Elementary School Success Deluxe 2009

From: Topics Entertainment

List Price: ~~$39.99~~
Buy New: $5.99
as of 11/20/2009 17:57 CST details
You Save: $34.00 (85%)

New (21) Used (3) from $5.48

Seller: tiger63books
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

5 reviews
Sales Rank: 2038

Format: CD-ROM
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X
Genre: Childrens Thinking and Problem Solving Software
ESRB: Everyone
Media: CD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.4 x 2.4

MPN: 80958
Model: 80958
UPC: 781735809587
EAN: 0781735809587
ASIN: B0019SA4IU

Release Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Features:

•	Teaches English, Science, Math, Social Studies and More!
•	Over 600 activities and 2000 excercises
•	Bonus! Encyclopedia Britannica Children's Learning Suite CD-ROM
•	Bonus! Tutor.com free trial - a $40 value!
•	100% satisfaction guarantee - if you are not satisfied with this product for any reason, you may return it within 90 days of purchase for a full refund

Similar Items:

Elementary Advantage 2009 [OLD VERSION]

Math Advantage 2009 [OLD VERSION]

Middle School Advantage 2009 [OLD VERSION]

High School Success Deluxe 2009

Math Success Deluxe 2009

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Elementary School Success Deluxe 2009 for Windows & Mac. Elementary School Success Deluxe 2009 is the #1 best-selling educational software suite on the market. Ideal for students at all learning levels, Elementary School Success Deluxe 2009 has educator-endorsed, award-winning lessons that will improve your child's comprehension in a variety of subjects. Follow the path to Elementary School Success! Teaches 21 subjects, English, Science, Math, Social Studies and many more! Over 150 activities and 2000 exercises. Bonus! Encyclopedia Britannica Children's Learning Suite CD-ROM, A $25 value. Bonus! Includes Free Access to Tutor.com, A $40 value

Customer Reviews:
1 out of 5 stars

Waste of money August 5, 2009
M. Dietz
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I am thankful I bought it on sale for $5- but even at that it was a waste of money.

They did a great job of packaging, I just wish they had spent as much on testing.

The complaints others have had, I agree with. Writing material does not work, and many flaws. One portion they have match the equation to the numbers. The two equations were 2+2 and 4*1, obviously the same answer. In theory matching any item of 4 should work for either. Better yet would have been for the program to block identical items. Replaying some items, not sure if it applies to all, they produce identical problems. So play once on any given item is the impression.

If someone gives this too you, hand it back, you will never get back the time you waste on it.

1 out of 5 stars

Disappointing March 3, 2009
Shari H (California)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

I am so disappointed in this product. The overall look is unprofessional and primitive. I was surprised to see typos in the game titles (e.g. "patters" instead of "patterNs.") Also, in one of the math problems an equal sign is used instead of a minus sign.

The activities are unimaginative. My daughter LOVES playing educational games on the computer and after just a few minutes of trying out the various activities, she said she was bored and wandered off.

There are dozens of free games online that are far more engaging, educational and fun. I wish I'd saved my money.

3 out of 5 stars

Dissapointing and glitchy. February 17, 2009
Martha A. Barton (San Diego, CA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful

We got this for our daughter to prep her for Kindergarten (she starts Fall 2010) and to be a resource for her as she progresses through school. But I cannot recommend it. We loaded the Kindergarten - First Grade disc and dove in, and right away we could tell that the Kindergarten level was far too easy for my four year old. She's a bright, but very young four year old, and has not been to preschool - yet she more or less breezed through all the kindergarten activities without issue. I was disappointed that the disc didn't present more of a challenge for her, but we liked it anyway because it did reinforce some concepts we have been working with her on, and she liked playing the games - we just wish the difficulty level increased as she played. There's no challenge to it and it gets repetitive and boring quickly.

Since she'd aced Kindergarten in one night with me, we tried out First Grade. We weren't expecting a four year old to be able to do the other grade levels on these discs, and indeed she could not (the concepts are too advanced) but I found spelling and math errors and a glitch that made it pretty undesirable to us.

