Rock 'N Learn began as an idea that would help children learn by putting educational material to music with a current sound -- the kind of music that kids enjoy and find motivating.  If a child found the music genuinely entertaining, could they learn the lessons taught from it?

Rock 'N Learn programs help students learn math, phonics, reading, early childhood, social studies, Spanish, test-taking strategies, writing, and science.  Their DVDs incorporate music with exciting, colorful imagery.  Recently, I had the chance to review the Rock 'N Learn Letter Sounds DVD with Riley.  Keep reading to find out more!

The Rock 'N Learn Letter Sounds DVD has attention-grabbing music, energetic characters, and action-packed games that get kids excited about sounding out letters and learning to read.  After a quick review of the alphabet, young learners discover the most common sound that each letter makes.  Now, the phonics games really begin!

Kids race the clock to say letter sounds before hearing the answers.  They'll giggle along as they name the letters heard in silly sentences.  Combining letters to make words comes next, and at last, after practicing with common sight words, it's time to read stories composed of simple sentences!  The attention-grabbing on-screen mouth shows students how to correctly form each sound.

The animations used are extremely bright and colorful and definitely held my daughter's attention.  The animations are obviously computer generated, which is fine, but they come across a little too mechanical at times.  Riley didn't seem bothered by this though, so it wasn't a big deal.

I absolutely loved some of the new concepts infused in this DVD like understanding words with consonant combinations and common sight words.  There was plenty that Riley learned about letter sounds, including the new alphabet song.  I must admit though that some of the sections of this DVD were a little long and repetitive and didn't hold my daughter's attention at times.

For a really good sample of what kind of toe-tapping preschool lessons you're in for as well as the kind of songs that your children will be listening to, just watch the short video clip below:

Riley did love watching the Rock 'N Learn Letter Sounds DVD.  She sang, imitated the letter sounds and answered the questions asked by the characters of this DVD.  I know that she absorbed the new lessons which were sprinkled throughout, for she started repeating new letter sound combinations previously unknown to her.  I think that the Rock 'N Learn DVDs are an excellent way to infuse education into entertainment in a way that will "stick" in your child's head.

They also carry such a wide variety of titles, like "Dance with the Animals" and "Alphabet Circus" that you will find plenty to start your child's education off on the right foot...and more than likely, that foot will be tapping to the music!  :dancing: