Product Review and Giveaway: Rock n Learn Phonics DVD Vol. 1

*** THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED *** 

 In the mid-80s two brothers—one a school psychologist and the other a rock musician—had an idea. They would combine their respective expertise to develop and launch an educational program that puts multiplication facts to rock music and eventually rap music. Over twenty years later, Rock ‘N Learn has set the standard for learning products, receiving honors and acclaim from educators and parents alike. Rock ‘N Learn uses contemporary beats to math, reading, science and even  Spanish, successfully and effectively, extending the classroom experience anywhere and anytime.

Rock ‘N Learn DVD titles are categorized by subject as well as age group. Programs begin at the preschool level (ages 2–5) and continue for children 4 and up (last age group is 10 and up). Subjects also include writing, test preparation, other languages and social studies.

Rock ‘N Learn phonics has new animation, oral segmenting, oral blending, word families, rhyming phrases, sentence practice, and short stories. It provides kids with an easy and fun way to learn the phonics skills that lead to reading and spelling success. Rock ‘N Learn is expressly developed to empower kids to learn on their own—or parents can help further apply the material that kids have learned. Its programs are designed to provide an alternative to the complicated kits and workbooks that demand a lot of adult supervision.


I was sent Phonics Volume 1 DVD, for ages 6 and up for review. Obviously my daughter is only 3, but I was interested to see how it would work keeping her attention and if she COULD learn anything from it. The dvd contains:

• Catchy rhymes make rules easy to remember.  The first thing on the dvd is learning vowels vs consonants. Obviously this was over daughters head at age 3, BUT she got the rhythm for the song for the A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y vowel rhyme down and could remember half of it an hour later. I looked at that as a pretty positive thing!
• Delayed answers and our “on-screen mouth” let students check their reading and pronunciation. This was the big hit of the first viewing. Daughter was pretty much transfixed by 'the mouth'! but it was excellent to help her on enunciating her words better- I noticed a difference in how she was pronouncing words in only 10 minutes! I'd call that pretty amazing! She loved the game of pronouncing words after the announcer, that contained 2 consonants and a vowel and were words she knew (like dog, wet, bug). I'd say this section is well worth viewing with he younger (3-6) crowd!
• Read-along stories and fun songs provide practice with rules and build reading fluency. As daughter can't read yet and still has trouble identifying alphabet letters out of order, - this section was too advanced for her. Pronouncing sounds to make words interested her for a few minutes, but then she felt overwhelmed and wasn't interested. Making similar sounding words and phrases was also too advanced for her, but I could see where it would be very helpful to older learners.For an older child who is starting to read, this section would be very helpful. The reading stories were very basic, yet told a story most kids could read along with! These will be helpful as she gets older. Singing the stories at the end was fun and definitely appeal to kids!
• Context clues help students develop multiple strategies to read for meaning.Daughter easily understood the plural contextual rule, even if she can't read yet, as she uses them daily without knowing the rule! Again, not reading hindered her with some of the rules, as the exercises following need reading.skills. But they will be very helpful once she starts reading!

Overall review: I was very impressed with the dvd! While it is ahead of my daughter's level, there are things I can work with her with now, and save the rest for later. Making the dvd well worth the cost! The songs were catchy (sometimes I cringed, as I recognized the tunes from my high school days-eeek!). My only complaint was some of the characters sang too fast and it was hard for her to keep up with what they were saying. If it was the primary singer, she was fine.


I really liked how the dvd taught basics, showed them then allowed the kids to try. The next step then built upon the previous lesson, and so on and so on. This allows kids to feel a sense of satisfaction of learning and not feeling lost. You can stop the video at anytime and I would say one lesson a day is enough, so that kids can practive and let the rules they learned to sink in. The dvd is 70 minutes long and I would say each lesson is just about equal in length.


I think this series is well worth buying and working with your kids on. I would say to go thru each lesson with them once, then let them work on it themselves, til they have it mastered, then move on. The dvds would be perfect for extra practice during the school year and definitely for during the summer, to keep kids actively learning, or to work on skills to help them learn in the fall. I will definitely be buying more from Rock n Learn for my daughter to work with!

Note: Volume 2 is now also available-Volume 2 builds on Volume 1, with catchy rhymes to make rules easy to remember. Rock ‘N Learn can be found in top school supply and specialty stores nationwide (the full list can be found at http://www.rocknlearn.com/html/find_a_store.htm)  

The Giveaway

  Rock n Learn Phonics Vol.1

(ages 6 and up)

MAIN ENTRY:
(must be done or extra entries do NOT count!)
Go to the Rock and Learn site and tell me what other DVD you
would like to get for your kid(s)/grandkid(s)!
 
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Contest will end on August 16th, at midnight. Winner will be picked by Random Number (random.org) on August 17th, and emailed. As soon as winner's info is received, I will have their dvd mailed to them directly by SSA.

Disclosure / Disclaimer:  I received this DVD, free of charge, from SSA PR Firm for review purposes! No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to review it.