Memorizing with Flashcards

Some information can be learned only through memorization. Information such as letters, numbers, colors, animals, etc. cannot simply be understood. They must be committed to memory.

Memorization is very difficult for young developing brains, but children do begin learning to memorize in the earliest stages of development. Flashcards are an excellent tool helping your child with the process of memorization.

Flashcards can be made at home or purchased. Regardless of where you get your flashcards, make certain that they are simple. Ideally, a flashcard will include only a single object and its name. Flashcards with multiple objects or busy backgrounds can be confusing.

When presenting flashcards to your child, keep the cards in the same order. Following a consistent order will speed the process of memorization.

Click here for information on making your own flashcards.

LeapFrog Talking Words Factory Provides Excellent Introduction to Reading

Professor Quigley, Leap, Lily, and Tad are back in Talking Words Factory, the logical sequel to the Letter Factory DVD from LeapFrog.

In this follow-up, the young cartoon frogs spend a day at the Talking Words Factory with Professor Quigley as they learn how words are formed.

The story first tackles the most important letters: vowels. Professor Quigley demonstrates that vowels are special because they stick letters together to form words. From there, Quigley uses the Word Whammer 3000 to form simple three-letter words like cat and bat. Then he moves on to four-letter words (like stop and best) that use blended consonant sounds. (A toy version of the Word Whammer 3000 is available from LeapFrog as a complement to this DVD.)

Each phase of the story includes a catchy little musical number to add to the fun and help your child remember each lesson. The story uses many of the familiar talking letter characters from the Letter Factory video to remind your child of the previous lessons in phonics.

The Talking Words Factory DVD is very thorough. In a little more than half an hour, the characters present the basics of reading. The one negative about this video is that it moves very quickly and contains a tremendous amount of information for a young mind to absorb. The producers should have considered not going beyond three-letter words for this DVD and saved the four-letter words for the next sequel.

Please note that, since Talking Words Factory is rather advanced, your child must have the alphabet and phonics mastered before he or she will be able to understand this video. Even though this DVD does stand on its own, it shares a lot of elements with Letter Factory. It is highly recommended to use the two videos together.

Overall, Talking Words Factory is an excellent teaching tool for introducing your child to reading. It will take dozens of viewings for the lessons to sink in, but this video illustrates some concepts that are invaluable to budding readers.

LeapFrog’s Letter Factory, the Best DVD for Pre-Readers

LeapFrog’s Letter Factory is a video that teaches children the alphabet and the sounds of each letter through phonics.

The story is about Tad, Leap, and Lily (cartoon frogs) who spend a day with Professor Quigley at the Letter Factory. During the tour, characters move from room to room and learn about the individual letters of the alphabet. Each short segment features a different theme, a very brief skit with talking letters, and a catchy little song. These mini-lessons do an excellent job of introducing each letter and associating it with its sound. At the end of the story, all of the letters appear for a big musical finale to review the lesson.

LeapFrog’s Letter Factory is brilliant in its simplicity. Letter Factory reduces the alphabet to its most basic elements: the letters and their sounds. This simple content provides pre-readers with just what they need to know about the alphabet without overwhelming them with excessive information.

The catchy songs sung by cartoon letters cement each lesson and provide the child with an audio-visual mnemonic device for each letter of the alphabet. These well-imprinted memories will become invaluable when your child begins learning how to read. LeapFrog’s Letter Factory is educational, entertaining, and simply the best video for pre-readers on the market.

LeapFrog's Fridge Phonics toy is a complement to this DVD.

Sesame Street Is the Fast Lane of Education

Sesame Street is the single most important show on television. Seasame Street first aired on November 10, 1969. Over the decades, the producers of the show have fine-tuned the process of education through entertainment and have made Sesame Street the standard in children’s educational entertainment.

The key to Sesame Street’s effectiveness is the show’s energetic format. Sesame Street takes the essence of early learning (colors, shapes, numbers, letters, etc.) and integrates them into fun, interesting, and quick segments. For example, Big Bird and Ernie may discuss the letter D, and then Ernie will flashback to a song he sang to Bert about the letter D. Elmo may tell Cookie Monster that his favorite number is 5, and then a quick music video about the number 5 will play. Many of these segments last just a few minutes (often less than a minute); however, the producers have managed to weave the segments together to create one seamless episode after another.

Parents who watch Sesame Street with their children on a regular basis will recognize many of the songs and skits that appear throughout almost every episode. Sesame Street has amassed such a tremendous library of material that the producers can pull from dozens of classic segments for almost any subject. Even though some of these segments go back decades, they still manage to be relevant. The reason why they are relevant is because the basics of learning have not changed, and young children today are a lot like young children were decades ago.

In the world of media, there are hundreds of examples of important programming; however, not one of them does as much to introduce small children to learning as Sesame Street. There is no more valuable hour of programming on television.