Hi eveee,
My 2 year old boy just started at Zoophonics, attended 3 lessons. He can recognize most of the letters and sounds by watching Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD.
But when he attended Zoophonics, when the teacher shows the animal pictures, he cannot really recognize each of them. He knows exactly how the real letters look like, but the animals do not look very much like the letters.
I think it will be more confusing for the child to remember all the animal names, especially at this young age. I feel that it is easier to just learn the letters.
But I will still let my boy attend a few more months, because like what CC2 said, they do other things which are also beneficial to my boy.
Actually I was keen to put my older girl, who is now 3 years old, in their more advanced class which teaches blending of the letters to words. I told the teacher that my girl already knows all the letters and sounds. Then she asked if my girl knows the animals and the actions ? I am like huh ? Is that important ?
The teacher wanted my girl to go for a test. My girl is very shy, and will not speak in front of strangers, she didn't want to speak to the teacher at all. So I can't put her in the advanced class. Actually I can put her in the class for her age group, they will take 10 months to learn all the alphabets. Since my girl already knows all of them, I find it useless to put her there.
I am considering putting my girl in Montessori phonics class now.