COMPUTER SOFTWARE REVIEW
BAILEY’S BOOK HOUSE
Publisher: Edmark
Reviewers' names: Nguyet Tinh and Heather Prior (Kindergarten Teachers,
Target Population: Grades PreK
– 2
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:
Bailey’s Book House is an educational software program that introduces and reinforces letter recognition, phonemic awareness, rhyming words, relationship of images to texts, positional concepts, vocabulary enrichment, techniques of reading and writing, and utilization of the left-to-right progression. The five activities are taught through cartoon characters, catchy tunes, and playful words. In "Edmo & Houdini," students learn about positional concepts such as in, out, over, under, on, off, and behind. In the "Letter Machine," students match letters, letter names, and letter sounds. "Make-A-Story" lets students construct their own stories and hear them read aloud, and "Read-A-Rhyme" lets them create their own silly nursery rhymes by experimenting with rhyming word families. Finally, in "Kid Cards," students design different whimsical cards to suit their personal needs. Three of the five activities contain multiple modes of operation; these modes of operation are referred to as "Explore and Discover" and/or "Question and Answer." A noteworthy aspect of the program is the "Preference" feature found in the "Letter Machine," "Make-A-Story," and "Kid Cards" activities. Through this feature, the teacher can customize the on-screen keyboard to show capital/lower case letters or show custom specialized keyboard settings, among other selections.
CONTENT CLARITY:
The content of the program is appropriate and accurate for the target population of PreK – 2nd grade. We feel that the program is incomplete because although there are multiple phonics and language arts skills, they are minimally covered. The areas we would expand on are recognizing story elements, creating messages through words and images, and matching words. The program is easy to use; however, the "start-up" screen is confusing because of the program’s interface. Specifically, the initial view contains too many pictures in an area without clearly defined borders. The cartoon characters favor no specific gender or ethnic group; the program appears to be free of biases.
TECHNICAL QUALITY:
The program is simple to install and run, and only requires limited computer experience to operate. Although the "start-up" screen is a bit confusing, the students should not have difficulty accessing the different activities. The navigation system, which includes a map and several icons, is easy to use but is available only after entering the individual activity. We found Bailey’s Book House aesthetically pleasing with its colorful graphics, catchy tunes, and cartoon characters. The graphics, sound, and animation serve as functional components of the application and enhance students’ interest in the program.
USE OF TECHNOLOGY:
Bailey’s Book House makes good use of the computer. However, we feel that it does not fully meet our phonics/language arts curriculum goals. To some extent, the software successfully uses multimedia components because students would enjoy connecting through sight and sound in "Edmo & Houdini," "Letter Machine," and "Read-A-Rhyme." The other two activities, "Make-A-Story" and "Kid Cards," are not as beneficial to the multimedia aspect of our curriculum. In the case of the "Letter Machine," the teacher can modify the type of print by using capital or lowercase letters. In addition, the teacher can use either a standard keyboard or an "alphabet" keyboard. This keyboard customization feature would be used as a way to help the students distinguish capital and lowercase letters and practice keyboarding skills. Furthermore, the keyboard option can be viewed as a customization tool because the teacher is given the power to change the program to meet her/his objectives.
ROLE OF STUDENTS:
We believe that Bailey’s Book House is both empowering and constraining. In one sense, the activities, "Edmo & Houdini," "Letter Machine" and "Read-A-Rhyme," are empowering because they give the students the ability to initiate and addresses their learning needs. In "Read-A-Rhyme," there are rhymes such as "Rub-A-Dub-Dub, Three kids in a tub." The students have the option of clicking on a picture of a tub or a shrub. If they pick the picture of a shrub, the rhyme will change to say, "Rub-A-Dub-Dub, Three kids in a shrub." It will also illustrate, "Three kids in a shrub." This activity helps the students to pick out words that sound the same from a choice of words such as "tub," "bus," or "shrub." In the "Letter Machine" and "Read-A-Rhyme" activities, the students have an opportunity to make their own decisions. Based on those decisions, they are better able to value their own learning and thinking processes. On the other hand, "Make-A-Story" and "Kid Cards" are constraining because they limit the students’ abilities to make decisions on word choices and sentence structures. The cards range from "birthday" cards to "thank you" cards. This inability to individualize the cards inhibits creativity and critical thinking skills. The students are not constructing a product or making changes to the program. Of note, group interaction of students can be promoted through the use of a large-screen projection system.
ROLE OF THE TEACHER:
All of the programs are self-contained with the exception of "Kid Cards." We would recommend that the teacher serve as a coach in printing out the cards. The "Letter Machine" program is the only activity that has the flexibility to be modified or changed by the teacher, allowing him/her to meet the needs of individual students. Although the program includes teacher materials, the software has no internal or external management tools. Student-teacher interaction can be promoted through a whole-group presentation. For example, we would supplement the "Edmo & Houdini" activity with an extension activity that uses a stuffed dog and flash cards and ask students to demonstrate their knowledge of the positional words taught in the software.
CLASSROOM USAGE:
The program fits appropriately into the kindergarten reading/language arts curriculum using either a one-to-one approach or a whole-group overview lesson. We would suggest that first-time users correlate the program’s activities with concepts being taught. For example, if the teacher were teaching positional concepts, then the students would be using the "Edmo & Houdini" activity.
CRITICAL SUMMARY:
This program is suitable for the target population, PreK – 2nd grade. Bailey’s Book House supports a reading/language arts curriculum by extending and reinforcing concepts of language that include listening, writing, and phonics skills. For example, the program builds listening skills because children must listen to directions in order to understand what to do. It models writing skills through the use of highlighted text and left-to-right progression. Finally, the program fosters phonics skills through repetition of beginning and ending word sounds.
OVERALL RATING: 6 out of 10
EXPLANATION OF RATING:
We found Bailey’s Book House to offer appropriate support for concepts in the primary reading/language arts curriculum. However, due to the limitations of several of its activities, we decided to give it a modest rating of a 6.
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