Bookverdict.com

Grade Level K-2Cost For school libraries, a database costs $395. After the first one is purchased, the price for a second database drops to $295 (and $195 for a third and $95 for a fourth). Pricing varies for public libraries.Overview Abdo Zoom consists of two research databases for beginning readers: one on animals and one on biographies. Animals is also available in Spanish. Each resource has about 160 entries.Content The information on each subject is divided into tabbed files that contain a few sentences of relevant text. In Animals, they are labeled About, Body, Habitat, Food, and Life Cycle. In Biographies, for deceased subjects, the categories are Intro, Rise to Fame, Career, and Legacy, while for the living, topics are Intro, Early Rise, Rise to Fame, Superstar, and Today. Users can flip back and forth between the files by clicking on the appropriate tab.The people featured in Biographies are mostly American and represent a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds.The writing style and reading level are on-target for new readers. Sentences are short, and the vocabulary is controlled ("Penguins are birds. They cannot fly. But they can slide on their stomachs. All penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere."). Words that are likely to be new to users appear in blue font; kids can click on those words for a concise pop-up definition. Also available are a read-along audio file and word-by-word highlighting.Brief videos, of excellent sound and color quality, are included, too. In Animals, they capture the featured creature in its habitat, up close and in action; viewers will enjoy seeing an Arabian mare and foal trotting around a grassy pen or a Clydesdale grazing by a lake. These additions are particularly useful, illustrating key differences between similar animals, e.g., the Arabian horse's delicate bone structure and long legs contrast with the Clydesdale's squat, sturdy build.In Biographies, each video describes through narration and moving and still images a p...Log In or Sign Up to Read More