Hi Steffie, I got mine at 16.28 pounds (including taxes, excluding delivery charges). The sounds are taught through puppets. Looks quite boring to me but my ds loves it a lot.
Hi tamarind (senior),
The leapfrog DVD series is not meant for teaching phonics. Rather, it's just an introduction to phonics for kids and adults. Btw, there's a fourth Leapfrog DVD - Learn to Read at the Storybook Factory, which introduces punctuations etc.
Hi Ora,
My ds can sound out and blend all 3 letter words by 29 mths old. It took him less than a week to do so.
And currently he (37 mths old) can easily segment (i.e spell) any 3 letter words. For words beyond 3 letters, it depends. He can segment words like stop, pants, hand, plant etc. He has no problem with reading long words like delicious, suddenly, hippopotamus, telephone, television etc...
There has been some interesting discussions on using flashcards with phonics. Personally, I don't use the flashcards methods, not even for sight words. Some parents may think it is a good idea to use both flashcards and phonics. However, some studies in US and UK have shown (in general) that kids who are taught to read words prior to learning phonics don't excel (as in the ability to read through phonics) as well as those who are not taught to read/recognise words prior to learning phonics.