to run. This program objects to standard Windows settings.

Too old to bother with, 28 Jan 2006
If you're happy enough to search the software company's website for some clues, fiddle around with your PC's virtual memory settings a few times and reboot the machine three times, you might get it to work for five minutes before it crashes.
My advice would be not to do all that with your child sitting on your lap: there were a lot of tears at the third reboot.
Save your money.

fantastic, 17 Nov 2003
i bought this CD ROM because they use it in school. My 3-year-old loves it, it goes on when he comes in from school and stays on with him playing visits to it throughout the day. I find it colourful and very entertaining as well and being educational. My son loves it when he wins the stickers for his sticker book and he knows the words on it word for word. I would highly recommend this CD ROM.

Disappointing, 16 Sep 2003
No instructions, no help. The 'friend', Woody tells you nothing and is nothing more than an irritation. The exercises are not explained. Eager children quickly loose interest.

An Abysmal Installing Adventure, 01 Jan 2009
Installing this in XP has been an excruciating waste of time. Initially it installed ok but insisted upon running from the CD alone. Why not install on the hard drive and let us run it from there? Every time it tried to undertake an action it accessed the drive, causing it to stutter. After three entries in the Spell It section, the whole thing hangs. Absolute rubbish.

There is an update for XP SP1 (what about SP2 and SP3?) and the instructions for it are buried in the help files. Once installed (so that the stuttering and hanging would resolve) it then failed to start, complaining about a sound card that didn't work (needless to say it did). So I uninstalled the whole thing and went through the process again.

This time it did work....except that the stuttering/hanging was back! At which point I gave up.

This is an old, poorly made piece of software. It may work on your PC or it may not - I'll be returning it to Amazon.

Dorling Kindersley should be ashamed of putting their name to it. Amazon should stop selling it immediately.


Failed Christmas Present, 26 Dec 2006
The initial loading of the program is frustrating and I certainly didn't expect to be downloading fixes on a new product. The screen does not maximise to the full size of the monitor and this cannot be fixed as mentioned buried in the help text. I would have expected both of these things to be mentioned in the advertisement of the cd rather than being hidden within the cd itself. I would expect better performance from D.K and indeed Amazon. This is the first time that I have used the internet to purchase presents and I will consider more carefully before doing so again. I will be returning this product as unfit for purpose.

Buggy Software, 04 Dec 2006
This software has been so frustrating for my 5 year old daughter to use; like other reviewers we experience the constant hanging of the program. Yes the workaround is fairly simple but this is a problem that should be fixed. I contacted the technical people at Dorling Kindersley, however they said they are aware of the problem but have no intention of fixing it. This is not what I would expect from a service orientated company and I would not buy a DK product in the future based on this experience.

That said, we have found the software to be somewhat limited, this was an experiment for us and I would have to say that learning to read is much better achieved the traditional way!

Fun and learning, 17 Oct 2006
This CDROM really manages to combine fun and learning in one. I bought it at the same time as I got Jump Ahead Year 1 (for age 5-6) and I and my son much prefer this one. Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure has a much more modern feel to it and the navigation is much more convenient. The little introductory sequences are easy to follow; the characters speak slowly and clearly, but at the same time they are appealing and funny.

Children actually have to read words (and even understand sentences) to win, they can't just use guesswork or wait until a voice reads it out to them. In each game you can see that a child will actually learn or practise something; they are not just for fun. But they aren't all hard work by any means; my son is not that enthusiastic a reader, but the games were good enough to make him forget that for a while! His big sister also wanted a go.

The words and sentences are age-appropriate and the font is the kind used in schools (a handwriting font). The voices and spelling are British.

The reward system works very well: my son wants to get all the snowflakes by playing a game several times, and then was really pleased to get a virtual "sticker" in his album, then wanted to fill the album to win a song.

We had the same problem others have mentioned with the game getting stuck, and having to use Alt+Tab to make it go on. I would have given it half a star less in the rating, but this CDROM is so much better than any others of this kind we've got that I didn't have it in my heart to take off a whole star just for that.

One Very Satisfied Customer, 22 Dec 2005
Couldn't agree more with all the other positive reviews. This is pure play for our 3, 5 and 8 year olds. The encouragement given by the characters is very warm and motivating. There are three levels and each has effectively three levels of difficulty within those as well. It has much more than you'd expect for the price. A long user life to it.
The bug another reviewer mentions is a shame but it is overcome by simply clicking out of the activity/CdRom window and back in again. Nothing too inconvenient even for the smallest children. Also, clicking anywhere on the screen moves the sequence forward, passed any introduction you may have heard before.
The CdRom, and equally so for their Big Maths Adventure too,Big Bear and Penguin, are not the passive, 'thin' characters. Frequently, they are a little comedy duo keeping the atmosphere light and enticing. All Fabulous stuff.

good for the money - real scientific approach, 13 Dec 2008
I agree with the positive reviewer. My just 6yo can navigate and do most of these experiments. It's true that, if you make a mistake, you might have to start the experiment again... but I loved that: that's real life. I struggled for 5 minutes before I realized I had to pick up a piece of lab equipment in the right way. Absolutely - I'll be more careful next time! It isn't as 'big' a program as, say, Science Explorer, but I think the price reflects that.

