Product Details

• Actors: Rock 'N Learn
• Directors: Richard Caudle
• Format: Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Rock 'N Learn
• DVD Release Date: November 28, 2011
• Run Time: 62 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00009XN4I
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,975 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

My daughter started using Letter Sounds at age 3 and within weeks she was reading. At age 4 she entered public kindergarten and was tested by her instructor. She tested at a second grade reading level, she was writing and spelling at a higher level, and she was invited to join the first graders during writing. --Rundal H.

I absolutely love your Letter Sounds Video. The phonological and orthological aspects of this video combined with that little human mouth in the upper right hand corner of each screen makes your video the most innovative beginning phonics video I have ever viewed. We intend to order Letter Sounds Video for every Child Development Center in Oakland. --Janet Ohanis, M.A., Ed., Administrator, Oakland Unified School District and Pre-K Regional Coordinator, California Reading & Language Project

I teach Kindergarten, and recently showed your Letter Sounds Video for the first time to my class. After the video was over, a student came up to me, rather excitedly, and told me, 'that video gave me a new brain, and now I can read! My old brain didn t know how to read, but now I can!' Sure enough, he went home that night and read an entire story to his parents! He was so proud of himself, and we are so proud of him too. Keep up the good work! --Cindy DeKeyrel, Skyline North School

Product Description

Learning to read is more fun than ever with this new version of Rock N Learn Letter Sounds. Engaging characters, better animation, and more material help kids learn the skills to become competent readers. After a quick review of upper and lowercase letters, young learners practice the most common sound each letter makes. An on-screen mouth shows how to form the sounds. Excitement builds as kids race the clock to name the letter making sounds heard in silly sentences. Then, learners play several games to solidify their understanding of letter-sound associations that will help them read and spell. Finally, after learning a few common sight words, kids feel successful reading complete sentences and short stories. Recommended for ages 4 through 7 or for older students with remedial needs. Younger students ready to learn to read also benefit. As another use, this program can help individuals of all ages learn to speak and read English. Contents include: The New Alphabet Song, Learn the Sounds, Letter Sounds Quiz, Name That Letter, Reading Words, Consonant Combinations, Spell It, Swap the Sounds, Common Sight Words, and Reading Sentences.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm Pleasantly Pleased, July 5, 2009

By 

Jennifer Bogart "@ Quiverfullfamily.com" (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Letter Sounds (DVD)

A DVD sporting the simple title Letter Sounds may sound unimpressive. Teaching letter sounds, how hard can that be? Well, if you've ever taught children to read you'll know that structured, consistent, repetitive practice is required in order to teach young ones the basic building blocks of the written English language.

Rock `N Learn's Letter Sounds DVD both meets those requirements and tackles much more than simple letter sounds: introducing the alphabet, learning the short sounds of the vowels and consonants, fun `interactive' tests, guiding children into blending, an introduction to consonant blends, sight words, and reading full sentences. It does all that in a fun-filled, bright, musical DVD that has drawn both my three-year-old and six-year-old into repeating letter names, sounds and has my older child reading along.

Recommended for children from four- to seven-years-old who are just beginning their phonics education, I recommend that parents interested in teaching the alphabet, sounds, and early reading skills to pick up the disc before teaching their child the alphabet song. Letter Sounds opens with a lively performance of "The New Alphabet Song", a jazzy, rocky tune that allows for clear enunciation of each letter. It's about time parents had a new version to work with, young children often believe that "lmnop" is one letter due to the slur in the traditional tune. Rock `N Learn's version features clear spaces between each letter name, and is followed by a spoken chant so that children won't rely upon the tune alone. Flashing letters that flip from upper to lower case along with the song effectively combine audio and visual learning strategies to reach children.

After the alphabet is introduced, the short sounds for each letter are presented from A to Z. The upper-case and lower-case letter appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. A talking mouth that speaks and clearly demonstrates how to form each letter sound with the mouth, teeth, and tongue appears in the upper right hand corner. A visual illustrating the word spoken appears in the lower half of the screen. For the letter D the mouth says, "Dee, d, d, dog", after which the word `dog' appears beneath the capital and lower case "d"s on screen. The mouth then repeats the information, allowing for children to join him on the second repetition. Not only is this an effective way to convey the sound information for each letter, it is also useful for children learning to clearly pronounce each sound in their daily speech. Children in speech therapy, or those still working on a few problem sounds can benefit greatly from this portion of the disc.

