Customer Reviews

Read With Me System - Where The Wild Things Are

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I bought my niece and nephew Where the Wild Things Are along with Curious George and Giraffe's Can't Dance. These DVDs have enhanced the kids' appreciation for reading. The animations are amazing and draw the kids in and engage them. My sister keeps telling me about how much they love the DVDs and the kids thank me for them whenever I talk to them on the phone. This is the first gift that I've gotten this kind of response with! They're almost 7 (twins) and one is a reader anyhow, but the other one isn't as much into reading. BUT, these have grabbed both of them and gives them common ground in reading when at school, the boy is ahead in reading. I am getting them the rest of the DVDs for Christmas, since they are only $15 a piece. A GREAT deal. They could have charged about $5 more and it would still sell. But, if "they" are reading, don't raise the price! ;) This is the best thing to give for the holidays if you want to give a gift that is educational and fun. My sister is not very savvy when it comes to electronics, but the remote control that comes with it was VERY easy for her. Plus, kids nowadays are showing all of us how to run our electronics. So, enough already! I just wanted to let everyone know that the Read with Me DVD system is fun and the kids love it.

I have to admit, I bought the Read with Me DVD system for my friend's child for Christmas, since he has some learning delays, and his parents rarely read to him. He's 5 and loves video games and anything repetitive, so I figured this would be an educational and fun gift. Before I sent it out, I wanted to play with it first to see how it worked (I used to be a preschool teacher and I like to use toys before I put them in my classroom). I have to say that I spent about 2 hours watching the stories and answering all the questions (I even got them all right!). I especially liked Curious George and the Chocolate Factory- you get to create your own chocolate and the animated machine on the screen actually produces it and Curious George eats it and reacts to your choice of flavors! Of course I loved his reaction to the spinach flavored chocolate (yuck!) It brought me back to my childhood and my love of the Curious George series of books and memories of my mom reading them to me.
I almost didn't send it out as a gift, I liked it so much.
My friend's child has adopted it as his new "video game" and it has replaced his obsession with his game boy. He laughs and laughs at the interactive chocolate making machine and plays it over and over and now knows the story by heart. His parents love it because it keeps him busy AND works on reading skills. They say it is easy for him to operate and everyone loves it!! I guess I will have to buy another one just for me. I am planning on getting the rest of the books too!

Let me start by saying, my 3 1/2 year old son LOVES this toy, we finally found a "video game" he can play - as I am sure most mothers of three year olds will agree, no matter what the age rating says, most electronic games are way too advanced for them. My son figured it out in about 5 minutes of help from me and then could play it completely on his own.

But, the first time we tried to hook it up it wouldn't work at all. We tried and tried every method at least 14 times to no avail...the directions were adamant about NOT returning it to the store giving us the idea that we must just be to stupid to do it right, or we assumed it was our DVD player some how...

Let me just save you the hassle...if it doesn't work the first time, take it back to the store. When we got a replacement it worked fine and WAS extremely easy to set up.

According to the directions it works with any DVD player except NOT Xbox or Playstation.

If it doesn't work, be persistent, if it can work with my cheap $35 cyberhome DVD player it can work with any DVD player. It is a great toy for 3 year old, probably even 2 year olds. Although it says to 7 years old, my 7 year old daughter was extremely bored with it...

I bought this for my almost-5-yr-oldson as a gift. As the outside of the box suggests, I programmed Read With Me DVD controller before I gave it to my son. After several attempts, I finally managed to get all of the buttons properly programmed. The system comes with a set-up disk that you use to test the controller to make sure that it is properly programmed.

Read With Me DVD comes with "Where The Wild Things Are", a story about a boy who uses his imagination to leave home after being sent to bed without dinner. (He doesn't really leave, but uses his imagination to turn his room to a forest.) He experiences a range of emotions before realizing that he would rather be where he is loved best - home. The pages in the story turn, and the illustrations are animated to help keep youngster's attention.

There are a few options when you first start a Read With Me disc. Your child can choose to just have the story read to them, to play in the pages, or the games feature. My son prefers the play in the pages feature. The words are printed on the screen, and highlight (or light up) as they are being read. After the narrator is finished reading the page, an asterisk icon appears, inviting children to play in the page. After pressing the matching button on their controller, your child is asked a question about the setting, the characters, the illustration, or the storyline. After answering correctly, children have the opportunity to push the asterisk button again to be asked a different question, or they can push the forward button to flip to the next page.

So far, my son has only used the DVD that came with the system, as he is receiving several other titles over the holidays, but I'm sure they are just as entertaining as the one that came with the system. Though Fisher-Price recommends this product for children upto seven years old, I don't see children that old being able to maintain an interest in the storylines, as most of the titles released so far are intended more for pre-school aged children.

The Read With Me DVD is a wonderful tool to add to a list of many items that will help children learn to love reading. Programming the remote is not too difficult. My son got this for Christmas when he was almost 3 (January Birthday) and we waited to program it until he was taking a nap so he was not frustrated while trying to set it up. It only took about 10-20 minutes to program, but I would still recommend waiting until the child is asleep or busy.

My son figured out how to work it very quickly and at first it was more about reading comprehension. The questions are about the story and the children select the correct answer. We also got him a couple other stories like Green Eggs and Ham and The Little Engine That Could (we now have all but one story). Although the words are highlighted quickly, they are at about the same pace as if you were reading the story, he was still able to pick up many words. My son is fascinated with words and within a few weeks of using this he was able to read the book Green Eggs and Ham by himself. We thought he had memorized it, but he actually corrected mistakes and knew words if I pointed to them individually.