As a homeschooler, this is the lab I don't have. Highly recommended.

Not so impressed, 26 Jun 2008
I bought this software for my daughter who is very computer literate for her age. She happily worked her way through all of the Jump Ahead Year 1 series from Focus Multimedia Ltd and thoroughly enjoyed them. More importantly, she clearly learned a lot too.

Perhaps it was because I was expecting the same level of engagement and explanation from Play and Learn: Science Experiments that I felt a little disappointed. The experiments simply aren't that engaging. Sure, they look good, but they don't actually explain very much.

Worse, they are often fiddly where one small mistake forces the child to start again from scratch, e.g. the very small drop area when positioning the cars on the first experiment: If you miss, the car falls off the bottom of the screen (rather than go back to its starting position) and the child is forced to press the reset button and start all over again. This and similar behaviour was so frustrating for my daughter that she lost interest rather more quickly than I had hoped.

The experiments were clearly designed to demonstrate some phenomena, which those of a scientific persuasion good easily spot. However, no explanation of the behaviour observed by the child was given. Again, using the first experiment as an example, the higher the ramp, the faster the car moved. This could have been used to introduce gravity, energy (potential converting to kinetic), momentum, etc etc, but sadly, all my child learned was that with the ramp on position '3', the car got to the third flag.

As another example, the question about how to pick up just the small metal objects and not the screwdriver is answered by 'move the magnet past them quickly'. But why? I was sitting with my child when she did this, so I was there to say, "perhaps the screwdriver is heavier (mass) and so takes longer to get moving (acceleration)". No such explanation is given by the software.

Last point: In my opinion, educational software should be designed to encourage and reward, but never to demotivate. Much educational software inadvertently overlooks this and here is an example: Rather than record how many questions were answered correctly and how many were answered wrongly, why not just record how many were right? Who cares if they answer a question wrong the first time, just let them have another go until they get it right. They still learn the same things, but they don't have this 'you have got 2 question wrong so far' following them through the activities. After all, it's not a competition.

Brilliant software for primary school child, 15 May 2006
The designers of this software really seem to understand young children. This programme looks simple - it's easy to understand and use, so my son, who can read a little, can already play it by himself. For a child who can read well, it will be a doddle to navigate. The artwork is appealling, and it's easy to adjust the level of difficulty. The experiments are genuinely interesting too!

The experiments are of course the best part of this software. Each one starts with information in very simple form. You can play with the experimental "equipment" before trying the actual experiments. The experiments themselves are designed as multiple choice questions. You may be able to guess the answer or work it out in your head, but you can also try it out on the equipment. The questions are genuinely interesting, and are graded from easiest to most difficult. For instance, there is a magnet with a number of objects. The easiest question asks what will be picked up by the magnet. The most difficult asks whether it would be possible to pick up just two of the three metal objects, and offers some possible ways to do it.

The best thing of all about the experiments is that they teach the scientific method, rather than just a series of facts. Of course, the facts are there (e.g. a magnet picks up metal), but you get to them via scientific questioning and experiment. It is far more useful for small children to learn to pose questions and find answers than to squirrel away facts at this age, since they can apply this method to all kinds of problems. As an added bonus, it will also keep them absorbed for much longer!

The interface is a real pleasure to use. The main menu has pictures as well as the words for each of the 9 scientific areas (gravity, liquids, air, hot & cold, motion, light & colour, electricity, sound and magnetism). When you move your mouse over one of the pictures, it does something interesting. From inside each scientific area you can move from one experimental area to the next, and back again - with easy-to-use arrows. All the mouse movements required are reasonably intuitive, from drag-and-drop pieces on a circuit board to drag-and-let-go pulling of a spring-loaded knob.

The advice on the package suggests age 7-11 years. I would say that this could be used by inquisitive pre-schoolers with adult involvement - the more difficult questions may be over their heads, but there are many very simple ones that they will be able to relate to, such as the movement of cars on a track. For independent use, I would say that any child who can read should be able to have a go. The upper age limit is about right - teenagers may still enjoy it and find it an engaging way to learn and review basic science, but they will probably get through it so fast that it won't seem worth the price.

Learning Ladder Year 3 is another excellent product from Dorling Kindersley. This CD-ROM is packed with a good range of activities tailored to support the Year 3 school curriculum. Children can navigate their way around the playroom, looking for fun activities. These include the printing machine, which they can use to create their own labels, invitations and cards.

Children can then improve their literacy, numeracy and science skills by undertaking a wide range of activities that help to consolidate Year 3 work. Children can, for example, choose correct word endings, solve addition and subtraction problems, label skeletons and identify correct habitats for animals. These are just a few of the carefully thought out and clearly explained activities here.

Children should be able to use this program independently. They are rewarded with stickers for each activity they complete correctly and will enjoy collecting these and putting them in their own sticker album.

