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67 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice blocks, but two quibbles, April 13, 2002
By A Customer
Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars
We ordered these when we realized that our 2-year old had just about learned the ABCs already, and we thought these would be good for reinforcement as well as good old block-piling fun.Our child loved them immediately and called out letters while pulling each block from the sturdy wooden tray that the blocks come in. The blocks are made from an attractive wood and the grain shows through nicely behind the letters and the pictures associated with each letter, that fill four of the six faces. We consider it a definite plus that each block shows the upper and lowercase form of each letter. We also like the fact that these are small enough for little hands, but big enough to give to a 2-year-old without worrying about a choking hazard. One quibble: the blocks are not designed to provide any cues as to vertical orientation, either for letters or illustrations. The reason this matters is that the capital-M has spreading legs, which makes it basically *identical* in appearance to the capital-W, when either letter is upside down. It should have been possible to design the M with vertical sides, which would have reduced confusion and would teach the letter "M" in a form more likely to be found in other settings. Similar confusion applies to the lower-case "L" and upper-case "I", which look identical. Quibble #2: some of the letter-related words that illustrate each block seem oddly chosen. For instance, "Ink" for the letter "I" -- how likely is it that a 21st century child will encounter an old-fashioned ink bottle anytime soon? Perhaps the problem comes because some letters are not used to begin many words familiar to toddlers, but across the 26 letters in the set, we find quite a few illustrations and vocabulary words that we don't think will be much help to our child learning the alphabet, or be useful in everyday speech later on. Finally, an unknown: durability. Since these are brand new, we can't say, but the letters are painted onto the surface of smooth, flat blocks -- not cut into the wood, like some old-fashioned block designs. That makes these more attractive for now, but we suspect the paint will probably chip or wear off somewhat more rapidly. That's just a guess. All in all, we are pleased with this set. We had been looking for something like this for a while, with no luck. So I suspect that it may be hard to find blocks that accomplish all the same things these do (uppercase, lowercase, word associations, size, attractiveness) without any of the quibbles raised here.
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by Alan Fields
