The ABC's Of Teaching The ABC's; Video Phonics

Improving literacy is the ultimate aim of two new videos aimed at pre-schoolers and beginning or remedial readers, respectively. The ABC's of Teaching the ABC's, directed towards parents of pre-schoolers, is a brief guide to innovative ways to help teach children the alphabet. The brainchild of educator Dr. Jeanne Mattick, the program presents a series of vignettes of parents and children at the park (tracing letters in the sand), at the grocery store (naming the first letters of vegetables), at home (drawing letters in pudding), at the zoo (figuring out the first letter of the animal's names), playing alphabet games at bedtime, and more. Understanding that learning styles vary from child to child, Mattick's suggestions incorporate seeing, hearing, and doing. A good aid for parents.Video Phonics, on the other hand, is a low-budget production which opens with a confusing speech about phonics, shot in someone's living room. This is followed by an all-text video with voice-over narration covering the alphabet, vowel sounds, consonants, long vowel sounds, consonant combinations, combination sounds, silent letters, endings, syllables, and sight words. The accompanying background music is cheesy and would be better suited to chop-socky flicks. Read English Today (reviewed in our May-June 1993 issue) is a much better choice.)The ABC's of Teaching the ABC's is recommended. (Available from: S.O.S. Videos, Inc., P.O. Box 10570, Chicago, IL 60610; (312) 280-1891.) Video Phonics is not recommended. (Available from: Video Phonics, 220 Church St., St. Martinville, LA 70582; (318) 394-5720.)