JumpStart Reading for First Graders

JumpStart Reading for First Graders is a JumpStart game released by Knowledge Adventure on August 12, 1997 that focuses on teaching language arts at the first grade level. It was previously titled JumpStart 1st Grade Reading until about 2000.

Story
At the beginning of the game, Frankie introduces himself to the player and invites the player to his new home. Inside the living room, Frankie points out a framed photo of himself with his old friends from the circus. He says that he used to be a juggler, and begins demonstrating some juggling tricks, when suddenly one of Frankie's old circus friends, Katia, appears in his living room.

Katia tells Frankie that Mel, the magician she was formerly an assistant to, was performing mean tricks on the other circus performers. Eventually, his tricks caused the ringmaster to fire him. This made Mel very angry, and he turned all of the top performers into jigsaw puzzle pieces and scattered the pieces around the carnival. Frankie vows to help Katia and the other performers.

Gameplay
The player can collect tickets by playing various activities at the carnival attractions around the circus. Sometimes a carnival attraction will run out of tickets, in which case the player must switch to a different activity. Four tickets are required to look for a puzzle piece in the Lost and Found Wagon. Once the player has uncovered a puzzle piece, the piece must be placed in its correct spot in the puzzle. Five puzzle pieces are required to complete a section of the puzzle that shows a picture of a performer and releases that performer from the puzzle. There are four sections to complete, which means that a total of 20 puzzle pieces are required to complete the game.

Characters

 * Frankie
 * Katia
 * Mel
 * Madame Tigre
 * Samson
 * Slick Sid
 * Mr. Snoots
 * Motchie
 * Lucy
 * Dmitri
 * Natasha
 * Crinkle

Activities

 * Main Fairway
 * Fortune Teller
 * Mighty Mallet
 * Strong Dog
 * Pathway Arcade Games
 * Jungle Bowl
 * Splatter-the-Batter
 * Pluck-a-Pearl
 * Lost and Found Wagon

Songs

 * Two Words Made Into One
 * The Rhyme Game
 * Words That Mean The Same
 * The Verb Show
 * Words that Describe Each Thing
 * Five Little Short Sounds

Educational Concepts

 * Spelling
 * Grammar
 * Parts of Speech
 * Rhyming Words
 * Synonyms and Antonyms
 * Reading Comprehension
 * Vocabulary
 * Vowel Sounds

Re-releases and Bundles
In 1999, JumpStart Reading for First Graders and its kindergarten and second grade counterparts were packaged and sold together as the JumpStart Learn to Read bundle. It was also included with JumpStart Numbers and JumpStart Music in the JumpStart 1st Grade Fun Pack bundle.