For some reasons we never had any Baby Einstein DVDs- but somehow we got a hold of a 'Leapfrog Letter Factory" DVD- and I can tell you- this DVD is nothing short of miraculous. My 3 yo son learned all the alphabets in a matter of weeks. Prior to this we did the old fashion 'point and say' type of learning with him (the precious 'parent-child interaction' so prized by the American Pediatrician Association). No dice. He was never able to reliably go past the first half dozen letters or so. We couldn't kep his attention for more than a few minutes at a time anyways. We parked him in front of the Letter factory video for 3 weeks and he just learned all his letters just like that. He even learned a good number of the lower case letters.

So- don't dismiss the cheesy videos. Sometimes it really works wonders. Let's face it- most of us grew up with cheesy TV, horrifying processed foods and a regular regimen of beatings; and we all turned out as fine.