Leap Frog - Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory

My son was diagnosed with Pervasive Development Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified when he was 3. PDD-NOS is on the Autism spectrum, and children with this diagnosis often have developmental delays.

My son had a speech delay and other developmental delays. His speech is great now...no one can detect that he has this diagnosis. However, the delays have, understandably, affected his learning in some areas.

While his spatial skills have been way above average--as has his grasp of science (such as planets and their attributes)--he has resisted reading. He gets tired and frustrated.

Well, trying many approaches for helping him, I thought I'd take a chance and get the Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory DVD from Amazon.com, especially since the reviews were so good.

My son IMMEDIATELY took to this DVD and watches it over and over! He's sounding out letters, "chunking", and trying to read on his own. I know that this DVD, along with Letter Factory and Talking Words Factory I, have contributed to his quick progress.

The premise of this DVD is this: Mr. Websley (remember that grumpy duck from the other DVD's?) builds a Storybook Factory to create talking storybooks. Leap, Lily, and their friends act out "The Three Little Pigs", while Professor Quigley captures the scenes and words for the book. Tad, Leap and Lily's younger brother, is the narrator and is frustrated that he's having trouble reading. While he tries to read the script, he learns chunking and inflection and begins to gain confidence in his reading.

The cool thing is that large text appears on the bottom of the screen during the scenes, with the words highlighted as Tad speaks them.

Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory also teaches story comprehension, understanding character and plot, and even punctuation! There's a great section on punctuation with incredibly catchy tunes and visuals about periods ("full stop!"), commas, exclamation points, and question marks. My son goes around the house singing the lively tune "Punc, Punc, Punc Punctuation..." It's great!

I feel this DVD is better suited to children who are ready to read and who have mastered (or are beginning to master) 3 letter words and can sound out words on their own.

Highly recommended!

In the Product Description it says that this video is for the 3 to 6 year old age range, but having children in that range myself, I can tell you that this is incorrect. For unlike the other Leapfrog videos, this one is really meant for older children who are either on the verge of reading, or who have just started reading.

I say this from observation of my son (3.5) and daughter (5.5) and their friends. Those of them that are almost reading, or who are sounding out short words and sentences, understand the importance of punctuation and 'get' the songs and the points of the story which emphasize inflection and reading naturally (chunking).

For the younger ones it just passes over their heads which is perfectly understandable since they haven't a good idea of what sentences and paragraph structure is all about.

Five Stars. It's short, but for the right kids it's an invaluable tool for teaching about story structure and reading. Young children will watch Lily, Tad and the gang, but don't expect them to learn much.

But buy this video. If you have the other videos (which are amazing) go ahead and get this one to go along with them. When the time is right, your child will just absorb this information like they did their letters.

My daughters enjoy this dvd. My 6 year old is already reading much better. She has learn to pause and stop in all the right places. I am very happy with this purchase.

We have every Leapfrog video that's out there.
My boys learned their ABCs, phonics, and numbers from these videos.
However, the "Storybook Factory" was a little disappointing.
I thought there would be more stories included, but it ended with only
one (3 Little Pigs). Besides the story plot itself, there's not much
to be learned from this video. For entertainment itself, my 3 year old really loves it though.

Like all Leapfrog DVD's it is straight to the point with a story that does not distract the reader from the task at hand: sounding out letters, blends, learning rules for reading, etc. This DVD is for a child who already is confident and fluent at reading short vowels and perhaps some long vowel words. It's advanced. If they were numbered in sequence, it should be:
1.Letter Factory
2.Talking Words Factory
3.Code Word Factory
4.Storybook Factory

My kids enjoy this DVD and watch it frequently. It is a natural follow up to the previous videos, although I was kind of expecting a sentence/paragraphs one first. My almost 4 year old does not get all of the educational content, but it seems to line up well with what my older child is doing in kindergarten (teaching characters, punctuation, prediction, etc). My only major complaint is that "learning to read" happens really quick... it goes from Tad reading like a typical 5 year old (one word independent of the next) to fluent speech in the matter of about 20 minutes. Doesn't seem to bother the children though! I also am a little annoyed by some of the "sideline" stories... some of them are a little distracting and don't seem to add much in educational content or entertainment value. Overall though, very happy with purchase.

My son loves this DVD. He is 3 and can only read certain words. But this video helped him understand how sentences, stories flow. Now, when we read a book together, he will say "that's a comma...that means to pause." He does the same with any punctuation now. I definitely recommend this DVD.

These leapfrog dvds have been a great asset in our educational dvd library. I love knowing that my kids are learning while being entertained. My three older kids ages 2, 3, & 5 really enjoy these.

This particular dvd seems less about learning to read than some of the previous titles,(it's basically enthusiasm about books in general) but who knows what information their sponges minds are absorbing?

My 4 yr old son loves this DVD so much. This DVD induces my son to start reading story books by himself. Before he watched this DVD, he always wants me to read the books for him. He now starting to read books by himself even he might not able to understand all the words in the books. But at least he will grab up books to read whenever he sees one.

I have two sets of twins - 6 yr. olds & 3 yr. olds. All 4 love this dvd even though the 6 yr. olds can read. It holds their attention and they are learning!