If the Kindergarten level had not been so easy for my 4 year old we'd have been thrilled with the purchase despite the issues and glitches, because there's a lot to like about the way the program is designed but really there is far more to hate. I'm no pedant, but the spelling and grammar errors really do bug me in a title intended to be educational. I haven't installed or looked at the other grade levels yet, but the fact that there are so many issues in the first disc was enough for me to decide to take time to review it for other parents out there.

The box comes with 7 discs, only three of which are the Elementary School Success discs. There's 1 disc for K - 1st grade, 1 disc for 2nd - 3rd grades, and a final disc for 4th - 5th grades and then the box also includes bonus materials such as a Foreign Language disc which we like a lot and enjoyed playing with, a 2-disc Encyclopaedia Britannica's Children's Learning Suite (which we do like but it seems like a waste of hard drive space since you can google anything and get much more information online), and a disc entitled Typing that we can't use -- it does not work at all on our system (Windows XP) and crashes constantly. The website for Ten Thumbs Typing indicates that the version included here is no longer supported and they want us to pay to upgrade to a new version so it's essentially useless. As such there's not much that's really DELUXE in the deluxe edition.

The main program has issues - we found spelling and math errors and a few weird glitches. For example, in the Earth Science section on the first grade level there's a "story" read by the computer about summer. When the narrator "reads" the story, the audio file for letters "F" and "E" repeat and the result is that the text displayed is different than the narration. Later during the "games" section the error repeats leading to some real confusion. It should be an easy fix, just patch in a replacement E audio file, but when we logged onto the software developers site there are no patches for the discs -- just their refund policy. It's a shame because we really liked the concept of the series and some of the ways it executes those concepts are good but I just can't forgive the spelling and mathematical errors and other glitches.

My other big gripe is that the concepts (at least from the Kindergarten level to the First Grade level) jump dramatically forward but nothing on the prior level (at least with the Kindergarten to First Grade disc) prepared the student for that leap aside from similarities in the overall layout and activities. I had really hoped that the discs would progressively develop the concepts involved; building upon what was covered in each prior level to prepare kids for the next level (i.e. the Kindergarten level would ready kids for the activities in the First Grade level and so on....). But sadly it doesn't seem to be structured that way at all. While my daughter easily flew through the kindergarten disc and did every activity on it in an evening with me, she can't progress onwards to the next level yet because the kindergarten disc does nothing at all to prepare the kids for the introduction of the new concepts on the First Grade level and the concepts there aren't fleshed out or explored on the discs at all. There's no aspect here of teaching at all - so these discs aren't really that valuable to someone wanting to give their kid an edge - they are really just busy work in a game format to work through a few very specific concepts for each grade level. And the worst part is that they don't seem to get progressively more difficult as the child completes the tasks. It's just busy work and the activities are very repetitive. I'm disappointed that the concepts involved aren't fleshed out or developed at all either. All in all, I'd give this a three - it's not useless, but it's not all that useful either. Personally, I wish I'd saved my money for something else.

4 out of 5 stars

very nice product February 11, 2009
Jodi Pizzo (TX)
I had purchased this a couple weeks ago. I was very pleased with the layout and the material being taught. Two complaints though. One, the reading section didn't work when trying to make your own stories. The pics and the typing would not come up. I could've just gotten a bad disc. Also, it says it teaches social studies and much more but it only shows math, reading and science as your choices for 2nd grade. Maybe they are shown in the higher grades? All in all I like it and am going to exchange it for a new one since there is a glitch in the reading section.

5 out of 5 stars

Great program for giving your kids a leg up. September 18, 2008
Eric Peterson
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I got this for my 6th grader who needed a little extra help going into 1st grade. His teacher from last year suggested it. This fantastic program covers a number of important topics including math, reading and science. He seems to enjoy the game format of the exercises. I ran through some of it with him and I like the way the program approaches topics in a variety of different ways. It is intuitive enough though so I can step back and let him navigate through the program. Good job!

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