The Children's Literacy Project (CLP) recently joined CU-Denver computer science students with Tattered Cover Bookstores to create a World Wide Web site for children called KidsTown.

KidsTown is an HTML-based site where kids can learn about everything from animals at the zoo to geography. Inside each site is a puzzle, trivia questions or a learning game that pertains to a particular subject.

Tammy Kilgore, Internet services project manager for Tattered Cover Book Store, said, "The KidsTown project provided a great opportunity for cooperative learning at many levels by giving UCD students real-life job experience--building a web site for a client and learning what it is like to have a working business relationship."

This project began because Jody Paul, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at UCD, wanted his students to gain actual hands-on work experience with a client while in the classroom. At the same time the students wanted to produce a children's literacy site that would be useful in the real world.

"Promoting literacy means providing the opportunity for children to want to use their language skills, and making it interesting so they will want to read and use their higher-level cognitive skills," Paul said. "We also use strong visuals to get the children to want to interact with the program."

CLP was formed in January 1996 by Paul. The KidsTown website was designed for children with upper-elementary school reading ability and meets the new literacy standards adopted by the State of Colorado and used by the Denver Public Schools. KidsTown is located at http://kidstown.mine.nu