These games are designed to increase a child's understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication or division by having them solve simple problems as quickly as possible. The form of these problems is

     5 + 4 =

     7 - 3 =

In Math Race 1, the student races a car against a challenger. By answering the questions in a sufficient period of time their car will stay ahead of the challenger's and they will win the race. Before the race starts, you will be asked to enter the number of questions presented during the race, up to a maximum of 20. You will also be asked to choose whether the math problems will be addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division; and what difficulty level you want (Easy, Medium or Hard). The student will then press any key to start the race and begin answering the questions. After a winner is declaired, you will be asked if you want another race. This lets the student race several times without having to restart the program.

In Math Dash 1, the child races against the clock to answer 10 math problems as quickly as possible. Before the dash starts, you will be asked to choose whether the problems will be addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. The student will then press any key to start the dash and begin answering the questions. After the elapsed time is shown, the program compares this time against a list of the 5 best times for each type of math problem. If the child beats any of the stored times, the program asks the child to enter their first name. They should type in their name and then press the [Enter] key. (Note that this is the only time you should press the [Enter] key during this game.) A list of the 5 best times for this type of math problem will then be displayed. You will then be asked if you want another dash. This lets the student use the program several times without having to exit and restart it. [One final note is that if your child accidently misspells their name and you wish to correct it, or you wish to increase the stored times to give a different child a chance, you can use the DOS editor 'EDIT' to edit the file named 'HISCORE.DSH' and correct/change the entries.]

All of the problems use a random number generator to select the numbers. This means that the same activity can be run many times and slightly different problems will be asked. It also means that the same question may be asked more than once, or a relatively hard problem may be followed by a very easy one.

This package is Freeware and can be freely distributed. This package has no special requirements (e.g. a particular run-time library) and runs under DOS, which means that it can also be run from a DOS window under Windows 3.1 and Windows9x.

To obtain a copy of this package, simply hold down the left [Shift] key and use the mouse to click on MATHREG.ZIP. By ensuring that the file transfer is in binary mode, this zip file will be copied to your system. Though I have tried to use unique file names in all of my programs, I would suggest that you download this file to its own directory.

Once this file is downloaded, all of the files can be extracted. The zip file can then be deleted, or moved to a floppy disk for storage. Before running this package, you should first view the file README.TXT to see any additional information. To run this package, simply go to this directory and enter the command

      MATH

I hope this set of programs is useful and you will let me know if you have any suggestions to make them better.

Return to my Educational Software Page.

� 1999 Brian T. Luke, Ph.D.