Sorry for my delayed reply, I've had a family emergency and will respond in detail when I have time. 

After buying PW Premier (not Academy, just the game) and trying it, I have enough reservations that I'm trying the SM demo game.  I'm still getting the new piano to detect in Windows, so I can't give a comparison yet, but I will keep you posted.

You may consider including a section to describe any special needs a child might have.  Some examples: my son had speech delays and nine months of speech therapy  and my daughter, we just found out, has very poor vision.  She  also has eye tracking issues that will involve extensive therapy.

Just catching up with this page!

Phonics videos for sub-fives are pretty rare.  There are phonics elements in all sorts of early learning videos, even Your Baby Can Read and Little Reader (if you want to call it a video), but I'm not familiar with any that focus on phonics the way the LeapFrog ones do.  That doesn't mean they don't exist, I simply never looked.

Thanks for your reply.  I checked at the library and found Rock N Learn Phonics which has been working very well for us. 
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZmvQx5Uvr6c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ZmvQx5Uvr6c&rel=1</a>

This website looks like it has lots of ideas for finding opportunities to teach math concepts in every day life.  I have only had the opportunity to skim through it, but it looks to have lots of good info and sounds much like how I learned early math concepts. (Which worked out very well for me in the long term  ) 

[1. Intro to Volume 1 [:31]]

Here is the Rock N Learn Phonics chapter listing
1. Intro to Volume 1 [:31]
2. Vowels [2:04]
3. Short Vowel Sounds [2:03]
4. Consonants With Vowels [4:02]
5. CVC Game [2:40]
6. C G Q X [2:50]
7. Putting it All Together [3:31]
8. Double Consonants [4:26]
9. Ending Blends [1:21]
10. End Blend Practice [3:22]
11. Beginning Blends [2:04]
12. Three Letter Blends [:39]
13. Digraphs and Trigraphs [3:58]
14. Silent e Intro [:55]
15. Silent e [3:01]
16. Silent e Practice [3:47]
17. Volume 1 Quiz [4:07]
18. Volume II Intro [:27]
19. Long a [1:43]
20. Long e [4:15]
21. Long i [1:49]
22. Long o [2:38]
23. Long u [2:42]
24. R-Controlled Vowels: ar [1:33]
25. Er, ir, ur [2:20]
26. Or [1:12]
27. Ire, are, air [2:24]
28. Oi, oy, ou, ow [2:59]
29. Au, aw, all, al [2:03]
30. Syllables [2:53]
31. Ending Sounds [3:52]
32. Y and le Endings [3:22]
33. Rule Breakers [2:05]
34. Ph and gh [:44]
35. Memory Words [1:34]
36. Silent Consonants [2:45]

We have been watching Rock N Learn Phonics volume 1 for about a week now and it seems to be making a huge impact.  So far this has been the most comprehensive phonics DVD I've seen. In volume 1 they cover the vowels, consonants, CVC words, blends, some digraphs and trigraphs, and silent E and use countless words (probably close to 200 over approx 40 minutes) to demonstrate the rules.  The digraphs and trigraphs are animated so it is very easy to follow the same letter combinations as they move from one word to the next.  It has also been a good refresher for me and has helped give me the language to talk about phonics rules with the kids.  The program has been around for about 25 years now and should be available at many libraries, but the graphics are also a bid dated.  What I don't like about the video is that visually it is difficult to look at; they have a swirling psychadelic background framing the words.  Even though the content is wonderful, some children may not be interested in the presentation.  As for my kids (39 months), they will watch it for about 20 minutes in a stretch but they would prefer to watch the Leapfrog videos (which don't have as many words demonstrated.) 


This is a montage of the version we have
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZmvQx5Uvr6c&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ZmvQx5Uvr6c&rel=1</a>

Oh, boy  
You know, in my studio I have keyboards that is 14 years old. You have no idea how many toddlers they had been survived, I don't think these things are breakable  

I often froget that not all toddlers are as forceful as my boy.  He has already broken 2 keyboards from the toy department (in addition to one TV and countless other toys), but then again the larger keyboard isn't so easy to pick up and throw. 

