Grade-A Educational Software

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There’s nothing like parental guilt to prod us into buying products that we think our children need for school. And there’s no more humbling experience than struggling with your son’s or daughter’s sixth-grade homework. That combination prompts many of us to look for help.

Unfortunately, a dizzying array of options parade under the educational-learning banner. Many typically don’t provide the benefits that carefully designed software learning programs do. These alternatives range from digitally enhanced toys that come with supplemental discs for games and activities to inexpensive or free basic tutorial Web sites that either promote television cartoon characters or amount to cheat sheets for your child’s homework. For example, there are some free Web sites that are designed to help children solve homework problems or double-check homework answers.

None of these alternatives to educational software will derail your child’s learning. But in some cases, they are as much about generating brand loyalty to a children’s television show or toy as anything else, educational experts and analysts say. In other words, these toys and free Web sites primarily are designed to get children to buy the affiliated toys or watch the affiliated TV programs.

However, educational software is designed to help your child meet particular scholastic goals, experts say, which presents a much better educational value. Declining sales of educational software over the past 5 years generated two major developments of which you should be aware. First, prices are down. Second, as you might expect, the trend is increasingly to put educational materials online. And it’s only a matter of time before CD-ROMs and software downloads are replaced by subscription-based Web site tools.

PRICE AND PROSPECTS. There are no formal statistics that track industrywide sales of educational software, but experts and manufacturer representatives whom we interviewed say it’s clear that sales are down, particularly in brick-and-mortar stores. As a result, software makers’ suggested retail prices for educational software have dropped by as much as 50 percent for software aimed at students in upper elementary through high school. For example, software publisher Encore reduced the price of its popular Math Advantage series to $30 for 2009 from $40 in 2005.

Suggested retail prices of software that is designed for younger students and preschoolers bottomed out 5 years ago at around $20. But the buyers’ market continues, as the prices that retailers have been charging slid as much as 40 percent since then, based on our evaluation. For instance, the maker of Math Missions K-2: The Race to Spectacle City Arcade still suggests a $20 retail price, as it did 5 years ago. But we found that its price in stores and online generally is less than $15—$5 less expensive than 5 years ago.

Many educational software publishers already allow customers to purchase products via download (often for the same price, but sometimes for $1 to $2 less). The main advantage to paying extra for software in a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM format is that it allows you to install it on multiple computers. For example, two of our 12 Best Buy choices are sold on discs and via download. A third, Microsoft’s Student with Encarta Premium 2009, is available only via download. (The other nine still are sold as just CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs.)

But as more homes switch to high-speed Internet service, as experts expect, the nature of educational software and pricing will change further. You likely will see educational software publishers offer their programs on a subscription-based Web site in addition to or even instead of via traditional software programs, says Robbie Baxter of Peninsula Strategies, a research firm that has studied educational software for the past 2 years.