The three R's have never had it so good. CD-ROM titles for children that teach and reinforce reading skills continue to flourish, and here are some of the newest entries in the field.

And they're off! Arthur the aardvark and his pesky but lovable little sister D.W. aim to settle an argument about who's the better reader in Arthur's Reading RKe (Living Books, 800-397-4240, est. street $29.95, Mac/WIN hybrid ISBN 1-57135-263-5, ages 3-7). If D.W. can correctly read 10 words along the walk home, Arthur will buy her an ice cream cone. The bustling community gives D.W. plenty of opportunity to call them as she sees them: "milk" on the side of a milk truck, "taxi" on the door of a cab, etc. But the two words that ultimately determine D.W.'s victory are "ice cream" on the ice cream shop door. Kids familiar with these characters will be eager to jump into the reading fun. (Arthur and D.W. have long been beloved as the stars of Marc Brown's picture books, and with the advent of Arthur's TV show on PBS which began airing this fall, the two aardvarks have garnered an even larger following.) Three additional reading and word-play activities have adjustable difficulty levels and provide depth beyond the traditional interactive storybook format. The most interesting one, Let Me Write, is an inventive combination of writing, rebus and exploration, allowing kids to click and drag items and characters from a scene and use them to create sentences. Requires: 8MB RAM

Things are definitely busy in Busytown, especially when it comes to reading. In Richard Scarry's Best Reading Program Ever (Simon & Schuster Interactive, 800-910-0099, SRP $29.95, Mac/WIN hybrid, ages 3-up), Huckle Cat and Lowly worm are on the move helping Mr. Fixit fill his new Storymobile with stories. But soliciting work from Busytown authors has its price: Huckle and Lowly must temporarily take over the duties of each Busytown citizen who volunteers to write a story. At the beach, Huckle and Lowly direct traffic in the parking lot while Sergeant Murphy pens a story,; on the farm, Farmer Soybean writes while Huckle and Lowly pick apples; and so on. Five different Busytown sites provide children with 15 learning games that introduce and reinforce letter and word recognition, matching, sequencing, phonics and other reading readiness skills. From hunting for lost marshmallows at the campground to bagging groceries at the Good Food Shop, kids will relish the friendly presentation of concepts here. As players complete each activity, a completed story appears on the Storymobile bookshelf where kids can often access and read it. The Story Writer feature lets users create their own tales from scratch, or they can make up a fill-in-the-blanks Silly Story using rebus pictures or words. With the progress report, parents can track a childs performance. A solid and rich entree to reading. Requires: 8MB RAM.

Membership is open to pre- and beginning readers at The Friendly Forest Reading Club (IBM Multimedia, 800-426-7235, SRP $89.95, WIN ISBN 0-933186-61-4, ages 4-7). This comprehensive two-disc program packs a real educational punch and includes five workbooks, two storybooks and a parents' guide as extras. Moose, Bear, Owl, Raccoon and Squirrel lead kids through bounty of skill-building activities that are often designed around familiar rhymes and tales. Reading Club 1, designed for pre-readers, emphasizes letter sounds and sequences, recognition of upper- and lower-case letters and basic writing, memory and comprehension exercises. The more advanced Reading Club 2 prepares kids for a first-grade reading level with practice of such skills as simple spelling, sentence-building and reading aloud. The program layout-akin to school workbooks with some pizzazz--is far from groundbreaking, but the combination of lessons, units and games, boosted by music, brief animations and occasional photographs, is successful. Parents have plenty of opportunity to get involved here, and can even obtain advice from an on-line reading advisor if their child experiences difficulties. Storybook libraries, a notebook in which to create original work and a nifty record-and-play-back feature help insure hour upon hour of learning. Requires: 8MB RAM, 5MB free hard disk space.

Parents may well wonder how they'll keep their preschoolers interested in mother Goose's Farm 4 Learning (Mattel Media, 888-628-8359, est. street $29.99 Mac/WIN hybrid ISBN 0-932631-14-2, ages 3-6) once they've played through this preschool package. The cumbersome program needlessly divides 12 early learning games among four different CD-ROMs a true annoyance. A jazzed up Mother Goose--a goose dressed in a red punky wig, beads and a vest--invites youngsters to try their hands at letter matching and identification, counting and dress-up games, but the lack of innovation and a clear distinction in skill levels decrease the likelihood of repeated outings. Peppy bluegrass background music and well-rendered graphics are highlights, but kids and parents can find better choices in this broad genre-- Elmo's Preschool (Creative Wonders), the Jumpstart Series (Knowledge Adventure) Fisher-Price Ready for School (Davidson) and Ready to Learn Activity Pack (Edmark) among them. Requires 8MB RAM.

Preschoolers will be clamoring to climb aboard The Alphabet Express (School Zone Publishing, 800-253-0564, SRP $39.95 Mac/WIN hybrid ISBN 0-88743-501-7, ages 3-6). Rarely has the alphabet been served up with such verve. A jolly alligator conductor guides a train ride through a multitude of reading-readiness activities suffused with a good dose of fun. Learning the names and sounds of letters is at the heart of the program, but mazes, hidden letter games, coloring book pages and whimsical (though small-screen) animated videos provide engaging detours. Requires: 8MB RAM, 15MB free on hard disk.

FYI: More letter fun is cooking in Grandma Ollie's Morphabet Soup from KinderActive (888-438-6543), an early reading program introduced by actress Jean Stapleton. Cruising around Grandma Ollie's 360-degree 3-D kitchen leads to word games like Fabulous Fridge Fun and Homonym Hunt. While kids are likely to derive some good letter practice here, many of the directions preceding the games are too lengthy, and several of the activities seem too sophisticated for the suggested 4-7 age range.