Letter Factory Video

I just gave my youngest child (who's about to turn two), his first video. And he loves it.

It gave me a really weird feeling to watch this little kid settle down and get into a video. I think it's because just like any other kid his age, he's basically never still unless he's sleeping. So when he sat still to watch the movie, it seemed kind of eerie. I kept thinking, something's not right - why isn't he moving?

Well, I guess that's why we'll only give him one video. :-)

This DVD is a "Pre-Reading" video by Leap Frog. The goal is to help kids learn letter sounds, and it works. My daughter learned her letter sounds from this video, and now my youngest is picking them up very quickly.

After watching Letter Factory a few times over the last couple of weeks, he's started bringing me capital letter magnets from the fridge and making the corresponding sound. He particularly likes "B", "C", "M", "S" and "Z".

The story line involves a family of frogs who are trying to put on a show. The youngest member of the family, Tad, who seems about like a human four-year-old, can't help with the show until he learns his letters.

He learns his letter sounds by visiting 26 different rooms. Each room has letters in it, that sing a song or otherwise demonstrate the sound they make.

At the end, the letters perform in the show, and they all make their sounds correctly ... "The B says buh ... the B says buh ... Every letter makes a sound, the B says buh."

This video has proven to be riveting for both my youngest kids. And I actually thought it was pretty entertaining, the first three or four times I watched it.

If I were to try to improve this video, I can only think of one suggestion I'd make. I'd rather the letters be lowercase rather than capitals. When you read books, you're reading mostly lowercase letters. So we ought to learn them first. (In Letter Factory, the lowercase letters do appear on the doors to the rooms, but the singing letters themselves are all capitals.)

Nobody's asked me for ideas on the remake, though. And we do love this video.