My oldest already has a solid foundation in the short-letter sounds that are introduced on the disc, but doesn't have a great understanding of connecting letter sounds and names, something the "Letter Sounds Quiz" is designed to remedy. Presented in a game show format, a sentence with a prevalent sound is read to the children (accompanied by cheerful pictures). After listening for the repeating sound the child is to give the letter's name before the timer goes off.

The DVD then demonstrates how to sound out words by the standard television technique of lighting up letters individually, pronouncing them one by one, and then pushing them towards each other to eliminate the spaces between them, repeating, and finally reading the word. Blending is such a tricky skill for children, and seems to require a certain `click' developmentally, any help visualizing the process is very helpful. An similar technique is used in the introduction to consonant blends, and for the sight words the letter names are read for each letter rather than their sounds.

The disc concludes with "Reading Sentences in a Story", my favourite feature. Simple sentences using short words (most are three letters long) and short letter sounds are presented for children to read aloud before the narrator reads the sentence as it highlights each word. An accompanying animation enlivens brings the sentence to life visually, at times playing throughout the sentence, at other times playing only after the sentence has been read. What a neat and adorable way to encourage children to read.

While the total running time is 52 minutes, the DVD is best used with a mastery-based approach. Children should be introduced to one track at a time until the material is well understood before moving onto the next step, as each builds progressively upon previously established skills. The easy to use disc menu makes it easy to select the desired chapter. As much as it's tempting to just sit our children down in front of the TV so they can learn, parental involvement and encouragement create much higher interest and comprehension levels in young learners. With parental commitment to the program, this DVD will create a solid first-step for your child to stand upon as they pursue further phonics studies in the future. Letter Sounds is a fabulous introduction to phonics that I wish I'd known of sooner.

A video sample can be viewed online at the Rock `n Learn website.

Lessons Included:

1. The New Alphabet Song
2. Learn the Sounds
3. Letter Sounds Quiz
4. Name That Letter!
5. Reading Words
6. Words With Consonant Combinations
7. Common Sight Words
8. Bonus: Reading Sentences in a Story

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rock N Learn - Letter Sounds, December 22, 2008

By 

CalebsMom (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Letter Sounds (DVD)

Not sure how anyone could say that Rock N Learn is not the best DVD series out there...especially the Letter Sounds Rock 'N Learn: Letter Sounds. This is age appropriate for 3-5 year olds. If I could give this another star, I would. My husband and I spend quite a bit on learning for our son, and have bought Leap Frog and the like. NOTHING has compared to this series of products. My son watches it over and over again. He knows all the songs. You will not regret buying any of these Rock N Learn DVDs, we have 4 of them, and I just ordered another 3. Visit the Rock N Learn designer website to find out which product is age appropriate for your child and any child you may think could benefit. They have products from age 3-10 years old. Just make sure you buy a Rock N Learn DVD that is age appropriate. If there are any teachers, or school board trustees out there consider using or recommending them to parents. The publishers of this series have not done a good job of promoting them (I don't think) because a month ago was the first time I heard of this series and I spend quite a bit of time on the internet researching educational products for my 4 year old.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Series Out There!!, December 2, 2010

By 

William Barbour (Seven Springs, NC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Letter Sounds (DVD)

Well this is my first review. i dont write reviews because to me everything is either ok or not worth my time. well this Rock N Learn series is way better than ok and well worth my time. i run a business from home and dad of 2 with my oldest just turned 2 years old Nov 17th and so my wife and i bought Colors, Shapes, & Counting, Letter Sounds, Alphabet Exercise, and Alphabet Circus for her to watch while i work. too my suprise she loves them. everytime 1 is done she picks the next 1 to watch. she knows her colors, shapes, can count to 20, knows her abc's, can read 2 small books she has and will try to sound out words she doesnt already know. ok some of you might think thats not a big deal it can be done yes but the big deal is she has only been watching these dvds for 3 days! her grandma just ordered some more Rock N Learn dvds for her for Christmas so i cant wait to see how she reacts to them and how my review with them will be. this series is truely awesome! to an adult it may look cheap made and things like that but if it holds them there with out blinking and they learn that makes it 110% besides if you are an adult and want to complain about how you cant watch it because of how it looks hmmmm something is wrong lol. its a childrens educational movie not Days Of Our Lives so got over it. for the learning experience for the kids and the price you cant beat it. this series is good enough i would of paid $50 a dvd. seriously i would have. if you are thinking about trying it, just do it you wont regret it i promise!