Edutainment Software Mia's Reading Adventures: The Bugaboo Bugs!

Some of you may know that I do pre-school homeschooling. I don't really follow a set of syllabus. I do a lot of reading to my children and also whatever workbooks I managed to get from book sales. Usually I follow the syllabus from the workbooks. Can't go much wrong there. I also look for educational activities on the internet, especially on topics that my children are interested in. There are also interactive websites such as Starfall.com and Iknowthat.com that my children enjoy playing. Another teaching tool I use are educational softwares. To date the software most enjoyed are the Jumpstart ones.



Now there's are new edutainment software called Mia Reading: The Bugaboo Bugs!
"Edutainment" sounds like a good way to learn - education + entertainment. We all know children learn best when it's in the form of playing.



The Adventure
Basically the software is about a little mouse (the heroin of the adventure) trying to get rid of the Bugaboo Bugs from her house. Her family has lived there for generations and now, these Bugaboo Bugs put them in danger of being evicted. You see, these horrible bugs might cause the humans to call the exterminators and then, everyone including Mia, will be out on the street.

The Education
Target = 5-9 year olds (Perfect for my no.1 and 2)
The educational activities are integrated into the story.
The following is what your children will learn:

• associating images to words
• adverbs
• phonics
• rhymes
• spelling
• sentence structure
• vocabulary
• reading comprehension
• word recognition
• etc... etc...etc...

How difficult is it?
The software supports the school's curriculum from kindergarten to grade three. There are 12 reading and writing skills activities with 4 distinct levels of difficulty. So I guess you can say it is a progressive way to learn to read. Of course with all computer activities, children must be given a time limit. Educational software should be a supplementary teaching tool. It serves as a good break from mundane worksheets and boring homework.

To see screen shots of the game, visit this Kutoka's page.