Search - Little Steps, Vol. 1: Early Learning Adventures on DVD

Disappointing - quality, graphics, educational value.

Nman | Sydney, Australia | 12/02/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Let me start off by saying, i'm not an expert in baby education etc.

So this is my uneducated opinion:
Compared to other DVD's on the market, such as my baby can read or baby Einstein looks, feels less beneficial to the babies.

The basis of the Little steps:

. Some little cheap screen drawings with classical (Bach/Beethoven's etc) background music.
. The colours are off... since I have spent a lot of time and effort calibrating my screen, it was very very obvious the colour mismatch... e.g. a scene had the word "blue" whilst it was more of a green colour???.

. No words are read out, just put in obscure places in the screen... e.g. they put the colour words "ORANGE" written in colour BLACK, on a square background? I would have thought you would make it orange text in a copy of an orange or something like that?

Some book I read a while ago said that babies learn with the classical music and additional stimuli, this dvd will provide this, but it's very much a passive focusing on the babies subconscience then something more active such as baby can read.

Overall I am disappointed, but that might be because I don't understand the teaching/educating technique they are trying to use.

"

Some of these videos are good others are awful.

Just Me | 03/22/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This collection of DVD's consists of Little Steps: First Words, Sights & Sounds and Little Steps: Letters, Shapes & Colors. (see my reviews for more detail on each one) These videos are primitive in nature and designed for much parental interaction. There is minimal and sometimes no narration so that you, the parent, do not have to talk over characters, etc. when describing and asking questions about the pictures on the screen. As my children have gotten older (now 2 and a couple of months) they now actually do much of the narration themselves. They all have classical music in the background. This style of learning is nicely suited for my boys and I. I use them as an interactive tool like you would a book and not as entertainment. (We watch other videos and programs for this)

I did not have trouble with the color calibration on the DVD set that I own as one other reviewer mentioned, however, when I checked out the Colors VHS under the "So Smart" or "Baby So Smart" label (same product) from the library I did experience these problems. The VHS was somewhat different from this DVD set and the colors VHS had less narration. I think it was an earlier edition, I don't really remember it that well. Also, on this newer version, each color's chapter begins with a still picture of part of the story all in that color and the color's name written at the bottom in white on top of a strip of the color being shown. It is not spoken out loud (great for quizzing child on what color we are going to see) but the colors name is spoken at the beginning of the animation and many more times throughout. Eg. "A purple fish..." or "the green grasshopper..." Just be advised that there are different versions out there and that I was satisfied with the versions in this set."