[{"TitleName":"Read-Right-Away - Reading Pack 1","Publisher":"H.S. Software","Author":"Bob Pape","YearOfRelease":"1987","ZxDbId":"0012037","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 44, Sep 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-08-27","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nAssistant Editor: Barnaby Page\r\nStaff Writers: Richard Eddy, Lloyd Mangram, Ian Phillipson, Ben Stone\r\nPhotographers: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson\r\nOffice: Sally Newman\r\nTechnical Editor: Simon N Goodwin\r\nAdventure: Derek Brewster\r\nPBM: Brendon Kavanagh\r\nStrategy: Philippa Irving\r\nLondon: John Minson\r\nContributors: Jon Bates, Robin Candy, Mike Dunn, Franco Frey, Dominic Handy, Nick Roberts, Mark Rothwell, Paul Sumner\r\nEducational Software: Rosetta McLeod\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n\r\nProduction Controller: David Western\r\nArt Director: Gordon Druce\r\nIllustrator: Oliver Frey\r\nLayout: Tony Lorton, Mark Kendrick\r\nProcess and Planning: Matthew Uffindell, Jonathan Rignall, Nick Orchard\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Nick Wild\r\nSubscriptions: Denise Roberts\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\n\r\nEditorial and Production: [redacted]\r\n\r\nMail Order and Subscriptions: [redacted]\r\n\r\nADVERTISING\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypesetting by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow\r\n\r\nColour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]\r\n\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group.\r\n\r\nDistributed by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced whole or in part without written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return any written material sent to CRASH unless accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material which may be used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\n©1987 Newsfield Limited\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"CRASH COURSE\r\n\r\nBy Rosetta McLeod\r\n\r\nCRASH COURSE is back with a roundup of educational software for the new school year.\r\n\r\nAnd ROSETTA MCLEOD, who runs computer-assisted learning for the regional council in Aberdeen, will take the class in Crash every three months from now on.\r\n\r\nSo the next Crash COURSE will be in issue 47, on sale 26 November. Read it - after all, there's never anything else for teachers to do around that time of year.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime you may talk QUIETLY among yourselves.\r\n\r\nLEEDS UNIVERSITY physics student R L Navin has designed a very interesting adventure/arcade game for the 10-16 age group. The player must visit a series of locations, solving a physics-related problem in each. I've seen part of the design, and it has some potential - now Navin is looking for someone to program it with a view to marketing this educational game commercially. Anyone interested can write to me at Crash, and I'll forward the letters.\r\n\r\nFOR EVERYONE who's asked about catalogues of educational software very good catalogues are available from Rickets Educational Media, [redacted], and from Micro-Jenn Software, [redacted] (if writing to Micro-Jenn, specify that it's Spectrum software you're interested in).\r\n\r\nFRACTIONS 2\r\n\r\nProducer: Key Software, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £4 on tape, £5.50 on microdrive\r\nAge Range: 9 to secondary-remedial level\r\n\r\nThe first two programs on this tape are leaching programs, and the last tests the player's knowledge. Are They The Same? shows that when the numerator and denominator are equal the fraction must equal one, and that fractions such as 2/4, 3/6 and 4/8 are equal.\r\n\r\nWork Them Out extends this to the numerical concept of equivalent fractions. And Match Them sets some fraction problems. Overall, Fractions 2 is an excellent package, and the teaching sequences make very good use of graphics.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: good\r\nGraphics: extremely good visual representations and clear colours\r\nGeneral Rating: A very effective and attractive method of teaching fractions; it'll give the teacher/parent good information on the child's grasp of the concepts, too.\r\n\r\nDECIMALS\r\n\r\nProducer: Key Software\r\nRetail Price: £4 in tape, £5.50 on microdrive\r\nAge Range: 11 to secondary-remedial level\r\n\r\nDecimals tests a pupil's understanding of place-value series and the multiplication and division of decimal fractions by ten and 100. A question might ask, for example, 'what is 3.7 x 100?'. If the child gets it wrong a help window appears and the process is taught clearly and graphically, using the example in which the mistake was made. This very useful little program can be used to reinforce understanding of decimal fractions and place-value series.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: very good\r\nGraphics: clear graphical representations in the help window, attractive colour\r\nGeneral Rating: The help window is a particularly useful feature of this valuable program.\r\n\r\nLOOK SHARP!\r\n\r\nProducer: Mirrorsoft, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £7.95\r\nAge Range: 7+\r\nAuthor: Widgit\r\n\r\nWritten by a head teacher, the two programs in this package are aimed at sharpening observation skills and visual memory.\r\n\r\nThe first, Old MacDonald's Farm, contains three simple games. Memory challenges the player to reconstruct a farmyard scene from memory; Odd-One-Out tests observation with a spot-the-difference game, and Snap is the old favourite for one or two players.\r\n\r\nLook Sharp's second main program, S.O.R.T. (standing for Space Observer Recruitment Test), measures the player's readiness for a space mission to the Spiral Galaxy. After some practice SORTs, SORT 1 tests visual perception: two columns each made up of three picture elements appear on the screen and the player must spot when elements match.