123 It's a Fruity ABC - Early Learning - Synthetic Phonics [DVD]

GOOD FOR THE PURPOSE

I bought this DVD as my son is gradually developing his speech and I thought the phonics practice would be good. He LOVES it! I fact he keeps saying `DVD, DVD' because he wants me to put it on again and again!The DVD is a good mix of phonics and words being sounded out; quite a few of the photos and pictures are fruit related but there are also words such as `umbrella', `love', `dog' and numbers up to nine. There is a good amount of movement and colour contrast and both my son (just two) and daughter (just one) enjoy the music that repeats with the introduction of each new letter.If I'm honest, I'm getting a bit sick of it but the kids can't seem to get enough!

this DVD has a ***** rating from many reviewers but we found it very poor.(1) the sound quality is bad, sometimes it is distorted ("ss" in particular) and sometimes important sounds are inaudible the final "b" in "herb" for example.(2) as the letters are presented, each one is named "BEE CEE DEE" and then after some music the phonetic sound of the letter is given. This is very confusing for the child who first repeates one sound for the letter then another.(3) the words that the child is invited to 'read' are often words with non-phonteic pronunciations. This is daft. They could have chosen words where the sounds of the letters are the same as their basic phonic sound.(4) the music is very very repetitiative and there is a lot of empty space with music in it. The same 8 bars are used throughourt the DVD.(5) there are also numbers on the DVD but these seem to be aimed at much younger children. A child who is ready to be reading letter sounds would already be able to count beyond 5 I would think.(6) some of the words used are quite unusual. "Y is for Yam" for example. how many three year olds know what a yam is?Buy the "Mistermen alphabet hunt" instead.Robert

I partly bought this because of the rave reviews but I'm disappointed with it.Yes the letters are said phonetically which makes a nice change as most phonics dvds and software seem to just name them which is confusing to a child learning to read. My children loved the idea for the first few fruits, then realised it was just the same format repeated endlessly and it won't hold their attention for longer than 5 minutes, very unusual as they love TV and manage pretty much to happily glue themselves to anything on it usually.

Very good DVD but if your child knows the phonetic alphabet already its too basic as it just covers the letter sounds. Very good for children from around 8 months it would be a nice introduction to phonics sounds.

I bought this primarily based on its glowing reviews.However, The sound quality is very poor, which for synthetic phonic pronounciation is crucial. It doesn't show upper case letters, only lower case, which is a missed opportunity in my book. The background music also starts to irritate you as it's the same all the way through.I really hoped this would be good, but i'm sure there are better products out there.

My daughter loved it... that was what i aimed for. Also delivered on time.

I paid £16 in amazon for this when in fact you can buy this for £12.99 in 123fruity website (free of delivery as well).I thought amazon is cheaper!!!