LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set - Styles May Vary
by LeapFrog
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Our Price: $23.49 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set - Styles May Vary
Customer Review: Very Helpful for Recognizing Letters, but That's About It - Where's the "Phonics"?
Summary: 3 Stars
LeapFrog makes some very good toys for children who are beginning to develop language skills. The Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set may not be the best of their offerings, but it's also not without merit.
The set consists of 26 letter shapes and a player (about the size of a handheld radio). All of the pieces contain strong magnets to keep them securely fastened to your refrigerator. When your child presses one of the shapes into the player, it plays a short tune listing the letter and what sound it makes. If the player is activated without a shape in place, it plays the ABC song.
Our son enjoyed playing the music and singing along with the ABCs. The biggest benefit that we received was by using the letter blocks to play "can you show me which letter is. . ." This sort of reinforcement really helped out when he was learning his alphabet.
However, as others have already mentioned, the playset doesn't expand beyond individual letter sounds. For example, there's no way of playing back how letter combinations sound, and there is no functionality for spelling short words as with other similar toys. Also, as your child gets older, he/she may want to spell out short words or names - it will then become frustrating when the set's limitation of one-of-each-letter sets in.
For these reasons, this is the first baby/toddler toy that I've ever seen that has a recommended age that's too high. I've found that toys typically promise that children can use/enjoy them much earlier than is practically the case. However, the Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set is the opposite. It claims to be for children between two and four. We gave this to our son around 18 months or so and he outgrew what it had to offer well before his third birthday.
While I can't say anything bad about this set, I'd recommend either the LeapFrog Discovery Ball (wider age range and more activities) or Learning Hoops (more phonics/spelling capability and counting) toys before trying this one.
PROS
* Very good for learning letters via repetition
CONS
* Very limited phonics capabilities - just single letter sounds
* Only one of each letter means that older toddlers won't be able to make many words
* Not interesting enough for the quoted age range
Customer Review: Great for Speech-Delayed kids!
Summary: 5 Stars
My 4-year-old daughter is a former micropreemie and as a result, she is profoundly delayed, non-verbal/non-sign, and has autistic traits and sensory integration dysfunction (SID/DSI). She functions at about a 15-month old level. She got this toy for her birthday and it is AMAZING!!! She is identifying letters...if I say, "where's the K?" she'll put the K magnet in the toy. Since she has autistic traits, she likes repetition, and this is the perfect thing! She is even starting to say some letter sounds like, "mmm, mmm, mmm". She has MANY Leap Frog toys, and this is another great one to add to the list!! My daughter licks *everything* in sight, including the letter magnets of this toy, and it has not affected the ability of this toy to work.*** Note to parents/friends of Autistic/SID/DSI kids - My daughter "stims" on several of her toys, but this one doesn't cause her to do it as bad. She sometimes likes to push the button of the toy without a letter tile to hear it go "blingy, bling", and sometimes will push the letter tile/magnet repeatedly at the beginning of the song so it goes, "A/A/A/A...A says/A says...but like I said, not as bad as with other auditory toys. ***
I do find that I have the "A says ah and A says ayy" song in my head a lot. There are two volume settings and an off switch. However, even on the low setting this toy is awfully loud. We put clear packing tape over the speaker and that helped a lot. The ABC song and the letter sounds song are the ones you will find on other Leap Frog toys and the Leap Frog videos. This is good if you want reinforcement...which my daughter needs.
The magnets are nice and strong. If they come off the fridge, they aren't too bad to step on either :-o! ...unlike the "traditional" letter/number magnets.
The toy is very multisensory - kinesthetic, auditory, visual (color/letter), and tactile. Kudos to Leap Frog for another great educational toy!
My 6 year-old also likes to help his sister with this toy. He loves to arrange the letters for her and quiz her. Then he likes to spell words and teach them to her. The vowels are red and the consonants are yellow or blue. So I ask my daughter to find letters based on certain colors to increase the educational value. Unfortunately, her name has two l's and two e's, so we can't spell her name with the letters.
Customer Review: Great toy, but magnets are weak
Summary: 3 Stars
I own quite a few of the Leap Frog fridge educational toys and love them all...but for some reason they used weaker magnets in this one. The toy itself gets 5 stars, but because the magnets are so weak, I dropped it's overall rating down to 3 because my kids can't really play with it on the fridge as it keeps sliding down...it has become a floor toy.
So, the toy itself...you get an individual piece for each letter and the main unit knows which letter is inserted and sings a catchy tune stating the letter and the sound it makes. There is a volume control switch, but both are quite loud (if you don't like loud kid toys, this isn't for your household). If you push the music note on the top of the main unit it sings the whole alphabet...the WHOLE alphabet song. My kids love it, but if you accidently bump into it, there is no way of making it stop without switching it off then back on again, which is annoying in my opinion...seems like you should be able to push the button again and it stop.
