Child For Timmy At Wonderfun World example essay topic

Little Monsters Ticklish Timmy in Wonderfun Land. (Literacy ages 3-4) I used this software within a multi-class situation with junior & senior infants & first class. The ages of the children ranged from 4 to 7 years, and there were 2 children with special needs. The content reinforced what was already taught in class in relation to phonics, letter recognition and matching words to pictures.

The children were immediately attracted to the programme, and they really enjoyed creating their "funny portraits" when introducing themselves to Timmy. This happened everytime they played it. Timmy is the central character, who presents us with his problem... he is very ticklish, with the result that he can't play football, look for frogs or play with his pet spider Stanley. So life is very boring for Timmy.

But his Dad has invented an anti-tickle suit for him. However it has to be tested with special ticklish feathers. These feathers can be won by the child for Timmy at Wonderfun World. The instructions were very clear and the children found it quite easy to use, and to navigate through the 4 areas of Wonderfun World...

Mysto; Dodgems; The Big wheel; The Merry go Round; The screen layout was most appropriate for even the youngest child, who could choose whichever area to venture into. Mr. Mysto invites the child to play a card game. Mr. Mysto phonetically sounds out the word, then jumbles it up and asks the child to rearrange it correctly. The child drags the letters on to a board.

Five correctly placed words earn a feather. The word are monosyllabic three- lettered words, and vary each time the game is played. The Dodgems is a letter matching game enabling the child to differentiate between capital letters & lower case letters. The Big Wheel is Timmy's favourite ride. This game is a matching word to picture game. Five people queue to get on the ferris wheel.

They "get on" when the child correctly matches a picture to a word. This time the child has to read the word, as it is not phonetically sounded out. However the children were familiar with the words from the other game areas. The Merry-go-round features Susie Squirrel who presents the child with the task of substituting a picture for a word in a sentence.

At the entrance to Wonder world is Stanley's untidy cobweb. The child is invited to clean it up by matching lower case letters to lower case letters. There is also an alphabet book to which the child can resort at any time, and hear each letter spoken. The programme was particularly suited to an 7 year old with a specific learning disability. He thoroughly enjoyed winning the feathers for Timmy. The positive feedback (both visual & auditory) he received boosted his self esteem, and definitely helped his concentration.

If at any stage the child is in difficulty, Dermot is at hand to help out. He stays at bottom right corner of the screen. If the child makes a mistake he / she is asked to try again The only fault I found seemed to be a technical one. A dialogue box appeared with the message "Director player Error right card 113" when playing Mr. Mysto game. The children were initially disappointed that all the feathers they gained didn't do the trick for Timmy.

The anti-tickle suit didn't work!! I used a Pentium when conducting the evaluation. The programme is PC and MAC compatible, and requires 16 Mb of memory..