Our Reading companions.

Masha' Allah, the Professors main interest these days is reading. They want to, and try to, read everything. I cannot read them enough books, magazines, pic. captions, random road signs, etc. We have been working diligently on getting them to be able to read on their own, but we still have some work to do. I thought this would be a good time to share on the blog what we have been using as a reading companions to our Sandpaper letters, Moveable Alphabet, and Story (or Reading) Time.

Professor #1 is a very visual learner and is very much a right brained kind of guy Masha' Allah. This Leap Frog DVD set has been amazing for him, and enjoyable for the other Professors as well.

The Letter Factory, and the Talking Words Factory are by far two of the most excellent learning videos I have ever seen, Masha' Allah. They are both highly informative and enjoyable, and were first produced in 2006. They got over 2,000 positive reviews!  The Let's Go to School DVD is one of the newer, overhauled Leap Frog movies, and it is terribly lacking compared to the other two in our opinion . I lament deeply that Leap Frog felt they had to change things, and The Professors don't even enjoy watching it in the same way they do the other two.

Included in the 3 DVD package are a set of Flash Cards that represent the character letters used in the Letter Factory DVD. This made almost effortless transitional learning for the Professors from movie to printed word, Masha' Allah. They are made of soft card board, so if you have Baby Professors of your own around, I recommend laminating them, because they enjoy tasting and folding them ; )

The second set of DVD's we use are by a company titled, Preschool Prep Company. The 3 DVD pack is called Meet the Sight Words.

Each DVD introduces a set of Kindergarten sight words in the form of a silent story. The only dialog in the movies are the sight word being repeated over and over. This has led to some snickering and silly imitations amongst the Professors, but part of me believes that is part of getting kids to remember the words. We all found them a little dry, but well done, and a neat way to help get the words down, insha' Allah.

Both companies have websites where you can find more information:

Preschool Prep Company: http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/i/index.php

Leap Frog: www.leapfrog.com

***Please note that the Leap Frog Learning DVD Set featured in this post is no longer for sale via their website. Please try independent dealers such as Amazon or Ebay. Individual DVD's are for sale. ***