Learn with Thomas Alphaphonics

What is it

Learn letters, sounds, and spelling with the Thomas & Friends Learn with Thomas Alphaphonics™. The easy-to-handle toy features every letter in upper and lower case and images of well-known characters and places from the stories. Children can select from seven different play modes. Rewards include fun music and sound effects.

Thomas Tank Engine – Learn with Thomas Alphaphonics

Uploaded by Prism Media Production on 2018-03-26.

What our experts think

It was great to see the smiles and squeals of laughter that this toy elicited – two of our testers had a fantastic time dancing around the room to the music! Our testers enjoyed the familiar characters, the variety of games available and were reluctant to stop playing (children can choose from seven different modes of play).

The toy is a good aid to learning letter sounds and the children had so much fun pressing the buttons, they didn’t realise they were building on their literacy and phonic learning. Pressing the buttons to hear the resulting sound also promotes cause and effect logic, while different play patterns develop memory and attention, important at this age for learning and retaining new information. The gameplay was simple and most of our testers needed minimal assistance although adult interaction would be beneficial to challenge literacy learning further. If using the product with younger children (3 years and under), more help will be necessary.

It would be even better if...

Although the toy goes to sleep after a couple of minutes, we would have liked to have seen an on/off button.