It's all that reading. When kids play video games, the intensity is unbelievable. I thought it would be great if you could do the same thing with literature. The software displays small segments of the literary work and then asks students to type in their answers to questions on character, plot, and setting. The program immediately scores students' responses before moving on to the next section of the work.
Students get one chance to answer each question, and they'd better be careful.
After Baggetta introduces a literary work and talks students through the vocabulary, they head to the school's computer lab for a few days to work through the program. Back in class, students discuss the most troublesome questions. Since they've been using the programs, Baggetta says, they seem to better comprehend what they've read. You'll need a computer equipped with Windows 95 or 98 to run the programs.