He is now 3 years 5 months and has had the DVD system for 6 months and is now reading at a level 1 or 2 (My First Reader Books) and is reading at the same level as his 5 year old sister. He loves to play his "video game" and I have to say that I am happy to let him play it.

Recently he has even started asking to have the words on when watching a movie (closed caption subtitles) and as he's watching a movie he will listen and point to the words at the bottom of the screen.

I would recommend this toy to anyone with children 3 and up. Again it is just one tool that should be used to help a child learn to read, comprehend what they are reading and begin to enjoy reading. It is not by itself necessarily going to teach a child to read but used with other items can help. I would recommend that you buy the actual books to go with the DVD's, we already had most of them but that way they can have the story read to them slower, or be able to work on learning the words with the parent's help. My son always takes his books to bed with him and reads using the light from his nightlight.

For learning how to sound out words and basic reading concepts check out the website starfall.com it is another wonderful tool.

Let's just say that the programming of the wireless unit this toy comes with is just about the most frustrating thing I have ever encountered in all my years experience with electronic items. It is similar to programming a universal remote, but even more complicated. Method 1 has you point your remote at the unit, and go through a series of annoying commands, in a very annoying voice (my son kept screaming for me to stop this method due to the awful voice). The muffled voice you hear when you test it in the store, is similar to the muffled programming female voice, but luckily, when you get this device going, the sound no longer comes out of the unit, but rather it's all done through the TV (one high point).

After 1 of 3 methods to program this device, you have to test it with the test DVD. Method 1 failed for the two times that I tried it. I skipped Method 2 because my DVD player was not listed in the back of the booklet, so I would have had to try at least 17 codes for the brand name of my player. I went to Method 3 and tried that for countless minutes, just standing there like and idiot, pointing the thing at the dvd player and pressing the code search button dozens upon dozens of times, only to give up, as none of them worked.

I then went back to method 2 and picked a code from a model simliar to my DVD player, and lo and behold, it worked! Sadly, after my son played the game once, the unit somehow reset itself and I had to reprogram it all over again. After a few times now, it seems to be staying programmed.

As far as the DVD stories you play, all are excellently illlustrated and narrated, however the words that go along with the story appear at the bottom, and as the narrator speaks, each word is highlighted in red. With a white background, and black lettering, and a very colorful story being shown, the red highlights of these thin letters do nothing to prompt my 4-year-old (who has some reading skills) to look at them. I feel the letters should have been bolder, with a stronger emphasis on each word, instead of a slight italic and turning to red. There is no time between lines, as the next sentence is started immediately (unless there is a question to be answered in game play mode) so there is no time to reflect and re-read the sentence, unless you opt for the boring read to yourself mode.

I think these discs are more apt to perk the reading skills of 6 & 7 year olds, as younger kids will just be interested in the games and questions, and colorful pictures, rather than reading the sentences. Let's face it, immature children under 6 are use to watching movies on screen, not reading sentences, so it's harder for them to free their mind of the visual aspect, and concentrate on words and what this is suppose to teach. I feel a simple book would teach the younger ones reading better than this can.

The glitches I mention are that sometimes, when you press the asterisk for a question about the page you just read, it replays the same exact question you just answered. Also, in the Where the Wild Things are DVD, there is one question where it asks the viewer how many monsters are on screen. Well, technically there are 6, as they enlarge 5 of them from the background screen, however they don't fully cut off one monster in the background, so there are 6 on screen, yet the answer choices are 2, 5, & 7, which really agitated my son, because he knew there were clearly 6 monsters on the TV.

The discs do have some fun games, like the Dress Corderoy game on the Corderoy DVD, so there are lots of other educational aspects other than just reading. I think as a reading tool, this would be better suited for 5-7 year olds, and the 3-5 year olds have a better time answering the questions and playing the games than reading the sentences to the narrated story.

I recently bought this Read With Me DVD System after much hesitation from other reviews. It was on sale at Toy r' Us for $18 so I decided that I would go ahead and try it. I took the advice of one of the reviewers and waited until my daughter went to bed to program it. To be honest, it took me longer to get it out of the package than to program it. The system was programmed in less than 5 minutes and I have a Pioneer DVD player that is over 5 years old. The only thing I would suggest besides waiting until you child is asleep is not to lay the DVD control perfectly flat or it will be lower than the eye on the Read with Me DVD system. My daughter absolutely loved it! The reason I gave it 4 out of 5 is because wish they had a few more DVD available in stores.

I was a bit leary about buying this toy at first, I thought, who wants to read a book on video??? I also thought it was a lazy way for parents to become further detached from their children. After giving in and buying the toy, I can't stop raving about how much I like it! It is perfect for preschoolers as well as beginner readers. It reads the story as well as asks questions about what is happening in the story, perfect for reading comprehension. I love it and can't wait to buy more titles! It also gives you the option to read it yourself, wonderful toy!

Normally I don't care for electronic reading as an educational tool but this Read with Me DVD is exceptional. My 2 1/2yr old's attention is captured through the whole book and she was able to interact quickly using the large colorful buttons. And yet there are many levels of learning for her as she grows older. Setup is simple and easy if you have a few quiet moments to do it. We absolutely love it!

My daughter received this toy as a Christmas gift. It took me all of 10 minutes to program it. It was very straight forward and easy to program. It comes with both written directions and a cd on how to program the console. She loves playing with it. She can read the book or play the games.