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125 of 127 found the following review helpful:
 Best toddler software I've foundNov 08, 2002
By C. S. Laird
"bibliomom"
We've tried Pooh Toddler, Little Bear, JumpStart and a handful of other toddler geared software and Reader Rabbit has been the favorite of both myself and my son. It's easy to skip the intros (which are short anyway) and get straight to the game; it works for a wide range of toddler skills; and it has activities appropriate to a toddler's attention span, namely short and colorful without being overly abrasive. Some of the games have more of a point than others ("can you find three matching animals?" vs. "pick a song!") but they can all be triggered by 1) point and click 2) mouse over or 3) random key pounding. This has been great for my son (who didn't get the whole mouse thing until he was 2 1/2) and means that no game is too advanced to key pound your way through. There are about eight different games on the main disc; you can pick a song to sing, match animal babies to their parents, place shapes to complete a picture, and match letter sounds to pictures -- among other things. I really like that a lot of the short tasks are rewarded with a *short* song and animation piece -- not great art, but not annoying, either. And my son loves them.I will warn that the alphabet and the shape game can be frustrating if they accidently pick up a letter/shape on mouse over because it then has to be placed with the mouse -- random key pounding won't unstick it. Also, my son was prone to accidently bringing up the menu through key pounding and I'd have to come and fix it. Finally, I've had the old and new versions of RR Toddler; the new one has a second disc which my son had zero interest in. On the main disc there are a few asthetic changes and a dreamship game in a completely different section, which my son loves but which has no real education value and is a little harder to access. On the good side, the new Reader Rabbit *seems* to run just fine on Mac OS X so I don't have to run 9 to get it to work. Hooray! (BTW, Little Bear Toddler has the same point and click/mouse over/random keys function, but I don't think it's as fun. The games that *require* mouse skills in toddlers have gotten shoved in the closet.)
29 of 29 found the following review helpful:
Learning can be funJul 17, 2002
By Elan M. Sandelin
"jollye"
My toddler loved this software. She was intially amused by the colors and the music. The more she played the more she learned. She knows all of her body parts, including the elbow, because of this software. The combination of colorful backdrops and catchy music keeps a toddlers attention. It helped that the software did not require many clicks of the mouse, simply moving it and holding it over an object changed the games.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
 The perfect introduction to the computer!Dec 15, 2002
Our 2-year old daughter was fascinated by the computer, but all the age-appropriate software we had was either much to simplistic (actions required only banging on the keyboard to produce a result), or required a considerable amount of help from an adult due to the need to point and click. She was very interested in the mouse, but could never quite get the concept of pointing and clicking, which was always very frustrating for her. My favorite thing about Reader Rabbit Toddler is the method it uses for teaching little ones how to use the mouse. Making selections requires only moving the very large mouse pointer to an object on the screen, then holding it in place for about 5 seconds. A series of dots lights up, one at a time, with a pinging sound, to indicate that the object is going to be selected. This reduces accidental selections, and allows plenty of time to change your mind and move the pointer to a different object. (Clicking to select the object will also work, which our daughter caught on to very easily once she mastered the "pointing" part.) Within about 3 days, she was able to use the mouse to select and play the different games with very little help. After about a week, she could play completely unassisted, and had completely mastered pointing and clicking a short time later. The software provides a wide variety of activities, all of which are launched from the same "home" location, which is very easy to return to when finished with an activity. The activities are cute, colorful, and very fun for this age group. Activities including a coloring book, which requires only rapid movement of the mouse to fill in the pictures; a music activity, in which Reader Rabbit does finger plays for various familiar songs; some simple games involving letters and numbers; and some animal matching games. (There are some others, but I can't recall them off the top of my head.) It seems to me that the primary focus of the software is to be cute and entertaining enough to keep a child's attention while helping them to learn fundamental computer skills necessary for using any software. It has been about 3 months since our daughter first started using the software, and she has already moved on to other, more complex software (her current favorite is Jump Start Pre-K -- much better than Reader Rabbit Preschool.) I suppose that my only complaint about the software is that it didn't really "grow" with her ability, which would have made it last longer. Although, we probably would have gotten much more use out of it had we started using it when she was younger. (The box says ages 1-3, and I wouldn't hesitate to try it out with a 1-year old on my lap. I think a 3-year old would master it very quickly.) I would highly recommend this software to anyone who wants to introduce their toddler to the computer.
48 of 53 found the following review helpful:
Good but...Nov 19, 2003
By Katherine Ko
"powellka"
I bought reader rabbit toddler for my 2 year old. (She turned two in sept). It was the first game she was permitted to play, her first real exposure to using the computer. On the plus side, it did a great job teaching her to use the mouse. All of the activities can be accessed without needing to coordinate clicking. That's good because it's pretty tough for little hands to do that sometimes. The little games are okay. There are 3 that are mainly practicing mouse movements, 1 just fun one, 2 straight matching, and 2 matching with strategy. She had a hard time getting the baby basket bingo game where you match a baby animal (hidden in a basket) to its mother or father, based solely on the sound it makes. She knew which animal made which sound, but she didn't seem to realize that a baby cow can only belong to a mommy cow. (and not a mommy duck for example). She really loved this game. She wanted to play it non stop for a few weeks...Maybe 3. And then she mastered it. She still likes to play it every day, but it only takes 10-20 minutes of it for her to get bored. For some 2 year olds 10-20 minutes is a lot, but not mine. She'll happily sit through a feature length movie, or read book after book after book, just so you get an idea. There is a second CD that comes with it but all the activities except one are way too old for toddlers. Activities that involve actual math (adding 2 digit numbers, etc). So that's not real useful. There are a few annoying things, but they are small. For example in the letter matching/phonics activity their example of an "S" word is shoe. True, it does start with an s, why not use a word that is not an exception to the "S sound" rule. Sock or soup or something... Also, there's no way to turn of the instructions for each game. Ellen gets frustrated as she has to sit there listening to them again and again. Also, in the bubble castle activity, there are always 5 animals, so they are always counting to 5. Some variety might have been better for teaching the kids counting. And lastly, you HAVE to use the CD to run the game. My husband (a computer science ph.D student) tried several ways to just run it from the hard drive, but it is impossible. So we have the problem of the 2 year old who wants to take the disk in and out of the drive to play her game. Anyway...Bottom line, your kid will like it. Your kid will learn to use the mouse. Your kid will probably outgrow it quickly. Try to find it on sale.
27 of 28 found the following review helpful:
My 22-month-old plays it by herself and loves it.Nov 10, 2002
We have a different version, I think, but the point is the same: it's great. This game taught my daughter how to use the mouse (without clicking) at 21 months of age. At first she cried to play it all the time and that was difficult, but as soon as I realized she could do it by herself it has been fantastic. The fact that it doesn't require mouse clicks is crucial. We limit the amount of time she plays it each day so she doesn't become a computer junkie, but at least it is educational. (Tip: set your screen resolution to 800x600 or 640x480 and turn your mouse speed way down using the control panel. The slower the mouse, the less control they need.)
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