I only have a moment to reply and have to say that I didn't find her argument compelling nor did I see her back up her claims with any research.  I only skimmed the article so perhaps I missed something.  When it comes to motivation I recommend the following articles:
http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8487839

There was a third related article that I can't find now.  It was another Po Bronson piece about a Chinese psychologist who repeated Dwecks studies on praise and motivation in China.  The results were quite different: children praised for effort did not perform better.  Bronson's conclusion was that because Chinese culture views hard work as a fixed trait, either you are born a hard worker or you are born lazy, that children didn't believe they could improve and gave up just like the "smart" kids in Dweck's studies.  ETA My conclusion is that all the negative labeling that Chua talks about in her article, calling kids lazy or garbage, is just as detrimental as the excessive praise Americans shower on their children.  Stop labeling and evaluating your kids and they will perform better. 

Since there was some interest in how I'm helping my twins interest in the Fleschcards along ( I've gotten some PM's)  I wanted to share some other tricks that I've come up with.  I've recruited the help of Mr. Frog, a puppet, who can't read and needs their help.  He gives them lots of enthuiastic encouragement shouting "you did it"  then talks about the picture everytime they get one correct.  Another thing is that I started emphasizing who's turn it is then give the card to the child who read it. This could also be done with an older child, perhaps a mama's helper, who already knows how to read and could model how to play the game to get them started or when they get stuck.

I can give you our progress report.  We are up to set 12 and my kids are reading CVC words and blends.  They just started watching Leapfrog Letter Factory & Talking Words Factory which has added new enthusiasm to their lessons; they hadn't been interested in the cards since last August.  The twins are now 38 months old and we were having difficulties getting them interested in the Fleschcards at the same time; so of course one would distract the other after only a few cards.  Now they are asking me to read with them.  I am making review books from the Fleschcards, some of the same words and some new words, to make it new for them, and if they get stuck I will sing the Leapfrog phonics song to help them along.  Before we start digraphs I'm hoping to find some resources to introduce the sounds. 

Thanks for the report--sounds good.  It's a good idea to occasionally review old cards.

Yes, H. started those Leapfrog videos at about that stage, too--they're great.

Are there any other phonics videos you would recommend?

I've been thinking about downloading the demo version of SM for awhile now so I can compare it to PW that I bought about a year ago (which my kids still don't play.) I still have to get a keyboard: does this one look like it would work?  Where would I get stickers?  Does this keyboard look like it would work?  Thank you.

Wow! I LOVE the price!
All pianos are good enough, and I think, this will be good,too.
Try to enlarge the photo of stickers for now and print it out. Unfortunately, we don't offer it for free for several reasons. But I don't want it to be an obsticle

They also have a 3 year warrenty that covers accidental damage for only $20; they said it would cover toddler accidents too!

I've been thinking about downloading the demo version of SM for awhile now so I can compare it to PW that I bought about a year ago (which my kids still don't play.) I still have to get a keyboard: does this one look like it would work?  Where would I get stickers?  Does this keyboard look like it would work?  Thank you.

Thank you for bringing this up, karma.  I will have to sign up and take a look. 

My suggestion would be to look into Khan Academy.org.  Khan doesn't have any early education material but he is creating a massive library of learning videos all free and he has a vision for mass distributing his lessons to the poor.  I can't remember the exact details, but there was a video clip on his site where he describes some people setting up a learning resource center in a remote African village with no internet access.  They networked computers and connected them to a local server that hosted the entire Khan Academy curriculum among other things.  There could also be some early education lessons hosted on such a server.  I think the detils were in the first 30 minutes of this video:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1C7FH7El35w&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/1C7FH7El35w&rel=1</a>

The Khan Academy is now financially backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  I don't know if this means they will just help expanding his website and video library, or if they will help fund learning centers like the one in Africa.