Educational Software for kids can turn out to be a good tool for kids. However, in order to determine whether or not a piece of software is of high educational value and suited to your child’s learning needs, you should consider more than just ease of use and reliability. Numerous educators will attest to software that may be more technically advanced but lacking in relevance.

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With over 20,000 pieces of software for educational purposes and hundreds of new titles adding to that total each year, there are over a thousand available in just one single category. This can make it nearly impossible for parents to sort out the bad ones and pick a great piece of software for their child.

Though, one may tend to rely on the software review, but a software review is typically just one person’s opinion. This usually means that the software was most likely not used on a target group, such as children with learning disabilities. And the reviewer may not even be familiar with the learning personalities of a specific group.

When evaluating educational software for your child, there are several things that you need to take into consideration:
• What is its intended use? The software should appropriately meet the needs for your child’s leaning.
• The content should directly supplement what your child is currently being taught in the classroom.
• The presentation of the instruction in the software should play to your child’s strengths. Make sure it is the appropriate reading level, uses different teaching forms and has more than one representation of the content.
• Is it simple to use and understand? You child should be able to read and understand the information and not get lost in the software while doing so.
• Instructions and guides should be present to get you started and answer any questions you may have while using the software.
• Is the software overly technical? Is your child able to use basic functions of the program with ease? If using the software is hindering the learning process, it may not be the choice.
What to Consider When Purchasing
How can parents integrate computer-based learning into the tasks at home and also be able to recognize any limitations in the current software? There are important features to look for when assessing the software for purchase:
• The software you purchase should take into consideration the characteristics of your child’s learning disability, if any.
• It should provide parental control in choosing the appropriate learning functions, for example the reading level.
• There should be options to tailor the software to your child’s disability; it should provide prompts for responses in connection with learning.
• Look for effective screen; it should be double-spaced and employ color-cueing.
• The instructional options should take into account the learning characteristics of students with learning disabilities; it should provide for over-learning and offer built-in learning guidance.
• Any sounds in the software should not interfere with learning and should be educational in function and include an “Off” option.
• The feedback should be clear. Your child should never wonder if he answered correctly.
• It should support assistive devices, such as text-to-speech.

It is up to you to make sure your child receives the best computer-education, responsible evaluation is vital to meet that goal. You may also find yourself becoming a more determined advocate for software for the learning impaired.