On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Leah, Nathan and Emily Bibliowicz return home from school and race straight to their parents’ room for a couple of hours of continuing education.
They speed past the cookie jar, the television and their G.I. Joes and Barbies to the lone seat at Mom and Dad’s roll-top desk.
It’s here that the winner of the race flips a switch and enters a world of thundering dinosaurs and exploring astronauts, courtesy of a compact disc.
Software manufacturers have flooded consumers with software in response to the cries of parents searching for more engaging ways to encourage and support their children’s interest in reading, writing and arithmetic.
There’s “a growing concern among parents about their children getting left behind, so they’re doing everything they can to help with their children’s education,” said Karen Schultz, publisher of KidSoft magazine, an educational software guide aimed at children who are computer users.
Home-education software-a category made up mostly of children’s titles-accounts for only a small slice of the overall industry pie. Total U.S. retail software sales amount to $1.6 billion. Home education accounts for $50 million of that, but industry experts predict it will emerge as the fastest-growing software market of 1993-94.
In the past, high price tags caused many families to shy away from personal computers. That meant a child’s only exposure to a computer was at school.
Over the past few years, however, costs have dipped, consumers’ knowledge has increased and “more manufacturers are getting into the home market,” said PC Magazine associate editor Julie Cohen, who edits After Hours, a section on educational, children’s and personal-enrichment software.
The advent of CD-ROM has fueled the push into the home as well. Industry experts say 2 million personal computers equipped with CD-ROM drives were sold in 1992; 15 million are expected to be sold by 1995.
CD-ROM paved the way for multimedia technology, which combines high-fidelity sound, animation and text and is used in entertainment and educational software. It’s what makes much of the children-oriented software appealing.
“Many of them are interactive-you do something to the screen and you get something in return,” Cohen said. “The character comes to life and it’s fun to explore. It has something to do with television. We are a television culture.”
The computer industry’s assault on the household got a boost when Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, debuted its line of home education CD-ROM and multimedia software in early December.
The software giant unveiled its Microsoft Home brand, which includes its Encarta encyclopedia; Dinosaurs “edutainment” disc; Creative Writer, a writing and publishing program; and Fine Artist, an art and drawing program.
Microsoft officials say the company’s consumer division, which will issue about 100 titles under its Home logo in coming months, will be the company’s largest within five years.
“Parents see it as a way to help support their kids’ education and as a creative and productive tool to help in children’s education,” Schultz said.
That description certainly fits the Bibliowiczes.
Virginia and her husband, Mike, bought a computer four years ago but recently bought a new IBM 486 model because the previous one could not run the new children’s software.
“They fight over the computer,” said Virginia. “From 3 o’clock to 7, which is dinner time, somebody is on the computer.
“Our kids aren’t allowed to watch TV.”
Nathan, 7, Leah, 9, and Emily, 5, don’t seem to mind. Not when Leah can pop a Super Solvers Gizmos & Gadgets CD-ROM disc into her computer drive. She matches wits with Morty Maxwell, the Master of Mischief-and the disc’s narrator-as he challenges her to master the principles of physical science.
Magnetism, electricity, gravity and friction are demonstrated in a color display. With a couple of clicks on the computer mouse, Leah builds a fleet racing vehicle that beats old Morty at his own game.
“There’s a bunch of games that help you learn different things,” Leah said. “It’s fun, but it helps you learn.”
