Pre-school games

There is a LOT of preschool age online games out there, wow. Since I have a 3 year old daughter, Sage, I have a little experience with educational online games. Sage loves to play on the computer; I typically search the playhouse Disney website for games with her favorite characters in them. She likes Little Einstein’s, Handy Manny and Jungle Junction, just to name a few. Today however, I extended my search. I started to look outside the character’s she is familiar with and I found a whole new world of educational online games. They do all tend to have some common characteristics. They all have easy user interfaces, with some sort of narration, keep in mind kids this age cannot read, so how else are you going to communicate with them, right. They are also filled with bright colors and usually some sort of animated character, whether it is familiar or not.

For the preschool, kindergarten age group, the lessons the games are reinforcing are limited. They pretty much stick to the following categories:

• alphabet (identifying letters and sounds)
• numbers (counting, simple adding and subtracting)
• shapes
• colors
• memory
• spot the difference

One thing I can verify from personal experience is these games do entertain. If I would let her, Sage would play computer games all night. I always limit her game playing, and she never tires of it before I tell her to shut it down. So, the game makers have that part right, they know how to reel the kids in and keep them in. At this age, the kids should need the parents’ permission, and since the games are advertised as being educational, that reels the parents in. What I want to know is, is their claim valid? Is Sage actually learning anything from playing these games? My honest opinion, I think she is, but I want to prove it.

In order to prove that Sage is in fact learning something from these games I need to find a game she has never played before (that’s easy) but I also need it to teach her something she doesn’t already know. She knows how to count, and her alphabet. She getting better at adding and subtracting, what doesn’t she know how to do? Well, she can’t read yet. So, I have found a game that teaches the words of colors by sight. I am going to use this game exclusively to try to teach her how to identify the words red, yellow, green etc. I will log the amount of time she spends playing this game. At the same time, I am going to teach her how to read the words of numbers (one, two, three etc.) I will do this using a more traditional approach, paper and pen or chalk and a chalkboard. I will then compare and see what she can better recognize. I will keep you posted on the progress and post the final results in one month.