Customer Reviews

LeapFrog: Turbo Twist Spelling

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Right now this toy is just like all the other spelling toys on the market. It cannot do what the box says it can do yet. For instance the box says if you buy the leap link to go with it you can download your child's spelling list. You cannot do that beacause the leap frog web site is not ready to do that yet. I e mailed them and they said it MIGHT be ready by mid November. I personally bought this toy because of all the extra benefits it said it had. Had I known that the company was selling a product that is not even ready yet I would not have bought it. That is why I gave it such a low rating. I was being generous with the three stars. Maybe once leap frog gets their act together and it can be used to its full capacity I will rate it differently. So if you haven't purchased one yet WAIT!

My son is an 8 yr. old who is beginning 5th grade. He is a very good student. His only difficult subject is language arts (Spelling). This turbo twist spelling has captured his attention, motivated him, encouraged him and rewarded him. He says it is cool fun! Most important to Mom is the reaction we see when he succeeds in spelling geography or fascinate correctly. Thanks leap frog. Note: Please parents/teachers- encourage leap frog/leap zone to keep their web site affordable. We have used it and it is a gem. However, if the price prevents children who need it from using it... it is a waste of time and effort. A minimal fee is understandable... But let's work to make this available to all kids who need it!

Turbo Twist Spelling is quite a versitile tool. Originally purchased for a six-year-old girl, her four-year-old brother found the 'toy' entertaining, too. The positive reinforcements offered after each correct letter as well as gentle hints given when a wrong letter was chosen encouraged further gameplay. The animation played after a correctly spelled word was rather simple with block-ish digital images that were far below the standards offered by the audio which included music, male, and female voices. Overall, I strongly recommend this product for young spellers.

For those of you who are looking to purchase the Turbo Twist Spelling, Math or other products; please be advised to visit the website at www.leapfrog.com first. The packaging shows that additional downloadable material is available from the website which adds new spelling words and games and gives you the ability to download your child's school spelling list. I was led to believe by the packaging that this was included in your purchase price but it is not. You must purchase this additional information at what I considered to be a high price considering the price of the product itself and the additional equipment that you must purchase to complete the downloads.

We bought this item for my son last Christmas, but it wasn't until this year, when he entered the first grade, that he actually started using it to help him with his spelling lists. Being able to download your own spelling words is fantastic. The website offers generic spelling lists according to grade level that you can download. With this toy, my son can study in the car and at other times when I'm not around. After he's done studying, I can print out a progress report to see in what areas he may need help. Be careful not to "slam" the big button on the end when entering your answers. It has broken once, and luckily, my husband was able to take it apart and fix it. The Turbo Twist Spelling has great features like a "repeat" button and volume control. It says encouraging phrases and can even address your child by his first name.

My ADD, first-grader son has been struggling with his weekly spelling lists; we got him the Turbo Twist Spelling and the Mind Station because of the feature that lets you enter your own spelling lists for study. Using the Mind Station and our regular AOL connection, we can go online to the LeapFrog website, enter his weekly list of words and download them to the cartridge for his Turbo Twist. Then he can "study" the specific words he needs to master all week by playing the games on the Turbo Twist.

It's perfect for ADD and ADHD kids because they tend to be 'kinesthetic' learners---they need to interact physically with things to learn, and the more senses they can involve, the better. The Turbo Twist requires kids to twist a dial on one end and 'slam' a large button to enter answers, and it uses music, animations and sound effects to keep kids engaged. When a wrong answer is entered, it gives gentle hints and even spelling rules where one is applicable. My son loves this little device, and it's changed his weekly spelling list from a chore into something he actually looks forward to every week. The Turbo Twist and Mind Station together [was not to expensive], but it's a worthwhile investment for both our son's education and keeping the peace at home by ending the spelling list battle. We will definitely be getting the other models in this line as he gets older.

It is a major hassle to download the spelling words each week. You have to buy a special interface for the computer, you have to pay to download words, you have to navigate the horribly slow leapfrog site, and you can only download words "approved" by the experts at LeapFrog. Every week, between 6 & 30% of my son's spelling list is not on the approved list. Tech support is very uninformed on the product, and although they claim you can e-mail them to have words added to the list, there is never any response or action taken as a result of these e-mails. I am generally pleased with LeapFrog toys, but this one is a huge dud.

This little tool may help your child learn spelling without fighting. It has a decent word list embedded, but you can also expend it by buying cartridges, or, if you have the Mind Station, download words for your child's spelling curriculum that they use. The unit repeats the words that you misspell, making you try again, and if you did miss it once, and got it the second time around, it will slip it in again down the road, to reinforce the learned spelling. With the multi player mode multiple children can play against each other, even at different levels.

My only complaint is that it will only remember one person's identity. That is the only short coming that I have seen to the unit.

I brought this for my Granddaughter, who was having a hard time remembering to bring her spelling words home. She is now! We go to the leapfrog web site enter her new words and she plays with the twister all week. Getting ear phones may help the parents like this toy even better.

I purchased this TOY (as my son would look at it), to help him with his spelling. He is in the second grade. He loves it and so do I. I download his spelling words each week from the computer and send him off to play. He doesn't even realize that he is studying. He has scored 100% on all his spelling tests thus far. I highly recommend this. Then again, you can't go wrong with any Leapfrog product. I think I own everything they make. My children absolutely love to play with them, and I love that they are learning.