I can officially call LeapFrog Letter Factory a big hit with Caroline. Now that I know she likes it, I’ll look into the other related ones as well. Thanks very much for the recommendations! I’ll be checking out some of the others soon!
I also purchased the Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder today. We already had the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set
and it helped Caroline learn her letters very early on. But she has shown such an interest in words and spellings lately that I knew it was time to move her along to something more challenging.
Letter Factory is great!
I didn’t like Word Factory or the math one as much though.
Word Factory and Code Word Caper are OK, the one after that is whole language. The math one is cute, and doesn’t teach anything poorly, but really doesn’t teach much.
For her age, I recommend 2 things: Teach Your Child to Read in Just Ten Minutes a Day by Sidney Ledson, it has some fun games and ideas for a young child. And, Webster’s Speller. The 2 letter syllables are a perfect start. I used it with my daughter in K and she was reading out of the KJV by the end of the year, it’s very powerful.
http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/webstersway.html
Webster taught school for many years and also wrote our first American dictionary, it’s no wonder his phonics is superior to anything used today. (When taught with the Speller, the students did not need specialized readers, they went straight from the Speller to the Bible, starting with the Psalms and Proverbs.)
Both my children have been able to spell before they could blend and sound out words, my 4 year old boy has been able to spell for a while but is just now beginning to learn how to sound out words. (He’s known his letter sounds and names since he was 2 thanks to Tad the frog.)
Cat phonics also has some fun games (linked at end)
http://www.catphonics.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/contents.htm