Today marks one week of DJ using the program.
The sessions are very short in length, between 5 and 10 minutes, which is nice because it keeps DJ's attention for the most part.
We have been doing between 2 and 4 sessions day, usually two in the morning, and two in the afternoons. Yesterday because DJ had a guest over we took the day off.
DJ is working in the Letter Land section of the program, where the program is working to familiarize him with the keyboard. Until today DJ has had no problems with the program going through and working with it steadily.
Today was a struggle for him though. Today's program was working with using capital letters, using the shift button. Since the program says for parents to limit their help I wasn't paying as much attention as I probably should have been when the program first started telling him to try that again. After about the third or fourth time DJ started getting really upset. I thought maybe he was just hitting the key too many times, or accidentally hitting the wrong key (maybe two at the same time). Then I made him turn the computer around so I could see what it was asking him to do.
The program wanted him to do capital letters, and DJ wasn't pushing and holding down the shift key while he hit the letter button.
He was pushing the shift key, then letting up on it and pushing the letter key. The program shows him what to do, but as it lights up, it doesn't show that you have to hold the shift key at the same time, or at least not enough to where my 6 year old "got it".
Needless to say, today for the first time all week DJ frustrated out, and we only did one session. We will be back at it tomorrow!
Here is his progress so far!
| Letter Land | Date 1st Session | Progress | Performance |
| Level 1 | 05.26.2011 |  |  |
| Level 2 | 05.27.2011 | | |
| Level 3 | 05.30.2011 | |  |
| Level 4 | 05.30.2011 |  |  |
I think he is doing pretty well, and am happy with the program so far. I will be paying closer attention to him while he is doing the program again for a few days.
Keep you eyes on this spot for more reviews coming soon!
1 comment:
Thanks so much for your detailed observations. You are quite right in saying that we urge parents not to offer help. That's because the program is designed for the child to learn independently. If a parent tells a child the answers, the program has no way of judging what the child is doing and therefore no way of offering the best next step for him or her. However, if you see that your child is experiencing frustration, then it is important to see what is happening and intervene if needed.
In your situation, it sounds as though the program was not working the way it is designed to work. To ease the motor demands on the child, we have designed the use of the shift key so that the child can either click the shift key and the letter key at the same time or the child can click first on the shift key and then on the relevant letter. Are you sure that wasn’t working for you? If it is not working, we need to figure out what the problem is. It could be a buggy Flash player, or some other issue, but it would be best to contact our support team and have them help you figure out what is going wrong.
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