Learning Ladder Year 3 would be an excellent buy for any Year 3 child. It consolidates the learning that is taking place at school and develops children's competence on the computer. --Amanda York A good all-round educational CD-Rom The CD-Rom covers basics of literacy, numeracy and science in a bright and colourful way. Children really enjoy the challenges of over 350 activities and will come back for more. Win 95/98

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Effective and works on MAC, 05 Jul 2006
Just to let anyone know who is interested, this CD-Rom does work on Mac. I have a recent Mac, and when I put the disk in, my OS 9 system kicks in. It works without any problems.

As far as the game itself, I was very pleased and have not found any difficulty in understanding how it works, but I suppose instructions would no be a bad idea!

We are using this CD to help my son, who has never been to school in England, and I find that this is a very effective way to work on his grammer, etc. He is not a big reader, like his brother, so this game has been a very helpful tool. He finds it fun and ejoys getting the stickers.

I am probably going to go on to year 3, but will have a look at other games, as so many people seem to think that there are better ones out there.

Don't buy, 03 May 2006
Needed to spend ages re-configuring my PC to actualy get it to run. This program objects to standard Windows settings.

Too old to bother with, 28 Jan 2006
If you're happy enough to search the software company's website for some clues, fiddle around with your PC's virtual memory settings a few times and reboot the machine three times, you might get it to work for five minutes before it crashes.
My advice would be not to do all that with your child sitting on your lap: there were a lot of tears at the third reboot.
Save your money.

fantastic, 17 Nov 2003
i bought this CD ROM because they use it in school. My 3-year-old loves it, it goes on when he comes in from school and stays on with him playing visits to it throughout the day. I find it colourful and very entertaining as well and being educational. My son loves it when he wins the stickers for his sticker book and he knows the words on it word for word. I would highly recommend this CD ROM.

Disappointing, 16 Sep 2003
No instructions, no help. The 'friend', Woody tells you nothing and is nothing more than an irritation. The exercises are not explained. Eager children quickly loose interest.

An Abysmal Installing Adventure, 01 Jan 2009
Installing this in XP has been an excruciating waste of time. Initially it installed ok but insisted upon running from the CD alone. Why not install on the hard drive and let us run it from there? Every time it tried to undertake an action it accessed the drive, causing it to stutter. After three entries in the Spell It section, the whole thing hangs. Absolute rubbish.

There is an update for XP SP1 (what about SP2 and SP3?) and the instructions for it are buried in the help files. Once installed (so that the stuttering and hanging would resolve) it then failed to start, complaining about a sound card that didn't work (needless to say it did). So I uninstalled the whole thing and went through the process again.

This time it did work....except that the stuttering/hanging was back! At which point I gave up.

This is an old, poorly made piece of software. It may work on your PC or it may not - I'll be returning it to Amazon.

Dorling Kindersley should be ashamed of putting their name to it. Amazon should stop selling it immediately.


Failed Christmas Present, 26 Dec 2006
The initial loading of the program is frustrating and I certainly didn't expect to be downloading fixes on a new product. The screen does not maximise to the full size of the monitor and this cannot be fixed as mentioned buried in the help text. I would have expected both of these things to be mentioned in the advertisement of the cd rather than being hidden within the cd itself. I would expect better performance from D.K and indeed Amazon. This is the first time that I have used the internet to purchase presents and I will consider more carefully before doing so again. I will be returning this product as unfit for purpose.

Buggy Software, 04 Dec 2006
This software has been so frustrating for my 5 year old daughter to use; like other reviewers we experience the constant hanging of the program. Yes the workaround is fairly simple but this is a problem that should be fixed. I contacted the technical people at Dorling Kindersley, however they said they are aware of the problem but have no intention of fixing it. This is not what I would expect from a service orientated company and I would not buy a DK product in the future based on this experience.

That said, we have found the software to be somewhat limited, this was an experiment for us and I would have to say that learning to read is much better achieved the traditional way!

Fun and learning, 17 Oct 2006
This CDROM really manages to combine fun and learning in one. I bought it at the same time as I got Jump Ahead Year 1 (for age 5-6) and I and my son much prefer this one. Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure has a much more modern feel to it and the navigation is much more convenient. The little introductory sequences are easy to follow; the characters speak slowly and clearly, but at the same time they are appealing and funny.

Children actually have to read words (and even understand sentences) to win, they can't just use guesswork or wait until a voice reads it out to them. In each game you can see that a child will actually learn or practise something; they are not just for fun. But they aren't all hard work by any means; my son is not that enthusiastic a reader, but the games were good enough to make him forget that for a while! His big sister also wanted a go.

The words and sentences are age-appropriate and the font is the kind used in schools (a handwriting font). The voices and spelling are British.

The reward system works very well: my son wants to get all the snowflakes by playing a game several times, and then was really pleased to get a virtual "sticker" in his album, then wanted to fill the album to win a song.