\r\n\r\nThe next SORT deals with visual discrimination. This time, six versions of the same picture are shown, one slightly different from the others - the player has to pick the odd one out. The pictures are quite small with lots of detail, so it's not an easy task.\r\n\r\nAnd the final SORT tests visual memory - I discovered mine isn't very good! A picture with nine different elements is shown, and when it vanishes the player has to reconstruct the picture from memory, putting each element in the right place.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: fast, but single-key commands make it ideal for very young children\r\nGraphics: very nice indeed\r\nGeneral Rating: Very good value for money, with a strong fun element.\r\n\r\nMYSELF AND US\r\n\r\nProducer: Key Software\r\nRetail Price: £4 in tape, £5.50 on microdrive\r\nAge Range: 7 to secondary level\r\n\r\nThese two were designed to provide a simple introduction to graphs, but they can also be used separately. Myself is a very simple program which provides the child with information about himself derived from his date of birth - the Chinese year of his birth, his age in years, star sign, number of days lived and day of birth, and an appropriate extract from the rhyme Monday's Child. All this can be printed out on a ZX-type printer.\r\n\r\nIn the second program, Us, the user chooses a graph from one of the following categories: Starsign, Day Of Birth, Favourite Pet, Favourite Colour, Letters in First Name, Favourite Sport. Rooms in The House and Spare (which can be used for a topic of the teacher's choice). Up to 36 users can input information in each category, and then a graph of this information is displayed. So the relationship between the facts and their graphical representation is strengthened, and Myself And Us not only allows children to enter data about themselves but can also give such information as the day of the week on which an event happened or the star sign of a famous person.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: very last, with clear screen instructions\r\nGraphics: the block, line and solid graphs are all clearly shown, with effective colour\r\nGeneral Rating: Excellent and enjoyable.\r\n\r\nREAD-RIGHT-AWAY\r\n\r\nProducer: H S Software, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £7.95\r\nAge Range: 5 - 8\r\n\r\nThe two programs here aim to teach children to read using the phonic method - sounding out each letter of the word.\r\n\r\nSplashdown involves completing three-letter words. It takes place at sea; each player has a boat made up of three-letter words with one letter missing. If the correct letter is chosen, an aeroplane collects the letter and bombs the 'word boat', which then explodes and sinks into the player's underwater store, providing a visual record of the finished word.\r\n\r\nThe menu allows you to set the skill level, and choose sequences of words which are similar (eg three all beginning with c and ending with t) or completely different (eg s-t, p-d). The position of the missing letter can also be selected.\r\n\r\nFirefight involves completing words with pairs of letters. This time, the player has to rescue the heroine from the top of a burning building by bridging holes in the building's floor with letters' Again, there's a choice of skill levels, and the letter pairs can be selected.\r\n\r\nBoth games are very nicely presented and fun to play while providing practice in useful skills.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: fast\r\nGraphics: very eye-catching and attractive, with effective colour.\r\nGeneral Rating: Two enjoyable programs with built-in flexibility, so you can cater for each child.\r\n\r\nCOUNT WITH OLIVER\r\n\r\nProducer: Mirrorsoft, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £7.95\r\nAge Range: 4 - 7\r\nAuthor: Marmalade Software\r\n\r\nThese two games introduce young children to the basics of counting and simple addition and subtraction. In Toyshop, Oliver asks the player to count the toys in a shop window. Three different kinds of toys appear in three colours, and the program introduces the idea of sets as well as numbers.\r\n\r\nToyshop is structured very well, becoming more difficult only when correct responses show the child's coping well.\r\n\r\nLollipop gets further into simple arithmetic. First the prayer has to help Oliver buy lollipops of various colours from the shop; then the quantities of lollipops are added or subtracted. The second time you play the game in a session, two-digit numbers are introduced.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: responsive\r\nGraphics: simple but attractive\r\nGeneral Rating: Two well-structured, easy-to-handle programs which children will enjoy.\r\n\r\nWORDS AND PICTURES\r\n\r\nProducer: Chalksoft, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £9.95\r\nAge Range: 3 - 7\r\n\r\nWords And Pictures contains four programs which should encourage children to read. It uses 47 words common in early-reading schemes, and deals both with words and with sentences. In the two words programs, four colourful pictures are shown and a word is printed underneath in lower-case letters. The child must match it to the right picture. The two sentence programs are similar. A nice feature for classroom use: you can store a list of names and scores, and the computer will call each child to the program when it's his turn. The booklet is good, too.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: good; single-key commands\r\nGraphics: very appealing, with excellent colour\r\nGeneral Rating: An attractive package, making excellent use of graphics and sound, suitable for home and school.\r\n\r\nHOTLINE QUIZ\r\n\r\nProducer: Chalksoft, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £9.95\r\nAge Range: 8 to adult\r\n\r\nThis is one of the best quiz programs on the market. The player must repair the hotline telephone link between the world's leaders by correctly answering up to 20 questions. The question sets cover topics ranging from Holidays to Words to Cowboys to Monsters to Pirates.\r\n\r\nThey're graded by difficulty, and new questions can be entered and saved. 