Learning game for children

From SoftwarePractice.org

This article describes a children's learning game project. It is suitable for a second-year object-oriented design and programming class.

Description

Children are fascinated by computers. There is a whole genre of computer games that are intended to promote learning. For this game, a client has asked you to create a game that assists children in learning not only letters, words, and numbers, but in using the computer itself. To that end, a child playing the game will use the keyboard to input required letters or numbers.

With this game, the degree of difficulty and the task to be performed is set by an adult. Then the child plays the game, in order to accomplish the task. The game is intended for kindergarten and first year children. Typical tasks include:

• Being able to enter the "a b c"s using the keyboard. That is, enter the whole alphabet in sequence in order to win a prize. At each correct entry, visual feedback shows progress.

• Being able to recognize simple words of three and four letters. For example, a word could be shown and the child would select (using the mouse) the corresponding picture.

• Being able to spell a set of simple words of three and four letters. For example, a picture could be shown of an item, and the child can then spell it using the keyboard for input.

• Being able to recognize short, simple sentences.

In all cases, the game should be fun and lighthearted. The task for each "round" is to be set by the adult or teacher, with the ability to give names to tasks so that they can be easily recalled later. In addition, it must be possible to extend the game with additional words, without any programming required.