We had the same problem others have mentioned with the game getting stuck, and having to use Alt+Tab to make it go on. I would have given it half a star less in the rating, but this CDROM is so much better than any others of this kind we've got that I didn't have it in my heart to take off a whole star just for that.

One Very Satisfied Customer, 22 Dec 2005
Couldn't agree more with all the other positive reviews. This is pure play for our 3, 5 and 8 year olds. The encouragement given by the characters is very warm and motivating. There are three levels and each has effectively three levels of difficulty within those as well. It has much more than you'd expect for the price. A long user life to it.
The bug another reviewer mentions is a shame but it is overcome by simply clicking out of the activity/CdRom window and back in again. Nothing too inconvenient even for the smallest children. Also, clicking anywhere on the screen moves the sequence forward, passed any introduction you may have heard before.
The CdRom, and equally so for their Big Maths Adventure too,Big Bear and Penguin, are not the passive, 'thin' characters. Frequently, they are a little comedy duo keeping the atmosphere light and enticing. All Fabulous stuff.

good for the money - real scientific approach, 13 Dec 2008
I agree with the positive reviewer. My just 6yo can navigate and do most of these experiments. It's true that, if you make a mistake, you might have to start the experiment again... but I loved that: that's real life. I struggled for 5 minutes before I realized I had to pick up a piece of lab equipment in the right way. Absolutely - I'll be more careful next time! It isn't as 'big' a program as, say, Science Explorer, but I think the price reflects that.

As a homeschooler, this is the lab I don't have. Highly recommended.

Not so impressed, 26 Jun 2008
I bought this software for my daughter who is very computer literate for her age. She happily worked her way through all of the Jump Ahead Year 1 series from Focus Multimedia Ltd and thoroughly enjoyed them. More importantly, she clearly learned a lot too.

Perhaps it was because I was expecting the same level of engagement and explanation from Play and Learn: Science Experiments that I felt a little disappointed. The experiments simply aren't that engaging. Sure, they look good, but they don't actually explain very much.

Worse, they are often fiddly where one small mistake forces the child to start again from scratch, e.g. the very small drop area when positioning the cars on the first experiment: If you miss, the car falls off the bottom of the screen (rather than go back to its starting position) and the child is forced to press the reset button and start all over again. This and similar behaviour was so frustrating for my daughter that she lost interest rather more quickly than I had hoped.

The experiments were clearly designed to demonstrate some phenomena, which those of a scientific persuasion good easily spot. However, no explanation of the behaviour observed by the child was given. Again, using the first experiment as an example, the higher the ramp, the faster the car moved. This could have been used to introduce gravity, energy (potential converting to kinetic), momentum, etc etc, but sadly, all my child learned was that with the ramp on position '3', the car got to the third flag.

As another example, the question about how to pick up just the small metal objects and not the screwdriver is answered by 'move the magnet past them quickly'. But why? I was sitting with my child when she did this, so I was there to say, "perhaps the screwdriver is heavier (mass) and so takes longer to get moving (acceleration)". No such explanation is given by the software.

Last point: In my opinion, educational software should be designed to encourage and reward, but never to demotivate. Much educational software inadvertently overlooks this and here is an example: Rather than record how many questions were answered correctly and how many were answered wrongly, why not just record how many were right? Who cares if they answer a question wrong the first time, just let them have another go until they get it right. They still learn the same things, but they don't have this 'you have got 2 question wrong so far' following them through the activities. After all, it's not a competition.

Brilliant software for primary school child, 15 May 2006
The designers of this software really seem to understand young children. This programme looks simple - it's easy to understand and use, so my son, who can read a little, can already play it by himself. For a child who can read well, it will be a doddle to navigate. The artwork is appealling, and it's easy to adjust the level of difficulty. The experiments are genuinely interesting too!

The experiments are of course the best part of this software. Each one starts with information in very simple form. You can play with the experimental "equipment" before trying the actual experiments. The experiments themselves are designed as multiple choice questions. You may be able to guess the answer or work it out in your head, but you can also try it out on the equipment. The questions are genuinely interesting, and are graded from easiest to most difficult. For instance, there is a magnet with a number of objects. The easiest question asks what will be picked up by the magnet. The most difficult asks whether it would be possible to pick up just two of the three metal objects, and offers some possible ways to do it.

The best thing of all about the experiments is that they teach the scientific method, rather than just a series of facts. Of course, the facts are there (e.g. a magnet picks up metal), but you get to them via scientific questioning and experiment. It is far more useful for small children to learn to pose questions and find answers than to squirrel away facts at this age, since they can apply this method to all kinds of problems. As an added bonus, it will also keep them absorbed for much longer!

The interface is a real pleasure to use. The main menu has pictures as well as the words for each of the 9 scientific areas (gravity, liquids, air, hot & cold, motion, light & colour, electricity, sound and magnetism). When you move your mouse over one of the pictures, it does something interesting. From inside each scientific area you can move from one experimental area to the next, and back again - with easy-to-use arrows. All the mouse movements required are reasonably intuitive, from drag-and-drop pieces on a circuit board to drag-and-let-go pulling of a spring-loaded knob.

