[blparent] Leap Frog Word Whammer

[Jennifer Jackson]

Joe Elizabeth, 

I am thinking about getting the Word Whammer for my youngest. He is six and
cognitively right on target, but his letter and word recognition are behind
because of his hearing problems. Do you think the Word Whammer will be able
to keep his interest?

This is a kind of pricy toys for such a short term need, but I am sick of
everything being electronic games. This is a setoff skills that he needs to
master quickly so I am willing to throw some money at it as my time is
already stretched pretty thin. :)


Jennifer
Original Message-----
From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jo
Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2012 1:31 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] Leap Frog Word Whammer

I can't remember who it was that posted a question about teaching letters to
a sighted child when you are blind, but I acquired the Leap Frog Word
Whammer because of that post, and I wanted to let you all know that I think
it's great.  It's the next step up from the regular module that a child puts
one magnetic letter in and hears a song.  This one has spaces for three
letters, and there are three different ways to play.  One game asks the
child to find letters and put them in order to make words, and another lets
the child pick out the letters herself.  There's a third game as well, but
I'm not sure how it works yet.  Just since we got the game, my daughter has
been figuring out three-letter words, which she hadn't been even remotely
interested in doing before.  When a player gets a word right in the Word
Whammer, Professor Quiggley sings a silly song about it, and my daughter is
motivated to get the words right so she can hear the song.  The game may
eventually lose its novelty, and the price is a bit high, but it's an
outstanding teaching tool for a blind parent.  There's also one that works
for lowercase letters, and my only gripe about that one is that the letters
are more tightly formed than the uppercase ones, and so harder to identify
by touch.

Jo Elizabeth

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may
kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at
evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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