Kristi's Letters is a keyboard familiarization program for kids from toddler stage on up. I wrote it for our two-year-old who has always had a fascination with the keyboard (usually while daddy is trying to work). This program captured her interest for days (that's pretty good, for a toddler).
The program teaches letters of the alphabet: their appearance, pronunciation, and location on the computer keyboard. Using MacinTalk, it prompts your child to find letters from A-Z, given in a random sequence (no letters are duplicated). Wrong key presses are reported with appropriate feedback (displays the wrong letter pressed, along with verbal feedback, "That's Q. Try again. Find O."). Key presses not associated with letters are appropriated reported, "That's not a letter". Correct responses are awarded with a superlative that begins with the letter pressed. Example, "Great!" for pressing G, and "Wonderful!" for pressing W.
The program uses the entire display with a black background, showing letters in color if you have it. This keeps toddlers from using the mouse and swapping the program out for the Finder or another application. You have to press Command-Q to quit, which is not easy for most youngsters to master.
For those parents and educators handy with ResEdit, you can customize the program by editing the strings in the STR# 128 resource. You might want to change the superlatives, or personalize your copy of Letters by putting your own child's name into the title screen. The title screen is displayed as well as spoken.
Copyright 1990 Morgan Davis, released to the public for non-commercial distribution without fee.