The advice on the package suggests age 7-11 years. I would say that this could be used by inquisitive pre-schoolers with adult involvement - the more difficult questions may be over their heads, but there are many very simple ones that they will be able to relate to, such as the movement of cars on a track. For independent use, I would say that any child who can read should be able to have a go. The upper age limit is about right - teenagers may still enjoy it and find it an engaging way to learn and review basic science, but they will probably get through it so fast that it won't seem worth the price.

Very useful software, 15 Jan 2005
I found this software very useful and it kept my son engrossed for a long time, he loves the sticker rewards for each task completed.

My only grip is that there are no instructions, although we quickly worked out how what to do once we clicked around a few times.

It's getting old now, 04 Dec 2004
I was very dissapointed with this release. It's now 6 years old, but there was no mention of the release date, so it came as a surprise to me to see ancient graphics and ideas and an annoying Timmy Mallet sounding "guide". There must be better software out there now for Keystage development

Perfect distraction, 03 Feb 2004
Finally, something educational that distracted my son from his xbox. He sat for 2 hours using this software and was totally engrossed. He loved the sticker rewards, just like so many sticker books stacked on his bedroom shelf. He came away with a great sense of achievment. Apart from being a fun way to learn, it is a postive experience and is helping my son's confidence.
I'm off to buy Year 4

Fantastic fun while learning., 20 Oct 2003
I bought this software to help give my dyslexic 7 year old a little confidence during the summer holidays. Not only has she enjoyed it but my other, younger kids also enjoyed playing with it, as have several of the neighbours kids. They all think its fun and not like learning at all (?)

Another Great Title From the DK Stable, 12 Oct 2003
This is a great way to get reluctant scholars to apply themselves to Maths and English. There are also modules on telling the time, nature and geography. The work modules are first class and are of the high standard that we have come to expect from Dorling Kindersley. However there are a couple of negatives that stop me from awarding this five stars: firstly the interface is cumbersome - on completion of a task for the first time, children are rewarded with a sticker for their digital sticker book. However, moving from the work area to the sticker book and back to the work area is time consuming and unnecessarily complicated (you can save several sticers to stick in at the end, but children like to see the results of their hard work at the time). Secondly, you have to listen to every sound clip and there does not appear to be a way to "double-click" through it. Having said that, children are less likely to be put off by this and they will be more tolerant of the grating voice of the "host" - a talking pencil called Dash Scribble. However, when you get down to the Maths and English modules the units are well thought out and offer a fun alternative to homework - my eight year old son will often choose to do Learning Ladder over more conventional maths homework. All in all, this is great value for money and complements school work perfectly. So, if you can set aside the adult gripes about the interface, I can heartily recommend it to anyone with a child in, or about to go into Year 3, anywhere in the world.

Can We Fix It?. Of course we can, and with this BBC software package little builders will be better equipped than ever!. Featuring the chirpy Bob and his mechanical multitude of talented friends, this fun package is a mixture of educational encouragement and pure out-and-out fun.

Once loaded, you are invited to move the cursor around Wendy's office to select your tasks: hover over the phone, and it rings with a plumbing job; go near the fax, and a job comes in for Roley. Keep moving around, and you will find enough jobs to keep little fingers and minds busy for hours.

In "Hedgehog Rescue", the aim is firstly to help Lofty the Crane build a tunnel to save the scared hedgehogs from crossing the road. Children must match pipe shapes to tunnel shapes, and construct the route. The next, more difficult game, involves Wendy herding the hedgehogs into the tunnel--easier than it sounds, since one particularly persistent hedgehog seems unwilling to go.

In "Travis' Race Day", choose between Scoop or Dizzy to a head-to-head around an obstacle-strewn track. Guide your challenger by mouse or arrow keys--again, not as easy as it sounds, and a great developmental aid for hand-to-eye co-ordination.

"Can We Build It?" involves knocking down an unsafe bridge, then using colour recognition to match the bricks to rebuild it. Roley needs a hand with unruly tarmac in "Bubble Trouble", when you must guide him over the bubbles to even out the road. And in "Scary Spud", you must move Spud around the screen to scare off the crows. But the crowning glory is "Wendy's Birthday", where guests first decorate her cake then join in the fun line dancing. Also included on each game is "Where's Pilchard?", a hide-and-seek game for the shy, blue cat.

Accompanied throughout by Neil Morrisey's narration and the superb music from the TV show, (also now a CD single), this package builds on many elementary educational skills to make little builders into fully fledged Bobs. And while it is not that quick to load (missing plug-ins are provided, but it may take some time) it is well worth the wait.

Testers of around two years old found this package fun and evocative of their favourite TV character, though they did require constant supervision and most of the games were beyond mastering. This is a superb educational aid and lots of fun. (Suitable for ages 2 to 6).--Lucie Naylor

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Great learning for pre-school to 7 years, 03 Nov 2008
I bought this for my daughters 4 th birthday. On level 1 it is ideal for her she can work out what to do on each screen and can be left to learn on her own. It is easy to move around the different sections, 8 i believe, and then has varoius games within each section. There are two more levels for her to move onto and level 3 kept my fairly clever nearly 7 years old amused too.
A great learning tool that it fun too!


