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| Brand: LeapFrog
Category: Toy
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $42.99 (On sale from $43.99)
You Save: $1.00 (2%)
New (27) from $42.99
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 50
Batteries Included: No
Age: 4 - 8 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 2.3 x 10.4 x 10.9
MPN: 30704
Model: 30704
UPC: 708431307049
EAN: 0708431307049
ASIN: B00134O7QU
Release Date: June 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Holy Grail August 18, 2008
Andrew Stack
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
There was an article about this toy before it came out in Wired Magazine. It basically interviewed the inventor and peaked my curiosity. So I purchased it. It is an impressive device by any modern day standards. Basically it's a camera that recognizes words and images on specialized paper (the limited series of books that you purchase). Once recognized it plays sound bites or reads the word(s) on the page that you are passing the pen over. It's smartly designed and a child quickly understands how to operate it.
At first it's a game and your child will just want to click on everything to hear the sound bites. As time goes by they start exploring the less than obvious features like read back and games. Before you know it you have a totally transfixed kid. It's great for a long drive and it certainly beats the pants off a dvd. I do believe that this device is positively contributing to my child's learning. I will say that the books vary in quality. I am writing reviews on most of them ; ) so you can follow along if you wish. To start with get Sponge Bob as it is the best of the bunch followed by Kung Fu Panda or Cars.
Last thought if you're still with me. This is a wonderful invention. I do recommend it especially for parent's that are looking for an alternative to TV. I just wish to caution that it is not a substitute for quality reading time with your child so make sure to read to them as well. Overall a great investment.
I hope this review helps.
So much fun! August 18, 2008
Nicole S. Lonergan
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this for my three year old son for his birthday and he's having so much fun with it. I know it says 4-8 on most of the books and pen, but he's enjoying it and it's working out great. I love the software you use to track their progress, it helps so much. The only downfall of the pen, or at least I haven't found a way around it, is it's only for one child, so we will be buying another one for my older son for his birthday.
Leap Frog's best idea yet! August 18, 2008
charlies_mom (Anchorage, Alaska)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
My nonverbal autistic son loves all things Leapfrog and loves story readers. Leapfrog has combined the best of two worlds with the story reader component along with interactive features. I was worried the tip would be delicate and he would break it but no problems so far. The download is very user friendly, the only drawback is only being able to load 5 products at a time so if you have more than that you have to delete and reload but this isn't a huge deal. The positive feedback for the game features is a very nice touch - not only praise for correct answers, but hints to encourage success and promote self esteem instead of "no, that's wrong" or some other negative statement like many toys. Would highly recommend this product for both fun and education.
Love the Toy But did have problems with internet August 10, 2008
C. Brunner
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this for my five year old daughter. She loves the toy! It reads the storys well and the games are fun. The only problem we have with it is when we downloaded the software from the internet the server was busy and kept cutting us off and starting over. There is a FAQ on there that has an alternative download if you are having problems. After we found this everything else worked flawlessly! I wish you could put more books on there!
It does what is says... August 9, 2008
R. Ramos
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The LeapFrog Tag Reading System does what it says, it gives your child a hand held tutor for reading a Tag book. The "read the entire page" function is helpful when the child does not want to read the book, but only hear the story. Initially I thought that this feature was defeating the purpose of getting my child to read the book, but I discovered later that it actually increased his enthusiasm to try to read it by himself. I did find though, that the word games provided the most interactive experience for him. He liked the story comprehension challenges that the game questions posed.
In short, he memorized all of the words of all the three books I bought him. At first I thought this practice defeated the purpose of teaching him how to decode words, but after placing him in a summer reading program, I was informed that word memorization was actually the preferred method of sentence decoding. After trying to explain the rules of phonics and vowel usage for words like "rough", "tough", "brought", "know" and "said"...I surrendered to the word memorization method. It seems to be working for him, but occasionally he does go back to word decoding by way of phonics.
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