Game Description

Suited for children ages three to ten, Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Tell-A-Tale Library focuses on building reading and vocabulary skills through the creation of stories.

In this activity, you complete stories by selecting icons on each side of the screen. Icons include Fred Flintstone and his pal Barney Rubble, their respective wives and children, critters found in the Bedrock universe and items such as rocks and clubs. You can place the icons in the story however you like. Once the story has been completed, you can either read it to yourself or have the narrator read the wackiness aloud.

Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Tell-A-Tale Library is one of a series of educational games including among others Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Spellasoarus Quarry, Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Fossil's Foto Fixer, Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Bedrock Art Gallery and Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Fashion Cave Math. The series has received numerous awards including the Parents' Choice Honor Award.

What kind of wacky scenarios await Fred Flintstone and his prehistoric friends? That's up to you! ~ Matthew House, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

Tell-A-Tale Library is one of several titles by Image Smith starring The Flintstones in children's educational creativity software. Other Flintstones titles include Spellasoarus Quarry, Bedrock Art Gallery, the Fashion Cave Math Game and Fossil's Foto Fixer Game. ~ Michael L. House, All Game Guide

Review: Enjoyment

Kids love silly sentences, and this program has tons of them. Unfortunately, the somewhat limited amount of material becomes fairly repetitive. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

The idea behind Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Tell-A-Tale Library, combining pictures and words to teach pre-reading skills, is a good one, but execution of the idea is somewhat lacking. The major problem, and a quite serious one, is the incorrectness of some of the sentences, which aren't always grammatically correct. In some cases, important parts of speech are missing, such as "a," "the," or "and." Although a student who already has developed reading skills can determine that a word or two is missing, kids who don't know how to read yet may be confused.

The premise of the learning game is to have children fill in blanks in sentences by selecting from a variety of pictures. Unfortunately, the available pictures often don't result in a sentence making any logical sense. For example, one of the sentences with blanks reads: "If that (blank) played with a (blank) then (blank) should use a (blank)." Words can be added to make the grammar correct, but the pictures offered as word choices don't always fit well, to wit: "If that dinosaur played with a bowling ball then Fred should use a bowling pin."

The result is nonsensical. Silliness of this type can be a useful teaching tool with young children, but, here, too many sentences are simply strange and awkward sounding rather than silly.

A useful feature of the program is the narration of a sentence with or without added picture words. For users who can't yet read, hearing the words and sentences is an essential way to learn pre-reading skills. Additionally, the words are highlighted in red, so children can follow along with the voice as the sentence is read.

In an overall sense, Yearn 2 Learn: The Flintstones Tell-A-Tale Library presents sentences in a way that helps the learning process through the aid of pictures, sound, and practice. However, the program would have been much more effective had more thought gone into making sentences more meaningful in conjunction with the word pictures. As it is, the effect can be more like a Mad-Lib type of experience. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide

Review: Graphics

Picture words feature cartoon-like Flintstone characters, but he accompanying background of Flintstones' settings, such as Fred Flintstone's house, make the words somewhat difficult to read. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide

Review: Sound

Sentences are read aloud by a narrator after kids choose pictograms, but some are missing key articles. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide

Review: Replay Value

Several different sentence combinations can be made, but many don't make sense. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide

Review: Documentation

The icons are fully explained and a small screenshot shows the location of the icons in the game. All six titles in the collection of Flintstone learning games are described as well. ~ Carolyn Jones, All Game Guide