Disappointing, 24 Feb 2008
I brought this software especially for my 4 year old daughter who is struggling with her phonics in school and was very disappointed with the letters game which is NOT sounded out in phonics. This is confusing for children and misleading as it does state it teaches phonics.
The rest of the games are OK, but both of my children (3 & 4) got bored of it quickly.
It is very reasonably priced, but in my view not worth buying.

Great for pre schoolers, 21 Feb 2008
I bought this for my 3 year old after she had used it at her nursery. I can only sing its praises. It has hundreds of activities and the menu is very easy for her to navigate, I don't even need to sit with her. Supports the national curriculum and one of the best software games out there for young children. We have bought so many games that don't actually have much to do at all whereas this will keep them very entertained whilst also educational.

Excellent for ages 3 - 6, 15 Mar 2006
This is a brilliant software title. It kept my daughter (3) and son (6) occupied for hours - with very minimal intervention from parents.
I can heartily reccomend this title

PC CD-Rom 'Writing & Calculating', 19 Oct 2003
Yes, the graphics are good - but it is irritating that my daughter has to go back, page by page, to return to home page.
Also the activities are in exactly the same order, time after time - why not have a random selection??? This would be a lot more fun, for both child and parents!
The 'Jump Ahead' CD Rom series, for 4-5 years old, is MUCH better.

Effective and works on MAC, 05 Jul 2006
Just to let anyone know who is interested, this CD-Rom does work on Mac. I have a recent Mac, and when I put the disk in, my OS 9 system kicks in. It works without any problems.

As far as the game itself, I was very pleased and have not found any difficulty in understanding how it works, but I suppose instructions would no be a bad idea!

We are using this CD to help my son, who has never been to school in England, and I find that this is a very effective way to work on his grammer, etc. He is not a big reader, like his brother, so this game has been a very helpful tool. He finds it fun and ejoys getting the stickers.

I am probably going to go on to year 3, but will have a look at other games, as so many people seem to think that there are better ones out there.

Don't buy, 03 May 2006
Needed to spend ages re-configuring my PC to actualy get it to run. This program objects to standard Windows settings.

Too old to bother with, 28 Jan 2006
If you're happy enough to search the software company's website for some clues, fiddle around with your PC's virtual memory settings a few times and reboot the machine three times, you might get it to work for five minutes before it crashes.
My advice would be not to do all that with your child sitting on your lap: there were a lot of tears at the third reboot.
Save your money.

fantastic, 17 Nov 2003
i bought this CD ROM because they use it in school. My 3-year-old loves it, it goes on when he comes in from school and stays on with him playing visits to it throughout the day. I find it colourful and very entertaining as well and being educational. My son loves it when he wins the stickers for his sticker book and he knows the words on it word for word. I would highly recommend this CD ROM.

Disappointing, 16 Sep 2003
No instructions, no help. The 'friend', Woody tells you nothing and is nothing more than an irritation. The exercises are not explained. Eager children quickly loose interest.

An Abysmal Installing Adventure, 01 Jan 2009
Installing this in XP has been an excruciating waste of time. Initially it installed ok but insisted upon running from the CD alone. Why not install on the hard drive and let us run it from there? Every time it tried to undertake an action it accessed the drive, causing it to stutter. After three entries in the Spell It section, the whole thing hangs. Absolute rubbish.

There is an update for XP SP1 (what about SP2 and SP3?) and the instructions for it are buried in the help files. Once installed (so that the stuttering and hanging would resolve) it then failed to start, complaining about a sound card that didn't work (needless to say it did). So I uninstalled the whole thing and went through the process again.

This time it did work....except that the stuttering/hanging was back! At which point I gave up.

This is an old, poorly made piece of software. It may work on your PC or it may not - I'll be returning it to Amazon.

Dorling Kindersley should be ashamed of putting their name to it. Amazon should stop selling it immediately.


Failed Christmas Present, 26 Dec 2006
The initial loading of the program is frustrating and I certainly didn't expect to be downloading fixes on a new product. The screen does not maximise to the full size of the monitor and this cannot be fixed as mentioned buried in the help text. I would have expected both of these things to be mentioned in the advertisement of the cd rather than being hidden within the cd itself. I would expect better performance from D.K and indeed Amazon. This is the first time that I have used the internet to purchase presents and I will consider more carefully before doing so again. I will be returning this product as unfit for purpose.

Buggy Software, 04 Dec 2006
This software has been so frustrating for my 5 year old daughter to use; like other reviewers we experience the constant hanging of the program. Yes the workaround is fairly simple but this is a problem that should be fixed. I contacted the technical people at Dorling Kindersley, however they said they are aware of the problem but have no intention of fixing it. This is not what I would expect from a service orientated company and I would not buy a DK product in the future based on this experience.

