Preschool Prep Series: Sight Words Pack (Meet the Sight Words 1-3)

My son has been watching the first video of this box set for about a month. In that month, he has not only been able to learn to read all 16 sight words on this disc, but has also managed to learn to write about half of them, all without any supplemental instruction from me.The DVD shows the words in three stages, all of which I think reach different kinds of learners: bold black print, color print, and animated print.Bold black is just that... the word written in black block letters.Color print is the word in block letters, but of a color (such as orange, blue, etc).Animated print is the word caricatured. For example, the word "play" depicts each letter as a part of a mini-scene in a baseball game... the "p" is the batter, the "l" is the bat, the "a" is the glove and the "y" is the catcher. Or something like that... I forgot the details because after the first time watching it with my son I nearly lost my mind and bought him a portable DVD player with headphones instead.During these word animations on the screen, a voice repeats the words with a different inflection each time. It also alternates between male and female voices.Disc one for my son is complete, and he reads all of the words, and as mentioned before, writes many of them as well. I will be adding the second disc to his viewing regimen. The repetition is key. It's mind-numbing for us adults, but my son just sits in his room chanting "he, he, he, he.... of, of, of, of..." etc etc.I will also be buying the entire "Meet The ___ " collection if I can get a hold of it.

Let me just say, I am not a professional teacher. I am a mom of 2 kids. I started my oldest on this at 3. She is turning 4 soon. Guess what? THIS WORKS. She knows ALL of her sight words and it is really exciting to see her point out her sight words in other books or in menus, or wherever. I did not know where to start, but I came across this program while doing research and decided to give it a try. I bought the books that it pairs with as well. The videos are extremely boring and repeat the words over and over again with cheesy graphics, but it's not a video for me, it's for my kid, and she loves these videos. We review these videos often and I plan on using them on my 2nd kid when she is old enough. Definitely worth the money. I'll probably end up buying phonics as well.

I bought these videos for my 2 1/2 year old and within about a month he knew all the words. I had purchased Your Baby Can Read for his 2nd birthday and he had mastered all the words on it in 5 months and I wanted to further his reading skills and found this series. He already knew letters, numbers, shapes and colors so I didn't need those but am sure they are also wonderful videos. The Meet The Sight Words series helped him learn the sight words for Kindergarten in a fun way and he found many of the scenes to be comical and wants to watch them over and over still 6 months later. By watching this video series he has learned sight words faster than my friend's 6 year old who is in Kindergarten. At 2 years old he knew more sight words than 2 children I knew who are both in Kindergarten! Their Mom's were not happy that a 2 year old knew more words than their 6 year olds. Your Baby Can Read gave my son a great foundation for reading skills and Meet The Sight Words built on those skills! I'm not saying you have to purchase Your Baby Can Read to make these videos a success I already owned it and wanted to find more similar DVD's to continue his reading skills, My cousin's 4 year old also loves Meet The Sight Words and her pre-k teacher can't get over how many words she knows before Kindergarten thanks to these videos. My son has special needs due to a brain hemorrhage at birth, he has Sensory isues, gross motor delays and a speech delay but these videos helped his speech delay because he wanted to say the words, because the word repeats several times he is hearing it more and tries to say the words with better success. His speech has dramatically improved. I highly recommend these videos to all children ages 2-5.

UPDATE: I had written a review before and I will keep it, but now that my son has turned 4 he asked one day out of the view these again. As I state below I do not find these entertaining but we sat together and we did the quizes aferward and he watched all three videos about 4 times. Two days later thinking nothing of this I was left a note by his AM preschool teacher to have my son read me a book she left, and while it was the most basic book one could find he did indeed sit and read me the book word for word. I still find these videos boring, tedius and I cannot believe my child had the interest to watch them but he did and he learned and he retained it.I would never force this video on my child, but he liked Meet the Letters and learned all his letters so I got these for him. He was very excited and by his own request watched them on and off all weekend. My son, age 3 has been insisting on watching one movie after the other and not the same one over and over again so his total intake is not as high as it was with meet the letters when he watched it over and over again (about 45 words in the set), but he definitely has picked up several words in a short time. As a parent watching these I find them tedious and torturous, but they seem to do what they are intended to do better than more entertaining videos and they hold my son's interest. I like that these are truly geared to what is taught and tested for as opposed to any old word a creative director could fit into a story. Another interesting thing is compared to other videos he seems to be able to retain these if showed the word elsewhere on paper. There are a few shows with similar content where he can shout out the word on the screen but can't identify the word in a real life scenario. The end of the video puts the words in sentences has a flashcard sequence.