It has been a month since my three and a half year old girl opened her V.Reader and began using it. It's a great little device and at first she was hooked on it for hours a day, but as time has passed she doesn't seem to be as interested in it as she used to be. (This could be because we had to remove it from her possession as a punishment at one point and she is afraid we might do it again).
I think her biggest problem with the V.Reader is her lack of patience with it. My daughter, God Bless Her, has very little patience for things such as load times and lag... And there are times when the V.Reader does lag and does take a while to load the software for her. She will incessantly tap the on display to get it to register because she doesn't want to wait the few seconds it takes for the V.Reader to catch up with her, but I think with another month or so of time and some teaching, she will get the hang of it and it won't be an issue.
My biggest complaint with the V.Reader is that the cartridge slot is too tight for her little 3 year old hands to manipulate. She always has to come to myself or mommy to help her change out cartridges, and that gets to be a real hassle when she wants to change them out every 5 minutes or so. Part of the idea behind purchasing the V.Reader for her is that she uses it to occupy herself which is something my daughter is not very good at. Up until recently she relied on us for all her entertainment needs and my wife and I found ourselves being run ragged until we managed to take back control of the situation.
Another, smaller, issue is that the device will eat double A's like gangbusters. She went through 4 double A Duracell batteries in an 8 hour time period on her first day (I'm really glad I bought the Sanyo Eneloop batteries for her V.Reader. These batteries are perfect for her V.Reader because they will hold a charge for up to 3 years. So, should she decided to set the V.Reader down for a couple weeks, she can come back to it, turn it on, and still have plenty of charge time left. Other rechargeable batteries tend to lose their charge over the course of a few weeks whether they are being used or not. Keep this in mind when purchasing any battery powered device like this for your child or you may find yourself on constant recharge duty at the most inconvenient of times.
On the upside, this device is truly quite rugged, my daughter has put the V.Reader through its paces and it has survived splendidly. While she has yet to finish a book, she has gotten 40% to 50% done with several of them and it has become (or will again) her main source of entertainment when she is tasked with occupying herself while we do things like clean, cook dinner or otherwise need to use the bathroom without her banging on the door asking us what we are doing.
There are other devices on the market similar to the V.Reader but they require so much interaction from the parents that sometimes it's like the parents are having to learn how to read all over again, so if you want your child to get a head start on learning how to read and perform simple arithmetic, then I highly recommend the V.Reader.
One last thing, with a 2 Gigabyte SD card you can also purchase and download books to the V.Reader directly from the www.vtechkids.com web site. This is a great way to keep your child learning and entertained in between those runs to the store to pick up more books for them.
Also, always remember that your child needs other forms of stimulation too, old school items like coloring books and puzzles are great for teaching your child to be creative and problem solving skills.
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