Review: LeapFrog Text and Learn
Written on Jul 10, 2009 by Brian and filed under LeapFrog, Reviews
By now most families have at least one parent with a smartphone or other small computing device that gets regularly carried around. LeapFrog has designed the Text and Learn to appeal to young kids who want to emulate their parent’s behavior. While parents may be engaged in more advanced activities, the Text and Learn gives those 3 and older a way to learn more about letters on a device similar to their parent’s.
LeapFrog’s Text and Learn has three modes of play; letter mode, game mode and pretend Internet mode. In letter mode kids press a letter and it comes in the screen with a pronunciation and animation using a word that starts with that letter. Game mode offers two games for kids to choose from. The first has Scout the dog in the bubble bath. As bubbles with letters appear, kids have to pop them by pressing the letter on the keyboard. In the second game, lost puppy, kids use shape recognition to help Scout find his way home. In the pretend Internet mode, kids can see Scout’s schedule, listen to a song or pretend text with Scout.
We had several kids take a crack at the Text and Learn and most had fun just mashing the letters and watching the animations or listening to the music. It took a little more parental intervention to try to get the kids actually paying attention to the letters and sounds. The latter isn’t really a problem though, it’s nice to have an easy resource to just pick up and work with until your kids get tired and want to move on to something else.
One of the other highlights is the fact that this is a QWERTY keyboard, just like a computer or smartphone. While it might be confusing for kids to see the letters in this order at first, the earlier they’re exposed to this the better as far as we’re concerned.
Text and Learn doesn’t leverage LeapFrog’s Connect service to track usage and learning, and is actually a bit limited in functionality, but for a suggested retail of $22, it’s hard to complain very much. We view it as an easy to pick up (and put down) device that helps kids with letters while starting them on a keyboard format that will continue to be around for a very long time. Plus it lets kids feel big, by being able to emulate Mom or Dad replying to emails.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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