LeapFrog Tag Reading System box

Key Features and Benefits:

• Vocabulary
  While infants and toddlers learn vocabulary by memory, older children use word structure and context to help understand the meaning of a word. They identify synonyms and antonyms. They use prefixes, suffixes and base words to build their own vocabulary.
• Phonics skills
  Before they can read independently, children must learn the relationship of letters to their sounds and be able to distinguish individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. Phonics skills help children sounds out new words.
• Word building
  To read and write, children must understand how individual letter sounds blend together to make words. Experimenting with building words, such as changing mat to cat to rat, helps with reading and spelling.
• The alphabet
  Knowing the letters of the alphabet is one of the first steps toward learning to read and write. Introducing letters to young children helps them learn to recognize the different shapes and names – an early indicator for reading achievement.
• Consonants
  There are more consonants sounds than there are consonants in the alphabet. A consonant digraph is a pair of consonants that stand for a single sound (ch, sh, th, wh).
• Vowels
  Spelling begins with regular short vowel sounds (cap) and long vowel sounds (with silent e, cap becomes cape). Finally, children learn the rules and patterns of vowel pairs (ee), digraphs (ai in train), diphthongs (oi in boil) and r-controlled vowels (farm, bird).