Skill Review: Sesame Street

Sesame Street is a delightful Alexa-powered voice skill developed by Sesame workshop whose mission is “to help kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder”. This interactive voice app features Elmo, one of the most famous characters, a.k.a a furry red Muppet monster who features in the famous television series, ‘Sesame Street’. The crux of the skill is that Elmo with his falsetto voice hosts the game to educate and entertain kids.

The skill aims to deliver a memorable voice experience to preschoolers so as to help them learn and play. The highlight of the skill is none other than Elmo, the muppet monster himself. This upbeat character with his infectious laugh and curious voice is known to fascinate and win the attention of little ones. One of the educative games the skill offers is the letter of the day, for which Elmo is always super excited to share all the fun things about. Besides this, the voice app presents a captivating game of ‘Hide and Seek’ packed with an interesting voice-over and sound effects as clues to his hiding place. In short, the skill allows kids to immerse their inquisitive minds in an imaginative play to learn about new words and get all giggly with this furry friend. A few of the highlights worth mentioning are the efficient handling of conversation with kids; the support rendered by a well-rounded help section, and to top it – the enrichment of vocab it offers kids. Well, that being said, there seem to be a few downsides that could let down the little avid minds at times. In certain instances, the background music seems to override Elmo’s speech making it rather difficult to decipher the articulated letter which gets drowned in the flurry of the accompanying melody. Another missing ingredient is the amiss gamification feature owing to which kids stand no chance at scoring points for the right guesses they ace. Last but not least, the display of images falls out of sync while switching games i.e. the image reflects the screen for the letter talked about by Elmo even when switching over to ‘Hide and Seek’. To add to it, the chosen images lack a quantum of attractive quality, a presence of which could have upped the eye-catching, sparkle effect to grip the attention of early learners.

The VOGO Voice team scores this skill 4 out of 5 stars based on our rating system. Yet, you’ll have to try for yourself and see if it is a truly kid-friendly voice app that will grow in them a true love for learning. Bear in mind to accompany your kids as they play out this skill so as to help them benefit the most from it. So why not try out the skill and see if it offers the enriching experience you had anticipated for your doting little ones.