Tell a Tale

Tell a Tale (4Mation CD ROM, Age 4-8)

Tel: 01271 325353

Single User CD ROM £35 (ex. VAT)

4Mation has always been an innovative and imaginative software house, and this new program is a laudable attempt to do something fresh in the area of literacy software for young children. The user has to build a three sentence story by selecting items from several banks of words and phrases. Each sentence is illustrated and animated in an amusing way as the story proceeds. Each story can then be presented as a slide show or printed out. The phrases are presented at three levels of difficulty and are spoken very clearly in a male or female voice.

Regular readers of these reviews will not be surprised to notice that ‘Tell a Tale’ has the customary LSSM (literacy software spelling mistake), in this case, ‘naration’ in the Preferences screen. I have one or two other quibbles. There is no exit from the program until the final screen. Although you can move back page by page, you cannot get right back to the beginning without closing the program. ALT/F4 usually gets you straight out of a CD ROM, but that’s disabled.

More importantly, although the program is entertaining and well-constructed, it promotes a very limited notion of what a story actually is. Assembling a number of elements from a limited set is not ultimately a very creative process. It could easily be extended and improved, for example, by allowing the three sentence story to be printed or pasted as a story starter (see Sutton Primary School’s web site for an excellent example of this.) ‘Tell a Tale’ offers over a hundred possible story combinations, but a child’s imagination can offer thousands more. There are some extension worksheets provided in Acrobat format. These are mostly colouring in or underlining the words which belong to a particular story. This CD is interesting and entertaining, but could easily be a lot better.

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