Thursday 22 November 2012

The Scribble and Write: Cool Toys and Gifts from Leapfrog

By Sherman Isaacs


As most people having a pre-schooler would tell you, just about all youngsters between the ages of 2 and 5 exhibit certain particular character traits: they are energetic beyond belief (the Energizer bunny has nothing on them); they don't like to eat their vegetables; and they like to write - predominantly on the walls. With regard to the 3rd item, assuming that you have actually desired that their writing be fruitful rather than merely aimless, the Leapfrog Scribble and Write may be just what the doctor ordered (as well as a cool toy and gift).

As many of you with smaller kids probably already know, Leapfrog is actually a company that develops gadgets which merge teaching with entertainment. Whereas I couldn't actually swear that each and every individual product of theirs lands on the mark, a decent variety of them do, and the Scribble and Write is just such an item.

The Scribble and Write is really focused on teaching the alphabet, and it uses a number of strategies in order to do so: tracing upper-case characters; tracing lower-case letters; guessing characters and drawing. It accomplishes this by simply generating shapes and the alphabet, which display on a traceable drafting pad in the form of scarlet dots. Following the verbal commands from the Scribble and Write - which includes an interactive voice module - a stylus pen (included as well) can then be used to outline the article which presents itself. (The stylus pen, luckily, is attached to the Scribble and Write, making the odds of losing it minimal.)

On the subject of drawing, the objective is to make your child more at ease with sketching the lines, in addition to the curves, that form the actual letters of the alphabet. With that as the focus, diverse shapes - zigzags, lines, circles, and so on - appear on the writing pad for your little tot to trace.

The tracing of capital as well as lower-case letters functions in the same manner, except that your little tot is actually able to decide the letter of the alphabet he/she would like to draw. (The letters all appear on small buttons on the face of the toy.) Plus, the Scribble and Write slowly and methodically describes how the character is to be sketched. As an illustration, it clearly shows how the letter "L" is usually drawn by stating that you start at the very top and draw a line straight down, and then make a line across. Upon completing any tracing task, your child presses the "paw" button (there's a cute little pup shown on the Scribble and Write) and is notified whether he accurately traced the character or not. During the very last teaching method, the Scribble and Write draws characters and asks your little one to correctly determine what they are by pushing the right button.

In short, the Scribble and Write seems to employ memorization and repetition to teach, and it appears to have the desired effect. Viewing this from the standpoint of someone whose pre-schooler already knows his numbers and letters, I feel it's an oustanding educational device, a pretty cool toy and gift, and the fact that it's also a lot of fun is just icing on the cake.




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