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Pick. An engaging storyline is one of the things that
sets this learn-to-read video/DVD apart. Based on the
popular LeapFrog educational toy line, this video
helps children learn to build words using simple phonics.
Many kids are already familiar with the Leap family--frog youngsters Tad, Leap, and Lily, along with their father and
mother--through exposure to toys such as the LeapPad
or Leap's Phonics Pond. This video follows the
frog family's adventure at the Talking Words Factory. Children
needn't have viewed the first video in the series, LeapFrog Letter
Factory, in order to benefit from Talking Words Factory, although the former video does a fine job of laying down the foundation for learning basic letter sounds.
Tad learns about a contest for Best Dad, but in order to fill out the contest form, he needs to learn how to build words. At the Talking Words Factory, Leap, Lily, and Tad take a very educational tour. First, children learn to identify vowels, and
observe that vowels are the "glue" that holds words together. The
Sticky-Ick-O-Rama machine helps demonstrate this process as it makes the vowels "sticky".
Young viewers are introduced to another machine that helps build
words, and the first word they learn to build is "cat". Kids learn that the word has
both a beginning sound and ending sound.
As with the previous video in the series
(Letter Factory), children learn to associate letters with sounds in clever ways. The "C" for example is "c-c-c-cold". The "A" and "T" sound themselves out individually, and then they are pressed together to make one sound. This is a highly visual, valuable lesson in basic phonics! After learning to build the word "cat", kids work with the "at" word family (cat, bat, fat, hat, etc.) using the Word Whammer machine.
Rhyming words help to reinforce word-building skills.
Plenty of reinforcement is available, and although reinforcement often goes hand in hand with boring repetition, this video combines song and fun visuals to keep kids interested. Learning to read is fun with this
series! We recommend the video wholeheartedly. Kids not only learn to build words,
because Tad is filling in the blanks on a contest form, children learn that words are very
useful.
The video runs for 35 minutes. Plenty of audio and visual stimuli include such things as a song about blends, letters dropping through chutes,
and more. Words include stop, frog, clap, hat, big, pop, mop, pin, jug, and more.
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