Parent participation is a must for this wordless video, which plays notable pieces by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and other composers while presenting the alphabet one letter at a time. Designed for babies beginning at 9 months up through pre-reading 4-year-olds, this tape adopts a slow pace, starting with the drawing of each letter, forming a single image to go with it and spelling out that word. What separates this tape from other alphabet education materials is that it sometimes chooses verbs and then demonstrates them. For instance, the J begins jumping and the R runs. The simple images will attract babies, and the calm, single-word-per-letter approach will help toddlers focus, rather than be bombarded by too many images. Parents can fill in the rest when necessary. --Kimberly Heinrichs

Average Customer Review: ( 19 customer reviews )
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I purchased my first So Smart video (Volume 1) when my son was around 6 months old. One night, my son woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Nothing I tried settled him down. Exhausted, I finally brought him in bed with us, turned on the TV and VCR, pushed the Play button, and turned on the So Smart! video. After a few minutes, my baby started watching the video and immediately stopped crying. He was mesmerized by the simple objects and soothing music. He sat in my arms (at 3 a.m!) and quietly watched the video for 30 minutes. I was astonished (and pleasantly surprised.) It was a god-send!

I immediately ordered two other So Smart! videos and was equally impressed. By watching So Smart! Volume 3: All About Letters with my son, he could recognize most of the letters of the alphabet by the time he was one and-a-half. It was amazing!

Our son is now 3 years old, and everybody keeps asking us, "How do you teach him all this stuff" and I tell them about the So Smart! video series....

So Smart! videos are an interactive way for you to spend quality time with your little one. I highly recommend these award-winning products. The videos may seem simple and uninteresting to an adult, but they're just what a little mind needs to grow!

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

THE BESTJan 24, 2002

The viewer from Concord has it spot-on. The So Smart videos are simply the best -- there are no commercial tie-in's (like Baby Einstein), the music is classical and is not the toy-like sounding music that the Baby Einstein videos use. We play the So Smart videos sometimes during dinner because the music is the same you would hear by playing a CD or the radio, and our kids will watch while we listen and eat in peace. My oldest son also learned his alphabet from watching this video with me -- almost by accident. One day he just started telling ME what the letters were. Pass on the Baby Einstein -- So Smart is much better.

9 of 10 found the following review helpful:

Wonderful video for teaching lettersMay 03, 1999

This is a great video for teaching letters. My daughter is 15 months old. She's watched the A-F portion of this video, maybe, 10 times and she can now say ABCDE & F. She is also starting to recognized a few of those letters. This video has great graphics and wonderful music.

8 of 9 found the following review helpful:

My toddler (17 months) loves this video!Jun 27, 1999

This is one of my 17 month old's favorite videos. He asks to see it almost every day! Great way to teach beginning sounds (instead of the letter names, which can be learned after the sounds are learned)! Also great for beginning to recognize words. (So Smart: All about Shapes is very good, too!)

3 of 4 found the following review helpful:

So Smart Vol 3:All About LettersDec 01, 2000

Great learning tool. Parents must participate. They tell the child the letters and the objects as they appear. My 16th month old already knows his letters and is starting to learn the sequence of the alphabet.

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