Dora the Explorer and her friends sing and dance their way across the computer screens, captivating the preschoolers at the Back to Basics Learning Center in Orangeburg.

It’s not only entertainment for the three- and four-year-olds to just sit back and watch. It’s a set of interactive lessons designed to teach math, the alphabet and early reading skills.

“It’s all educational software, things like numbers and letters, sequencing, patterns and groups,” says Amy Nienstedt, director of CompuKids in North Charleston.

“We are just reinforcing what the teachers are already teaching them,” she said.

That includes not just academic instruction, but social skills such as respect for the computers and for each other, and physical skills such as hand-eye coordination.

Using the laptops eases the transition to kindergarten, she said. “When they get into school, they’re not totally clueless about the computer.”

Every other Thursday since last fall, Nienstedt has brought seven laptops to the Orangeburg day care center, which is completing its eighth year of operation.

Children are paired at each computer to instill cooperation and encourage communication. Each pair of children gets 22 minutes of supervised activity on a laptop.

Some older folks are “kind of scared of” computers, but young children have no such reluctance, she said.

“You can see, they just go right to it,” Nienstedt said. “They pick up on it really quick.”

Nienstedt travels among nearly a dozen day care centers, mostly in the Charleston area, and loves her job.

“It’s a blast!” she said. “I love it, the kids love it and it’s very rewarding to see how quickly they catch on and how much they really do learn.”

Nienstedt is a co-founder of Charleston Tech Support LLC, a family-owned and -operated computer service business.

For more information, call 843-425-9374.

On the Web: www.charlestontechsupport.com.

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