The iPhone Mom

I was given the Nintendo DS game – My Virtual Tutor: Reading – to try out and review. Since I’m pretty sure I’m not the game’s target audience I passed this one on to my five year old son. He’s been giving it a thorough trial the past few days and today I asked him to sit down with  me and show me how to play the game.

To play you turn your DS so that it opens like a book. Off to a good start. There are three main sections to the game: Books, Phonics and Quiz. I’ll give you a brief overview of each one, as explained to you by my boy.

Books: Choose one of eight stories. If you choose “Read to Me” the game reads the story. The words are highlighted and the story comes with illustrations. In “Explore” you go through the story again and there are questions to answer and activities to do. “I Can Read” is where you read the story to yourself. There are missing words and the game has you do different things to figure out what the missing words are. One of those activities is recording yourself reading a sentence. My son absolutely loves recording and then listening to himself, so this was a big hit. “Paint” lets you draw and color an illustration for the story.  My son’s had the game for about five days and he really had the hang of maneuvering through all the different book modes.

Phonics: This part of the video game gives you tutoring and challenges in four different areas. Those areas are: Starts, Rhymes, Contains and Sounds Out. Each section has different activities that focus on that phonics skill. You can start with the tutor mode then move on to the challenges. In the challenges if you miss three in a row you have to start over.

Quiz: Here you answer quizzes and earn prizes. Questions involve matching words to pictures and spelling words.

I was impressed with the basic reading skills that are covered in this video game. We tried out the Kindergarten – First Grade version and we used it on a DSi.  I asked my son what his favorite part of the game was. He said he liked the part where you matched words to their pictures. He also liked painting. I asked him why this would be a good video game for boys and girls. He told me that it helps you learn to read and then you can read books to your baby sister. What a good big brother answer.

Overall I was impressed with the way My Virtual Tutor combined learning with fun. This game has been played as often as Super Mario Brothers over the past few days and that says a lot. For me, the DSi is a lifesaver when it comes to keeping my son busy during the hours I’m volunteering at the elementary school. I view it as a bit of a necessary evil and I’m glad he’s got access to an educational game so I can lose some of my guilt.