Baby Computer Games
Are You Playing Baby Computer Games with Your Child ?
Executive Summary by Emma Rath
baby computer games
Playing computer games with your baby is being promoted as a fun activity that a child and their caregiver can share together. Reading a bedtime story to a small eager child is a tradition in many homes.
Playing on the computer with a small child may become a new type of family tradition. Some parents use the computer in their work and are delighted to share the computer for a fun activity with their kids. Other parents want to make sure their children become computer literate. Well-designed, interactive, educational computer games engage small children as much as the television and are more educational than TV because they incite the child to interact and think, rather than passively watch and listen.
These are the reasons for the increasing popularity of baby computer games software. What type of computer software is available for babies, toddlers and preschoolers? There are free baby computer games on websites and there are download and CDROM software that you can buy. Most software for this age group is games, but computer story books also exist. Wonderful websites that offer free games of which many are suitable for preschoolers (preschoolers are able to do directed clicking with the mouse) are:
http://www.sesamestreet.org/sesamestreet
http://www.noggin.com
http://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc
http://www.abc.net.au/children/games
http://www.meddybemps.com
http://www.kiddiesgames.com
http://www.toddletoons.com
CDROM or download software that you buy is usually better than free internet games. Baby computer games are usually superior (more graphics, more music, more involved games for older kids) and the software takes over the entire screen, which is more appropriate for very young children who click anywhere and everywhere on the screen.
Reader Rabbit software from http://www.learningcompany.com
Jump Start software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.com
Fisher-Price software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.com
Sesame Street software from http://www.encoresoftware.com or http://www.amazon.com
http://www.babywow.com
Baby computer games software for this age group make conscientious efforts to be suitably educational. To judge their effectiveness for your child, try them out with your child. If your child finds that it’s fun, then it’s probably educational. For a baby, fun usually means that the game responds in some way to random keyboard presses and mouse clicks, and that the game continues in a positive way even when no input is forthcoming from the baby. What types of skills are learned by playing toddler computer games? Obviously, computer software is not suitable for practicing gross motor or even fine motor skills. However, there are many types of educational concepts that baby computer games can help a child master, including shapes, sounds, cause and effect, identifying and naming things (such as objects and colors), increasing vocabulary, language concepts, the forms of letters and numbers, counting, pattern recognition, detail observation and word construction. Infant computer games are also being cited as excellent resources for children with special education needs, because such games are simple, happy, brightly-colored, patient, controlled by the child and allow the child to make things happen.
This has been taken as advice to avoid exposing those young children to the computer. However, well-designed infant software actually encourages those great activities of “talking, playing, singing, and reading together”. By carrying out the play activities proposed by baby computer games, the caregiver is actually prompted with a framework or script for carrying out those “talking, playing, singing, and reading” activities with the child.
Playing computer games with your small child is not yet a family tradition. However, it is an enjoyable, sharing activity that is becoming more and more popular.
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