Learning to Read with Phonics - Letters and Words [VHS]

Disappointing
I bought this video thinking that it would be a fun way to help my child learn to read. He watched some of it a few times and lost interest. They recommend doing one fifteen-minute segment at a time, but they don't focus enough. The imaginary character seems tacked-on, and the little rhymes the teacher leads don't help because she goes to fast for kids to learn them and doesn't use them enough. They also don't really seem to fit with the lessons. I'd recommend skipping this one and moving on to the Leap Frog videos, both my four- and two-year-old love them.

skip this one
this is awful. my kids wouldn't watch it. it has bad lighting, bad audio, bad characters, no editing at all, and it's just a waste. i couldn't even sell it at my garage sale. really, there are lots of great videos out there for phonics (get rock 'n learn phonics or rock 'n learn letter sounds) but this is not one of them. i cant believe it had any good rating so i had to tell you. dont bother! it's awful and boring and i see no value whatsoever. i gave it 2 stars because it had good cover-art and maybe it had value back when it was made.

Learning to Read with Phonics - Letters and Words
As a parent and preschool director this teaches the alphabet and letter sounds. It also teaches uppercase, lower case letters, and how to correctly write the letters. My 6-year-old daughter has watched it over and over again learning something new each time. I have a M.Ed. in early childhood education and I used this video with my own child. I have recommended this video to many parents of children the ages of 3-6 and those who have used it have had different levels of success. Barbara Phipps uses phonics but teaches it in a fun and age appropriate way. She teaches the proper way to write letters and stays within the national language standards for early childhood and elementary education. Children learn at their own pace with lessons that are an average of 15-minute segments. If a child does not even know their alphabet they learn this, while hearing the correct way to pronounce the letter. The setting is a bit outdated, but children who view it do not seem to notice. It bothers the adults who watch it more.

Not to Bad
This video teaches. My 5 year old and 2 year old watched. They learned from it. The video has basic phonics with the alphabet. Including visual example of writing letters. My problem is the puppet character and the "class room" students. My kids seem to like the video. It appears to be from the late nineteen seventies or early nineteen eighties. Thus the quality of video and characters are that time period. A bit drab.