That said, we have found the software to be somewhat limited, this was an experiment for us and I would have to say that learning to read is much better achieved the traditional way!

Fun and learning, 17 Oct 2006
This CDROM really manages to combine fun and learning in one. I bought it at the same time as I got Jump Ahead Year 1 (for age 5-6) and I and my son much prefer this one. Bear and Penguin's Big Reading Adventure has a much more modern feel to it and the navigation is much more convenient. The little introductory sequences are easy to follow; the characters speak slowly and clearly, but at the same time they are appealing and funny.

Children actually have to read words (and even understand sentences) to win, they can't just use guesswork or wait until a voice reads it out to them. In each game you can see that a child will actually learn or practise something; they are not just for fun. But they aren't all hard work by any means; my son is not that enthusiastic a reader, but the games were good enough to make him forget that for a while! His big sister also wanted a go.

The words and sentences are age-appropriate and the font is the kind used in schools (a handwriting font). The voices and spelling are British.

The reward system works very well: my son wants to get all the snowflakes by playing a game several times, and then was really pleased to get a virtual "sticker" in his album, then wanted to fill the album to win a song.

We had the same problem others have mentioned with the game getting stuck, and having to use Alt+Tab to make it go on. I would have given it half a star less in the rating, but this CDROM is so much better than any others of this kind we've got that I didn't have it in my heart to take off a whole star just for that.

One Very Satisfied Customer, 22 Dec 2005
Couldn't agree more with all the other positive reviews. This is pure play for our 3, 5 and 8 year olds. The encouragement given by the characters is very warm and motivating. There are three levels and each has effectively three levels of difficulty within those as well. It has much more than you'd expect for the price. A long user life to it.
The bug another reviewer mentions is a shame but it is overcome by simply clicking out of the activity/CdRom window and back in again. Nothing too inconvenient even for the smallest children. Also, clicking anywhere on the screen moves the sequence forward, passed any introduction you may have heard before.
The CdRom, and equally so for their Big Maths Adventure too,Big Bear and Penguin, are not the passive, 'thin' characters. Frequently, they are a little comedy duo keeping the atmosphere light and enticing. All Fabulous stuff.

good for the money - real scientific approach, 13 Dec 2008
I agree with the positive reviewer. My just 6yo can navigate and do most of these experiments. It's true that, if you make a mistake, you might have to start the experiment again... but I loved that: that's real life. I struggled for 5 minutes before I realized I had to pick up a piece of lab equipment in the right way. Absolutely - I'll be more careful next time! It isn't as 'big' a program as, say, Science Explorer, but I think the price reflects that.

As a homeschooler, this is the lab I don't have. Highly recommended.

Not so impressed, 26 Jun 2008
I bought this software for my daughter who is very computer literate for her age. She happily worked her way through all of the Jump Ahead Year 1 series from Focus Multimedia Ltd and thoroughly enjoyed them. More importantly, she clearly learned a lot too.

Perhaps it was because I was expecting the same level of engagement and explanation from Play and Learn: Science Experiments that I felt a little disappointed. The experiments simply aren't that engaging. Sure, they look good, but they don't actually explain very much.

Worse, they are often fiddly where one small mistake forces the child to start again from scratch, e.g. the very small drop area when positioning the cars on the first experiment: If you miss, the car falls off the bottom of the screen (rather than go back to its starting position) and the child is forced to press the reset button and start all over again. This and similar behaviour was so frustrating for my daughter that she lost interest rather more quickly than I had hoped.

The experiments were clearly designed to demonstrate some phenomena, which those of a scientific persuasion good easily spot. However, no explanation of the behaviour observed by the child was given. Again, using the first experiment as an example, the higher the ramp, the faster the car moved. This could have been used to introduce gravity, energy (potential converting to kinetic), momentum, etc etc, but sadly, all my child learned was that with the ramp on position '3', the car got to the third flag.

As another example, the question about how to pick up just the small metal objects and not the screwdriver is answered by 'move the magnet past them quickly'. But why? I was sitting with my child when she did this, so I was there to say, "perhaps the screwdriver is heavier (mass) and so takes longer to get moving (acceleration)". No such explanation is given by the software.

Last point: In my opinion, educational software should be designed to encourage and reward, but never to demotivate. Much educational software inadvertently overlooks this and here is an example: Rather than record how many questions were answered correctly and how many were answered wrongly, why not just record how many were right? Who cares if they answer a question wrong the first time, just let them have another go until they get it right. They still learn the same things, but they don't have this 'you have got 2 question wrong so far' following them through the activities. After all, it's not a competition.

Brilliant software for primary school child, 15 May 2006
The designers of this software really seem to understand young children. This programme looks simple - it's easy to understand and use, so my son, who can read a little, can already play it by himself. For a child who can read well, it will be a doddle to navigate. The artwork is appealling, and it's easy to adjust the level of difficulty. The experiments are genuinely interesting too!

