Junior

Junior's based on the popular Hangman game, originally titled 'Hangman Junior' I added a speech synthesizer and removed all references to hanging people as it's aimed at pre-schoolers, and I didn't want to frighten them. In Junior you have to stop all the animals escaping instead. Just like Hangman, you have to click the letters to guess the word, but this time you get a picture of the word to guess, and the computer says the word, as well as pronouncing each guessed letter phonetically, in order to help them learn how to spell. If you can teach your kid to point and click a mouse, Junior will teach them to read and write. If they struggle with the neccessary hand eye co-ordination to use a mouse, try them on a touchscreen. I've seen under two's reading and writing on the 'your baby can read' adverts, and apparently that's just a set of flashcards, and some DVD's, so Junior and a touchscreen should be better still, as it requires practically no adult interaction, leaving you free to do whatever you want as your pre-school toddler happily learns to read and write. Seven data files are included in this free distribution with full instructions in the help file on how to adapt and/or create your own.