Starting Alphabet Recognition and Reading

A lot of people suggested the leap frog DVD. I haven't used this, but we did see a marked improvement in my daughter's letter learning ability when we bought her the Leapster L-Max for Christmas along with the letter factory game. It was amazing... she went from hardly knowing any of her letters to knowing all them and the sounds they made. I highly reccommend it!

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Definitely Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD (you can buy it at Target for $9.99).....my 24 month old now knows ALL of his letters and the corresponding sounds...I really bought it for my 4 year who was struggling learning and remembering his...though now, he has a solid understanding the of the letter names and sounds.

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Wanted to echo several of the other mom's recommendation for the Leap Frog DVD set (The Letter Factory and The Word Factory). My twins have loved them and it is a fun way for them to learn without even realizing that they were learning. I was amazed to hear my daughter reciting the phoenics associated with each letter (via a catchy little song they have in the Letter Factory video..."every letter makes a sound, the A says aaaa"...) She knows all the sounds now and recently we picked up the Word Factory and she has actually started sounding out some short words in books from time to time. (MAT, CAT, BAT, etc). In our house we have not pressured the kids to learn, but we have just incorporated letter learning toys into their everyday. Examples: Foam letters for the bath tub, letter puzzles, books which letter features (seasme street book, dora book, etc), we have a letters and numbers on one of their placemats, we have refrigerator magnetic letters for one of their activity boards. Writing letters/words on the magnetic doodle boards you can draw and erase. Anyway - kids will all be interested in different things at different times. You know short attention spans at this age...they all go through phases where certain things are very interesting, then they move on to something else, and then may loop back around to it being interest again. Anyway, we just try to integrate alphabet, counting and colors into their day to day in a fun way with out pressuring to learn. Hope this helps. Definitely buy the Letter Factory - easy on you - fun for them and actually tolerable for an adult to watch!

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There is a leap frog magnetic alphabet set that when they put the letter on the thing that comes with it, the thing will play music and tell them what letter and what sound the letter makes. My son loved it and now I've given it to my mom for my niece who also loves it.

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Both of my girls starting at about age 2 started playing on the website www.starfall.com. Some kids need more stimulation, but it has been great for my kids. They are learning hand/eye coordination by using the mouse, they are learning about the computer, and they are learning their abcs and more, learning to read. Hope that helps. :)C.

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first--don't rush. My first daughter could have cared less and didn't know the entire alphabet when she started kindergarden :0--fast forward to today, she is in fourth grade and is one of the top readers in her class at a rigerous private school sooooo again don't rush.
My other three kids love the letter factory dvds.You could just put it on for fun time and maybe buy the fridge magnets and let him pay with them during the show. My three-year old loves to do this!
There's also a leapster that has the letter factory 'video' for it including games.
Again, don't rush, the worst thing (I think) is to push it too hard and they end up hating it.
Do read and keep reading books he likes and read for your self around him. He will get interested, promise!!!

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