11 children are allowed to research and word the questions and answers themselves, they'll be involved in a very effective learning process.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: good; single-key commands\r\nGraphics: limited but attractive, with good colour\r\nGeneral Rating: An excellent and flexible program which can be enjoyed by all the family.\r\n\r\nSETS\r\n\r\nProducer: AlphaPlus Educational Software, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £8.95 plus 90p postage and packing\r\nAge Range: GCSE and GCE O level students\r\n\r\nSets is the first program in a series of mathematical software from Alphaplus, presenting a new approach to maths education - helping students develop confidence and a deeper understanding of mathematics. The series is based on the GCSE and GCE O level syllabuses.\r\n\r\nThis attractive package includes an extremely comprehensive and well-produced 47-page manual with examples and problems to solve. (No cheating!)\r\n\r\nThe menu offers six options covering sets and Venn diagrams. For the option DRAW VENN DIAGRAMS, for instance, the manual sets 12 problems for the student to solve on paper before using the program to check the answers.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: good\r\nGraphics: clear and effective, with colour used sensibly to aid understanding\r\nGeneral Rating: A very good, comprehensive package developed by experts and aimed at the serious student.\r\n\r\nAUTO CHEF\r\n\r\nProducer: Cases Computer Simulations, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £5.95\r\nAge Range: older student/adults\r\n\r\nIn Auto Chef you become Managing Director of a restaurant chain. The object of this simulation is to quickly increase your £1 million capital to £25 million and take over Trust House Forte!\r\n\r\nYou can up business information onscreen, ranging from a balance sheet to a bar chart summarising a survey of customers' eating habits.\r\n\r\nAnd you have to remember there's a greater gross profit percentage on restaurants and cafeterias than on fast-food outlets and takeaways.\r\n\r\nMenu prices, too, must be considered - but if prices are too high, customers will be lost.\r\n\r\nBulk purchase of food and wine, advertising costs, wages, fixtures and fittings... all these have to be taken into account, and all the time you need to keep the shareholders happy or they'll force you to resign!\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: fast, with simple control keys\r\nGraphics: clear bar charts and histograms, but limited colour\r\nGeneral Rating: For business studies students, excellent practice in reading accounts and balance sheets.\r\n\r\nQUICK THINKING\r\n\r\nProducer: Mirrorsoft, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £6.95\r\nAge Range: 6 - 12\r\nAuthor: Widgit\r\n\r\nThe Quick Thinking , cassette contains two early-learning programs, Sum Vaders and Robot Tables.\r\n\r\nSum Vaders, for one or two players, gives practice in adding and subtracting a number appears on an Invading spaceship and another on the alien robot which it drops, and these two numbers must be added or subtracted before the robot lands. A wrong answer leaves the world defenceless against the robot invaders'\r\n\r\nIn Robot Tables the player controls a machine manufacturing robots and has to make sure components are assembled in the right order. Again, several levels of difficulty are offered, and it's also possible to control the speed of the machine. At the fastest speed and the most difficult level this is quite a challenge, and the player really needs to know their multiplication tables.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: responsive, with simple control keys\r\nGraphics: very attractive to children, with clear bright colours\r\nGeneral Rating: A good, value-for-money package.\r\n\r\nPHOTOSYNTHESIS\r\n\r\nProducer: AVP Computing, [redacted]\r\nRetail Price: £10\r\nAge Range: O level students\r\n\r\nPhotosynthesis is a major topic in all biology syllabuses, and this program aims to give factual information and help revision.\r\n\r\nThe menu offers four options: The Structure Of A Leaf, Adaptations Of A Leaf, Photosynthesis Experiments, and The Chemistry Of Photosynthesis.\r\n\r\nIn the section on leaf structure, the user has to label correctly the diagram of a transverse section of a leaf - but before starting he can choose to see a correctly-labelled diagram. When the labels have been entered, the computer does the marking and presents the option of trying again, going on to another section, or seeing the correctly-labelled diagram.\r\n\r\nThe leaf-adaptations option shows how leaves are designed to perform their functions efficiently. Again, the computer will demonstrate the various adaptations and the student is asked to match each adaptation to the role it plays - absorption of sunlight, transportation of gases and so on.\r\n\r\nBefore starting the third section the student should have seen demonstrations of several photosynthesis experiments. The computer demonstrates the apparatus used to test a leaf for starch; to show that light, carbon dioxide and chlorophyll are necessary for photosynthesis; and to show that oxygen is produced.\r\n\r\nEach stage of an experiment is outlined in simple terms and illustrated with graphics, and then the result of the experiment is clearly stated. The user must match the apparatus to the right experiment.\r\n\r\nThe final section of Photosynthesis, The Chemistry of Photosynthesis, contains a very clear demonstration of the reaction equation, and again the computer tests and marks the student's knowledge.\r\n\r\nPhotosynthesis is a wide and complex topic, so this program doesn't attempt to cover every facet - but it's a very useful aid for O level.\r\n\r\nKeyboard play: good\r\nGraphics: simple, but used to good effect; limited colour\r\nGeneral Rating: A useful aid which makes a very difficult topic much more accessible.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"94","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Rosetta McLeod","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]