ABC Fun for Windows

ABC Fun is a very basic program that helps young children learn to identify letters. There's not much to it, but it's easy and fun to use.

The program's interface consists of a large blank space in the middle with the letters of the alphabet down each side. Users either click on a letter with the mouse or touch the letter on the keyboard, and an object that starts with that letter appears in the middle of the screen. An excited-sounding woman's voice speaks along with it, saying, for example, "A is for apple!" We found that the sound quality of the program was not particularly good--it was a bit distorted, in fact--but the spoken words were still understandable. One particularly interesting feature of this program was the capability for users to add their own images and sound files. Unfortunately, we couldn't get this to work, even after following the instructions in the online Help file. It sounds like it should be a simple process, but the program wouldn't play our image or sound, and we had no indication as to why not. This program would definitely be more impressive if this feature worked, but as it is, it's not awful.

ABC Fun has a 30-day trial period. It installs desktop icons without asking and leaves a file behind upon removal. We recommend this program to all users. We'd like it better if all the features worked, but small kids should find it enjoyable and educational even without the customization.