Cheeks to Cheeks

This is the first time I have to write a product review middle of the night because it is the only time I can flip through the personalized learning products from See Me Read. If I do that while my daughter is awake, she will never let go of the books and reading cards. This shows how much she loves reading now.

When I was younger I was an avid reader. My parents even special made a bookcase for my ever growing volume of books. I could read for hours and my relatives used to made fun of me and called me an unopenable durian (fig: someone who is unwilling to talk). My interest in books was instilled by my mom since young. Now that I am a mother, I have been trying to rub off a little bit of my reading enthuasiasm to my first born. Sadly, it was not easy because my girl tends to have short attention span. That used to be a problem but not until the day we got See Me Read products in the mail.

The See Me Read Early Childhood Literacy Program is a whole-word learning product line that associates words with a child’s familiar possessions and family members. The whole-word approach introduces familiar words in whole units. Children learn to sight-read words, pronouncing the entire word in a single unit. By repetitive exposure to words that are important to them, children will be eager to learn to read these words, beginning the development of a whole-word vocabulary.

-excerpt from SEE ME READ Parent Guide

When Parent Reviewers gave me a choice creating my own kit or use the premade kit sample, I opted for the whole nine-yard. I went for the See Me read Kit–Complete that includes all five products: See Me Read Labels, see Me Read Reading Cards, the See Me Read Book–Level One, the See me Read Book–Level Two, and the See Me Read Writing Pad.

See Me Read Labels:

It is suggested to place these labels on or near the physical item itself. I did that and Belle absolutely loves pointing at the objects now and read the labels out loud.  Now that the labels are on the item itself I don’t have to supervise her. This will come in handy when Cassie is at the learning age.

See Me Read Reading Cards:

This is by far the BEST flash cards we have at home. Belle could relate to the words in the flash cards and it is all because it has her photos in it! Belle is familiar with majority of the objects in the reading cards. Now I just need her to recognize the words. The Parent Guide gave plenty of tips on how to do it and they are very good advices. Do you want to know? Get a set.

See Me Read Book–Level One:

This book is great for kids who are at the early learning stage. It uses simple repetitive sentences where it emphasized on the word with bold prints. I have been reading each page to Belle by placing my finger under each word. She loves to copy me and hopefully, in time, she will grasp the reading skill.

See Me Read Book–Level Two:

This is an extension of the Level One Book. The sentences are longer and more complex. I will progress to this book once Belle has master the Level 1 Book.

See Me Read Writing Pad:

This Writing Pad is absolutely handy when the child has some what master drawing and writing. This writing pad is useful for children to express their thoughts. At this moment, Belle need it but I’m safe keeping it for her future learning use. In my opinion, if the writing pad is printed on durable glossy material, that could be written, erase and re-write; it will be better.

My take:

I wish there were more words to choose from. For the Level 2 Book, I was hoping for more flexibility in the sentences. All in all I still think this is the best reading assistance I have ever come across with. The kit may seem like a lot of work but it isn’t. I had so much fun sorting through my daughter’s old photos and uploading it onto my See Me Read account. When I didn’t have the appropriate photo for a certain word, all I needed to do was have my daughter pose according to what was needed. When doing something fun, time isn’t a matter any more. Best of all, I was creating something educational for my daughters.  

On the side note: The customer support is world class best! I was stuck with an issue while completing my kit and wrote in to the customer support email. In less than an hour I got a reply from them. Elena Blanco got back to me right away with the fix and even wrote to me (again) when she didn’t see my order in the system. She was worried that I may still have problem completing the kit. This shows the people from See Me Read are genuine and willing to go an extra mile for their customers. I had another problem related to shipping and Lori Luke ironed out everything for me. What can I say? This is what I call A+ customer service and definitely has my two thumbs up!

If you are interested in the See Me Read Complete Kit, Parent Reviewers have a 20% promotional discount code in their site for it. Don’t forget to swing by there to get your promotional code.  

~Big thanks to See Me Read and Parent Reviewers for this opportunity~