My Virtual Tutor Reading Game | Nintendo DS | Review

Company: Mentor InterActive, Inc.
Item Reviewed: My Virtual Tutor Reading game Pre-K

Mentor InterActive, Inc.’s mission is to develop and promote new products for the children’s education software and learning technologies market.

The company is targeting the more than 30 million children in the fast growing $7 billion education products and services market with its My Virtual Tutor product line of engaging and fun-to-play software packages that teach children to read.

My Virtual Tutor: Reading provides a learning tool on a platform that engages kids and maintains their attention. Finally a reason for parents to encourage their kids to play with their Nintendo DS! While the child holds their DS vertically like a book, the game’s cheerful virtual tutor guides children through 8 interactive books and encourages him/her to complete fun exercises and quizzes to improve reading skills. Through self-correcting practice, the different modes of interacting with the exercises and stories advance along with the player.

My Virtual Tutor: Reading gives kids an opportunity to reinforce what they are learning in school and have fun while they practice. Parents can track their child’s activities and the areas in which they are improving, or may need more attention, by accessing the Parent Mode. My Virtual Tutor: Reading is available in 3 versions for children in Pre-K through Second Grade. Each includes eight interactive books with 4 modes of play:

• Read To Me- Virtual tutor reads the story with exciting animation
• I Can Read- Beginning vocabulary word-based activities
• Interactive- Clickable animations with interactive quizzes to test reading and vocabulary comprehension
• Paint- Unleash creativity and illustrate scenes while listening to a story

Each game includes:

• 6-8 InterActive Books
• 4 Different play modes: Read to Me, Explore, I Can Read, and Paint
• Self-guided staged learning advances along with player
• Parent Mode tracks child’s progress
• Touch screen playable = easy to use
• Exercises and Quizzes to build vocabulary, comprehension and phonics skills

My Thoughts

Homeschooling is a huge part of my every day life. The two older kids had their head start with me teaching and are now enrolled in an online virtual academy, where I have taken on kind of a back seat teacher role. I am still here to help but they pretty much go at it alone, some thing I am pretty proud of. But I am now responsible for giving my toddler a great start in school and I am always on the look out for products that will help me in this. Imagine my surprise when I heard about a Nintendo DS game for Pre-K aged children.

When I introduced this to my toddler, who is still 2 years away from starting Kindergarten, she immediately took to it, exploring all the “games” and having fun. I have to say that she has had a huge advantage over  my other two children with the way she is learning because of all the technology at her fingertips. Between the iPod and Ninetendo she has a pretty solid start, and because we are a gamer family she has a leg up on running the DS and other systems. She loves this game, and is learning new words and how to spell and read. I love that this helps her and I love it even more when I go to help here she says, “No, let me do it.” and proceeds to do a great job! She asks to play this everyday and I happily let her and sit back and marvel at how much she has learned. I HIGHLY recommend My Virtual Tutor for the Nintendo DS. A million thumbs up from me and my daughter.