Free Downloads
Download the free DOS Software.

What's In The DOS Version of Super Start
View the over 200 readable files, including the source code.

Computers
and The Real World
Using the original Super Start Hardware to learn how to control motors, lights, etc., make sound and much more. It's great for educators and experimenters.

The Images of Super Start
Plus a Few (takes a while to load)

Internet Resources
Over 1300 links to
valuable information
and growing.

• Associations
• Child Advocacy
• Child Development
• Computer Recycling
• Early Head Start
• Education
• Foundations
• General Interest
• Gov Email & Address
• Head Start
• Home Schooling
• Kids' Organizations
• Kids' Sites
• Kids With Special Needs
• Literacy
• Magazines, Newspapers, Radio
• Research
• Search Engines
• Service Clubs
• Special Needs Kids
• State Agencies
• Technology Ed.
• Volunteerism

The Super Start Project provides a free tool to help children get the core knowledge they need for a good beginning in education. It is intended to be a supplement to help parents help children acquire basic, rote-memory knowledge such as numbers, letters, phonetic key words, math tables, etc.

A Super Start system uses free software and just about any age PC-type computer running under just about any operating system from DOS to Windows 2000, making it free or very low in cost and accessible to any child. Non-profit organizations such as religious groups, civic clubs and school groups can obtain free computer equipment, allowing them to provide systems at no cost to the kids who need them the most.

Super Start does something very simple. It takes advantage of research findings about how infants and very young children learn by allowing a person to record a voice on a computer's disk and play it back with images the voice describes. That is not to say it is an electronic form of flash-cards. It is unobtrusive when properly used, and has none of the accompanying feedback and subsequent pressure commonly found with flash-cards. It is a gentle addition to the environment that uses familiar voices and high-contrast images that are attractive to the child in order to establish memory pathways, and repetition to insure their retention. It lacks the characteristics of a typical flash-card session in that nothing is forced. There is no coaxing, coaching or other forms of feedback. Super Start adds beneficial information to the environment, but remains far enough in the background to allow a child to select whatever might be of interest at the moment. While Super Start is not an electronic flash-card system, it is capable of making paper copies of any of its images for use by older children for self-drill, and to hang up around the house at a child's eye level for additional stimulation.

Since the research says that babies are in the business of acquiring the most fundamental of basic knowledge, the Super Start software comes with thousands of images representing information most people would consider important enough to commit to memory. It also permits adding virtually any information desired. A more detailed description of Super Start can be found in the rest of the article, beginning with the introduction. If you want to set up a system now to see how it works, see the QuickStart page.