Description
Learn letters, sounds, and spelling with the Thomas & Friends Learn with Thomas Alphaphonics from Trends. The easy-to-handle toy features every letter in upper and lower case and images of well-known characters and places from the stories. Children can select from seven different play modes. Rewards include fun music and sound effects.
What our testers said
“It’s Thomas the Tank.” – Boy aged 3
“What does this button do?” – Girl aged 2
What our experts think
It was great to see the smiles and squeals of laughter that this toy elicited – two of our testers had a fantastic time dancing around the room to the music! Our testers enjoyed the familiar characters, the variety of games available and were reluctant to stop playing (children can choose from seven different modes of play).
The toy is a good aid to learning letter sounds and the children had so much fun pressing the buttons, they didn’t realise they were building on their literacy and phonic learning. Pressing the buttons to hear the resulting sound also promotes cause and effect logic, while different play patterns develop memory and attention, important at this age for learning and retaining new information. The gameplay was simple and most of our testers needed minimal assistance although adult interaction would be beneficial to challenge literacy learning further. If using the product with younger children (3 years and under), more help will be necessary.
Skills developed
– Develops memory and attention
– Encourages children to follow sequences
– Aids letter recognition