I have an 4 year old daughter who is extremely smart (pre-school teacher says it as well so it is more than a doting dad bragging about his kid). The thing is she has been using a computer since she was just short of her third birthday. She plays on noggin.com, pbs.org and nickjr.com. All of these sites have educational games for preschool age kids based on the characters from their programming. She is a whiz at the games and it has definitely helped her pick up things like numbers, heck she can count a hundred. It also has helped make her interested in computers and to learn how to use them at a young age. She knows where the letters are on the keyboard. She can even navigate through the start menu to Firefox, open the browser, click on favorites and bring up her sites. If she could read completely she wouldn't even need me to read the directions. I guess what I'm saying is in a technology based world that we are now living in, even being able to use a computer is a needed skill which needs to be taught to kids. Also I see educational games, ie lets learn to multiply today, are a good thing and are akin to sitting there and doing flash cards, etc to learn the same topics.
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I have an 4 year old daughter who is extremely smart (pre-school teacher says it as well so it is more than a doting dad bragging about his kid). The thing is she has been using a computer since she was just short of her third birthday. She plays on noggin.com, pbs.org and nickjr.com. All of these sites have educational games for preschool age kids based on the characters from their programming. She is a whiz at the games and it has definitely helped her pick up things like numbers, heck she can count a hundred. It also has helped make her interested in computers and to learn how to use them at a young age. She knows where the letters are on the keyboard. She can even navigate through the start menu to Firefox, open the browser, click on favorites and bring up her sites. If she could read completely she wouldn't even need me to read the directions. I guess what I'm saying is in a technology based world that we are now living in, even being able to use a computer is a needed skill which needs to be taught to kids. Also I see educational games, ie lets learn to multiply today, are a good thing and are akin to sitting there and doing flash cards, etc to learn the same topics.