School shoes? Check. Lunch box? Check. CD-Roms? Check. If you're looking for some educational programs that will support your child in the new school year, we've rounded up five of the best this month.

You may be looking for extra tuition in difficult subjects, like reading or math. Or you might want to develop their keen interest in languages or graphics. There are computer programs for all types of learning, but are they always worth the investment?

I have to admit our computer has taken a backseat in the summer holidays. Playing cricket, rowing inflatable boats and (a little less actively) the new Wii have been front and centre in our stay-cation.

But the one thing I did realise, as we set aside time to play with these programs, is how hard it is for education software to compete for attention in the moneyed world of Nintendo and Playstation. They have to be pretty dynamic and engaging - and in most cases, the animation and sounds just don't live up to Gen Z expectations.

Which is why all these programs may thrive in a school setting, where group projects around the PC keep the excitement alive. But in a home environment, it's hard to keep them coming back for more.

Kahootz 3

Our Rating
  4 stars

Age group: 7-15 years
Operating system: Windows & Mac
Distributor: Dataworks (see here for stockists)

Is your child a budding Pixar animator? Or do they love telling stories visually? This 3D animation software will let them create mini-animation movies with characters, animals, scenes and sound effects.

Easy peasy?
We used a schools version disc for the Mac, which apparently doesn't come with the usual tutorial. But the video tutorial in the help menu was enough to get us started - and given that I have no graphic design ability whatsoever, it was easy enough to create scenes and add characters and sounds.

Fun factor:
There is so much you can do with this; it could take some time to get your head around it! A quick search on YouTube gave us some great examples of mini-movies other kids have made - and shows exactly what can be done with different sound effects and special effects.

Learn anything?
It's a good introduction to design, but it can also be used to develop stories visually (literacy), or play with shadows, perspective and light (art and math). Schools are starting to use this program to combine ICT with literacy, science and art.

The wow factor:
Dylan was still a little young (at 7) to concentrate on developing a storyline, but liked playing with his dinosaur scenes. As his skills develop, being able to post the results online for friends to watch would be a pretty big achievement.

Kidspeak

Our Rating
  3 stars

Age group: Ages 5 and up
Operating system: Windows & Mac
Distributor: Scholastic Australia

Kidspeak is available in Click! Interactive Learning Club catalogues from Scholastic Book Clubs through your school.

With a five star rating from DiscoverySchool.com and 'best educational program' from a NY multimedia festival, I was pretty excited about this language program. But the experience was underwhelming.

Easy peasy?
We couldn't install this on our new Mac, as classic mode is no longer supported. And it only worked on the PC after a reboot. So, after some frustration, we started out with Spanish.

This is instant language immersion - so it's all in Spanish and Dylan found it tricky to work out what he was meant to do. You can click on the '?' for an English translation but it's often still obscure. "Even when we try to quit, she's Spanish!" he moaned.

So we switched to Italian - after a year of Italian at primary school he felt a little more comfortable with the number puzzles and vocab games.

Fun factor:
There's a wide range of games covering areas such as numeracy, alphabet, animal words, shopping and songs. The animation is fun but fairly basic. You need to really concentrate to work out what you're meant to be doing.

Learn anything?
In theory this would develop your vocabulary and reading comprehension, but there's no sentence structure - only single words. And how useful is it to know the Italian for 'udders', unless you're planning to buy a farm in Tuscany? There's no opportunity for pronunciation or spoken practice.

The wow factor:
Dylan wasn't keen to explore much further after half an hour - and you really need to use this program a lot to reinforce your learning. He couldn't remember anything he'd learned the next day, and he said learning Italian at school was more fun. It seems interactive team-based games win over animal body parts point-and-click for him.

Phonics Alive 4 - Grammar

Our Rating
 4.5 stars

Age group: 8 - Adult
Operating system: Windows & Mac
Distributor: Dataworks (see here for stockists)

There's a whole series of Phonics Alive - including spelling, grammar and early reading support. Surprisingly, Dylan decided to try grammar on a warm, sunny day. And he really enjoyed the games as he developed his understanding of verbs, sentence construction and punctuation.

Easy peasy?
He had no trouble working out what he needed to do and easily progressed to the next level. He's slightly younger than the recommended start age, but he's a good reader so Phonics Alive (ages 5-9) was too basic.

Fun factor:
Spaceship Grammatica appealed to his sense of adventure, so off he went to identify verbs and nouns in outer space. If you get the answers right, a hatch opens and the spaceships fly out.

Learn anything?
It's important to encourage kids to understand the basic rules of writing. There are 12 levels in this program, so it suits a wide range of abilities - right through to us grown-ups and those who are learning English as a second language.

The wow factor:
Dylan liked the fact that as he finished a level he could print out a certificate of achievement. The animations are engaging and lively, and he really had no idea he was learning boring old grammar.

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (v 18)

Our Rating
  4 stars

Age group: All
Operating system: Windows & Mac
Distributor: Scholastic Australia

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is available in Click! Interactive Learning Club catalogues from Scholastic Book Clubs through your school.

No offence to Mavis, but she's not an appealing CD-Rom cover - and this certainly does not look like a kids program. But Dylan has been getting frustrated with his two-finger tap style, so it was high time he learned the correct way to touch type.

Easy peasy?
Worked well on our shiny new Mac, and it was surprisingly easy to find the typing games that would appeal to Dylan. Of course that means he hopped straight into them rather than starting with proper finger placement.

Fun factor:
Typing games are arcade style - space invaders and the like. So they were great fun. But without getting the fundamentals right, it took a bit longer to work out how to improve his scores by typing faster.

Learn anything?
It's understandable that a QWERTY keyboard makes no sense to kids - after all, they've only just got the hang of the alphabet from A to Z. So it's a fun way to focus on keyboard navigation, even if the finger placement comes later. Over a period of time this would definitely improve your typing speed. In fact, I could use it myself!

The wow factor:
The games were surprisingly good. Perhaps we had low expectations given the lacklustre packaging and subject!

Junior Brain Train Memory Games

Our Rating
  3 stars

Age group: 7 - 11
Operating system: Windows only
Distributor: Scholastic Australia

Junior Brain Train Memory Games is available in Click! Interactive Learning Club catalogues from Scholastic Book Clubs through your school.

Twelve games and puzzles take you through a virtual house, as you build your memory skills and concentration. At least, that's the theory. In reality, this program is difficult to follow with overly-complicated screen detail.

Easy peasy?
In a word, no. Instructions are long and wordy, and the cross-selling intro was a bit off-putting when all we wanted to do was start the game. The language is pitched higher than that of a seven year old Aussie - and maybe that's because it's an English program. As a result, some of the quiz answers are difficult. Our knowledge of British birds is limited, for example.

Fun factor:
It could be a lot clearer in terms of instructions and results. So although it claims to track your progress as you go along, the score screen has a very busy layout. There was no clear link from one game to another to keep the interest going.

Learn anything?
With the help of a dictionary, we learnt some new words that may not be terribly relevant! (A lamprey is an eel-like fish, by the way.)

The wow factor:
This is too confusing and challenging to be easily engaging. Perhaps an older child would get more out of it, but for us it was a big disappointment!