Cheap Reader Rabbit I Can Read With Phonics 1st and 2nd Grade (Software) (Macintosh, Windows) Price

Each stop along the Road to Imagination has a reading-related theme, such as an owl looking for words with long and short vowel sounds for the letter e. Animated hot spots reinforce the theme, as well as activities that involve rhyming, syllabication, listening to letter sounds, and word recognition. There are also a couple of books to be found at each stop along the road (30 in all), with questions at the end that inspire both reading comprehension and imaginative flights of fancy. An easy-to-use recording program enables kids to read the books out loud and play back their words. Wordville Station has four games that teach compound words, vowel sounds, alphabetizing, and matching opposites, homonyms, and rhyming words.

I Can Read has some bright moments: Reader Rabbit loosens up a bit and imitates Ed Sullivan, Dick Clark, and former president Clinton as he emcees an alphabetization exercise called the Alphabet Dance. The vagaries of the English language are exposed when a bird of paradise plant transforms into an exotically plumed bird of paradise, and then that same bird rolls a pair of dice. A tiny bit of sophistication seems to have seeped into the wide-eyed world of Reader Rabbit, and it will probably be appreciated by kids who have cut their pop-culture teeth on the rapid-fire fare provided by Nickelodeon and Nintendo.

Fear not, Reader Rabbit and Mat the Mouse still run a pretty straight-laced establishment, with plenty of opportunities for parents to check progress, control gameplay and levels, and educate themselves about educating their young readers. But there's a bit more sass here than in the Reader Rabbit programs designed for younger kids--an intelligent way for the series to adjust to its increasingly sophisticated audience. (Ages 5 to 8) --Anne Erickson