The experiments are of course the best part of this software. Each one starts with information in very simple form. You can play with the experimental "equipment" before trying the actual experiments. The experiments themselves are designed as multiple choice questions. You may be able to guess the answer or work it out in your head, but you can also try it out on the equipment. The questions are genuinely interesting, and are graded from easiest to most difficult. For instance, there is a magnet with a number of objects. The easiest question asks what will be picked up by the magnet. The most difficult asks whether it would be possible to pick up just two of the three metal objects, and offers some possible ways to do it.

The best thing of all about the experiments is that they teach the scientific method, rather than just a series of facts. Of course, the facts are there (e.g. a magnet picks up metal), but you get to them via scientific questioning and experiment. It is far more useful for small children to learn to pose questions and find answers than to squirrel away facts at this age, since they can apply this method to all kinds of problems. As an added bonus, it will also keep them absorbed for much longer!

The interface is a real pleasure to use. The main menu has pictures as well as the words for each of the 9 scientific areas (gravity, liquids, air, hot & cold, motion, light & colour, electricity, sound and magnetism). When you move your mouse over one of the pictures, it does something interesting. From inside each scientific area you can move from one experimental area to the next, and back again - with easy-to-use arrows. All the mouse movements required are reasonably intuitive, from drag-and-drop pieces on a circuit board to drag-and-let-go pulling of a spring-loaded knob.

The advice on the package suggests age 7-11 years. I would say that this could be used by inquisitive pre-schoolers with adult involvement - the more difficult questions may be over their heads, but there are many very simple ones that they will be able to relate to, such as the movement of cars on a track. For independent use, I would say that any child who can read should be able to have a go. The upper age limit is about right - teenagers may still enjoy it and find it an engaging way to learn and review basic science, but they will probably get through it so fast that it won't seem worth the price.

Very useful software, 15 Jan 2005
I found this software very useful and it kept my son engrossed for a long time, he loves the sticker rewards for each task completed.

My only grip is that there are no instructions, although we quickly worked out how what to do once we clicked around a few times.

It's getting old now, 04 Dec 2004
I was very dissapointed with this release. It's now 6 years old, but there was no mention of the release date, so it came as a surprise to me to see ancient graphics and ideas and an annoying Timmy Mallet sounding "guide". There must be better software out there now for Keystage development

Perfect distraction, 03 Feb 2004
Finally, something educational that distracted my son from his xbox. He sat for 2 hours using this software and was totally engrossed. He loved the sticker rewards, just like so many sticker books stacked on his bedroom shelf. He came away with a great sense of achievment. Apart from being a fun way to learn, it is a postive experience and is helping my son's confidence.
I'm off to buy Year 4

Fantastic fun while learning., 20 Oct 2003
I bought this software to help give my dyslexic 7 year old a little confidence during the summer holidays. Not only has she enjoyed it but my other, younger kids also enjoyed playing with it, as have several of the neighbours kids. They all think its fun and not like learning at all (?)

Another Great Title From the DK Stable, 12 Oct 2003
This is a great way to get reluctant scholars to apply themselves to Maths and English. There are also modules on telling the time, nature and geography. The work modules are first class and are of the high standard that we have come to expect from Dorling Kindersley. However there are a couple of negatives that stop me from awarding this five stars: firstly the interface is cumbersome - on completion of a task for the first time, children are rewarded with a sticker for their digital sticker book. However, moving from the work area to the sticker book and back to the work area is time consuming and unnecessarily complicated (you can save several sticers to stick in at the end, but children like to see the results of their hard work at the time). Secondly, you have to listen to every sound clip and there does not appear to be a way to "double-click" through it. Having said that, children are less likely to be put off by this and they will be more tolerant of the grating voice of the "host" - a talking pencil called Dash Scribble. However, when you get down to the Maths and English modules the units are well thought out and offer a fun alternative to homework - my eight year old son will often choose to do Learning Ladder over more conventional maths homework. All in all, this is great value for money and complements school work perfectly. So, if you can set aside the adult gripes about the interface, I can heartily recommend it to anyone with a child in, or about to go into Year 3, anywhere in the world.

Brilliant!, 01 Mar 2006
My 3 year old son is a huge fan of Bob the Builder and he absolutely loves this CD. The games are of varying difficulty and he does need help with some of them but his mouse skills are improving by the day. The games are fun and not too obviously educational. The only problem I have with this CD is getting him off the computer!

Yes We can, 30 Jan 2006
My 4 year old has dropped the tv for this game. It has taught him keyboard skills, mouse skills, quicker than any of those Jump Ahead cds. There are probably not enough games but he hasnt got bored after a month so thats not bad. Buy it and get your kid interacting rather than just wathcing.

Can bob entertain us?, 28 Nov 2002
The answer is "yes he can" this program is entertaining for the under 5's. There is lots of chances to help Bob with fixing pipes and building bridges and knocking them down! You can decorate amazing cakes and help round up the hedgehogs. These are just a few of the wonderfully entertaining games to play with Bob. The children won't even realise they are gaining or inproving their skills. Lots of fun.