Flash cards aren’t my thing. I prefer to leave the educating to the teachers. Educational DVD’s are more my style and are a slacker mom’s best friend for guilt free television viewing. We have a plethora of them in our DVD collection. I can’t say for sure whether or not my kids learn from them but I figure it can’t hurt.

We’ve recently added a new one to our collection. Meet The Sight Words 1 from the Preschool Prep Series is a DVD recommended for ages 15 months to 6 years which makes it a good fit for two of my kids who are two and six.

The DVD introduces sight words by repeating them several times as each word transforms from a memorable character to printed text. This is done by first showing the word in full color as the narrator repeating it several times then transforms into an animated character which doesn’t always have anything to do with the word. I don’t think the point of the DVD is to teach the meaning of the sight words so much as to teach them what the word looks like.

That must be why they are called “sight words”.

I never said I was the sharpest tool in the toolbox.

After the sight word has finished its animation it transforms to black and white much like it would be on a printed page.

It all sounds and looks impressive but I’m not so sure my kids agree. The only way I could keep them interested in the DVD was to play it in the car where they had no choice but to watch it. But I can say this about all our educational DVD’s. I guess they aren’t the sharpest tools either.

My two year old did repeat the words with the narrator and seemed entertained but like most two year olds she checked out after 15 minutes.

My son who is six needs this DVD the most. He has some auditory processing issues and is barely sounding out words so I had big hopes for this DVD. Having him learn the sight words would be a great start to helping him be successful at reading.

Unfortunately he felt the DVD was a bit too babyish and was embarrassed to act interested in it when his big sisters were around. Three to five year olds are probably the age group that would get the most out of this DVD with all its adorable animations.

My hope is that in the very near future there will be DVD’s geared towards the older child who is struggling to learn how to read. My son will be seven in a few months and I have to agree with him that the animation is a bit young for him. He would have been much more interested if there were IRL kids his age or graphics similar to video games.

Overall I love the premise of Meet The Sight Words 1. It is great for preschoolers and would be a great teaching tool in the classroom. I also really liked the flashcard feature. Those are my kind of flashcards!

I’m not so sure that the DVD will actually teach a child the sight words but I do think it’s perfect for supplementing and reinforcing the memorization of the them.

Bonus features include:

• Select ’special case’ “” or traditional ““

• Short lesson selection for classroom use

• Video Flashcards

Featuring “of, play, it, he, you, in, I , to, have, and, a, said, is, the, for & that”

~Kristie

A Parents Blogger Network product review.