Alphabet Soup

$30, Smart Toy

Teaches: matching, phonics, letters, spelling short words

CTR Rating: 80%

CTR Review

Designed to look like a pot of soup, this battery-operated phonics toy comes with an attached talking spoon that prompts children to find the letters needed to spell specific three-letter words. While he talks, background music plays in repeating loops. There are 26 letters that are a bit clumsy to handle when fitting them into one of the three slots. There are limited smarts to this toy. For example, you can't freely spell words by trying combinations of letters. The best part of this toy is the ability put any letter in the slot to hear its sound and an associated word (e.g., Y is for Yum). There are five activities including letter sounds (tells the sound a letter makes), finding fun (asks for the letter that makes a sound), counting colors (asks for you to press a certain color block), letter order (tells you what what letter comes after) and spelling time (asks you to spell a word). Includes 4 AA batteries for demo purpose only and an automatic shut-off.