Good luck keeping track of all the letters...the fit perfectly under the stove and because they are magnetic, get stuck down there. You will lose letters and probably never find them...kids have ways of doing that with little things. Speaking of little...the letters aren't little enough for your kid to choke on them, but they can fit the whole thing in their mouth and then get it stuck...so good news no choking hazard, but making them a bit bigger would have been great so the kids couldn't stick in in their mouth.
Another reviewer said this will scratch your fridge....um, no...it is plastic, and the magnets are covered by plastic. It will marr your fridge tho, but that can be cleaned by rubbing your finger over the mark or using Mr. Cleans' good ol' Magic Eraser (c'mon parents, I know you have these laying around...and if you don't, get one cuz they are great!).
Battery life...I have had this about 6 months and it gets many hours of use throughout the day...batteries still going strong! Despite my complaints about it, I do recommend it to any parent with a learning toddler as it makes learning the alphabet and their sounds fun. :-)
Customer Review: Terrible for young would-be readers
Summary: 1 Stars
This toy would have been good for youngsters if they had simply used lower-case letters. Unfortunately, focusing exclusively on the upper-case alphabet is disastrous for those learning to read.
LeapFrog forces you to buy an expansion pack to get the lower-case letters, an extra hidden expense. However, most parents either will receive this as a gift or won't realize when buying it that the expansion pack exists, or may not know that teaching a child to recognize only upper-case letters is actually a DETRIMENT to early reading ability.
Many upper-case letters bear little or no resemblance to their lower-case counterparts. Almost all text is printed in lower-case, with the occasional upper-case letter to start a sentence or proper noun. This means that a young one who wants to start sounding out words around her is best served by learning lower-case letters first. In fact, learning the upper-case alphabet comes as a free bonus to a young learner. (For example, reading the word "The" at the start of a sentence will teach a young reader about capital T, since in context the word will be easy to recognize.)
Apart from the fact that LeapFrog only ships upper-case letters in order to increase your total purchase price, the implementation of the toy is suboptimal. Each letter is presented with a maximum of two sounds. This has caused some confusion with my 3-year-old, since letters like "a" have more sounds that pop up in common early reading words.
In addition, the sounds are presented in a worthlessly sappy-cute way: "'T' goes [t]; 't' goes [t]. Every letter makes a sound. 'T' goes 't'." It would have been much more helpful to just have each common sound fully represented, and not have to listen to the whole spiel. The common repetition cannot enhance recollection at all.
Buy or recommend this set only with the caveat that the expansion pack with lower case letters must also be purchased, and the upper-case letters stored away. Otherwise, the recipient child will wind up able to read all-caps titles and banners, and little else.
Customer Review: If You Run a School in Your Home the Fridge Phonics is Great
Summary: 3 Stars
Initially this toy was a huge hit. The learning entertained him, and I was amazed. At the time, I did not have a good attitude about LeapFrog. I considered their toys to be expensive gadgets that enticed parents, but not necessarily children. After my son earned all the letters, he played with the Fridge Phonics for a few days, and that was it. I didn't think much about it, as kids alternate favorites frequently. Honestly, 3-weeks was the extent of play with this toy! Once he learned the letters, and the sounds, he moved on. The toy sat on the shelf in a bin for months on end. He never picks it up. I placed the bin in his closet for a month thinking he would ask for it, or at least be pleased when I returned it. He could care less. Before writing this review I tried again, and put the letters and reader on the refrigerator. He went over and played with them for a few minutes, but there they still sit, and it's been weeks. So, basically they've sat for a year with minimal play.
I don't hate this toy; I just don't think it's worth the money. In addition, why didn't LeapFrog anticipate the desire for lower case letters, and numbers? At the time I would have been willing to pay more for those add-ons had they been available. Also, as caveat, the Parent Guide carries a WARNING about the magnet. "Keep at least 6" away from pacemakers, and avoid contact with magnetic computer media, including floppy disks, Zip disks, removable Hard Disk Drives, Televisions, and Computer Video Monitors, other magnetic media including credit cards, ID badges..."
The Fridge Phonics did amuse my child, and he did learn the alphabet, but I have a feeling that a tête-à-tête with mom could have produced the same results. I think this would be an awesome toy for a daycare, a pre-school, or special-needs school where many children can benefit. Overall, the toy is made well, and the sound quality is decent; however, my son had a problem with the letter F sounding like S, and the letter D sounding like E.