I recently took a gamble and bought a Nintendo DS for my 9-yr-old (AS/NLD). We can’t afford (both time/money) to tutor her right now as we are moving out of state very soon, and we are concerned about her meeting the standards at a new school. So she’s on practice excercizes at home, and I thought this would help make it fun.
Although she pined for Nintendogs, I limited it to a new game called Brain Age which includes simple mathematical problems (3+9, 7X6, etc.), reading aloud, syllables counting and tracking rapid addition/substraction changes in an animation (I’ve asked her to avoid Sodoku for now).
She spent the first half hour of holding her new toy screaming at it, but after I gently suggested that perhaps we should return it to the store she soon calmed herself and gave it her best shot. Today is the fourth day, and she seems to really enjoy her daily training, despite the fact that a fair number of the problems are still above her head and she still has the occasional bouts of frustration. I suspect inheriting her mom’s competitive nature helped.
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Anyone else here have experience with or opinions on this particular game?
Yes, my 15 year old son with learning disabilities also bought it and loves it. In fact, everyone he shows it to, including his mother (me) tries to sneak the DS away from him to play it. There are particular games I’ve asked him to make sure he plays - the syllable count, oral reading, math games, etc. New games are added and it keeps a graph of how well he does which is very motivating to him.
It was actually developed for adults but it seems appropriate for most ages.
It’s relatively inexpensive ($20) and seems to work on many skills in a challenging way!
Let us know what your daughter thinks in a week or so.