Last Updated on 13 April 2022 by Colette
The Appealing Rabbit Alphabet cards were invented by a dad trying to motivate and support his own son in developing his writing. Ben was very much the reluctant mark marker however Chloe is keen to pick up her pen and write or draw at any given opportunity. She loves her phonics lessons and likes to point out different letters in the environment all the time.
I’m impressed at how hard Chloe works to form her letters correctly and I knew she would enjoy the Alphabet Cards as another way of practising.
I didn’t introduce the element of competition to Chloe initially. I knew she would just enjoy writing on the cards and working on her letters. I was a little disappointed that the letters are actually all in upper case. At Chloe’s age she is learning to link upper case with lower case letters, learning both the letter names and the sounds which they make. As she worked through them I was impressed that she recognised the majority of the letters and made the sounds associated with them but didn’t necessarily know they names of them so this is something we will work on.
The illustrations are designed to make the shape of the letter and give your child a space to work in – rather than a line to trace. I like that this encourages a little more independence in letter formation though I must admit that not all of the letters seemed to be formed in the same way as I would normally teach them. This was of no real bother as we didn’t pay much attention to the start and end points preferring to focus on the shape of the letter and I modelled any letters which she found tricky. Whilst the illustrations are beautiful there were times where they were almost a little distracting, Chloe wouldn’t always see the path of the letter until I pointed it out to her.
Chloe worked happily through the whole alphabet, enjoying being able to rub out any mistakes with the end of her special pen. This of course encouraged her to be a bit of a perfectionist with her letter formation which is always a winner.
What we liked about them:
* They’re a handy size to keep in your bag for using out and about (eg in a restaurant)
* The dry wipe pen and rubber come in the pack
* The letters wipe clean easily so can be used over and over again
* The pictures are detailed and really attractive
What we weren’t so keen on:
* I wasn’t keen on them being upper case. It would have added an interesting element to have upper case on the front and lower case on the back allowing children to practise writing both sorts of letters and also matching upper and lower case.
* It wasn’t always clear which route should be taken on the path to form the letters, and some were different to what Chloe is taught however I just showed her first and she was fine.
* Not all of the letters showed a clear start and finish point – of course this can be modelled to start with.
Disclaimer – We were sent the cards free of charge for the purposes of review however all thoughts and opinions remain our own*
the upper case thing bugs me too, seems to be on most cards like these, I do love the images though, great review #triedtested
A fun way to pull out the letter definition, could do with upper and lower case and then you could use them to play pairs after! Actually that's an awesome idea for an activity hour game to play here! Thanks
That would make for a great matching game! x
I agree lower case would be much more appropriate for these cards but the illustrations are absolutely beautiful.
These look so sweet, but having upper case only would annoy me too, Elizabeth only recognizes capitals that are at the beginning of names she regularly uses at the moment, she is much more comfortable with lower case
Which in fairness is exactly where she should recognise them!! x
What a great concept. I think my daughter would love these as she is starting to want to write and can recognise letters.
These are lovely. What a fab idea to encourage letter formation. My son is still trying hard with his writing and these would help a lot.
It would be good to have a set of lowercase letters too (then they could be used as a matching game).
#triedtested
These are really lovely and I think Bud would enjoy them as he's used to using a dry wipe marker and board at school. The cards are pretty enough to put on display too!
I agree, a set of lower case would be good too-my son still gets slightly confused by the idea of 'Big' and 'Small' letters. But a great idea.
They continue to get confused by upper and lower case for quite some time in my experience.
I agree, lowercase would be useful to start with but I love the idea of something like this for when my daughter's older. #triedtested
They look lovely, and I do like the concept. Great for Reception kids, as you say x
These look fab! I like that they are wipe clean. What a great idea x
They are beautifully illustrated! Maybe a bit over illustrated and distracting. I agree with the upper and lower case which would be usefully. Great review! #TriedTested
I agree lower case would be useful, i would have both on the same card. Having said that these would be great for the learning sacks I have made for the childre #TriedtTested
beautiful illustrations, I agree with the need for lower case too. lovely review
I love the design of these, really lovely! #TriedTested
We loved these cards they are really fab and my daughter liked using the, too!
Love the idea that a dad has invented these cards…. good on him. They look a fantastic product #TriedTested
These sound interesting, I've never seen anything like this before, but they're a good idea x
I suppose it is good for pencil control. I would like to see more cursive stuff
We have these cards and really love them. Like you, I would have liked to have had some lower case letters too. Laura x x x
I like the idea of these for encouraging children with writing out the letters although agree that it would be good to also have lower case letters too. Love the fact that they are wipe clean though and easy to fit inside a bag to help keep children amused when out and about.
We've got some too, and they are beautiful. But I agree – for N who's not yet in reception, lower case is more important to his recognition at the moment. He's also refusing to have a go with them, so hopefully they'll be more useful in the future for him
These are a fab idea and look well illustrated. Like yourself I would be more inclined to buy if they had lower case included.
We have reviewed these too and agree on the need for lower case. I really like the illustrations though 😀 thanks for hosting #Triedtested
The upper case thing would annoy me too, but otherwise they are a lovely set for pre-school and early learning
These looks like a great idea, though I agree with Fiona above that two sets upper and lower case could help and make for a great game of snap! too =)
A great idea but I'm with you in the lower case issue, great for a nappy bag entertainment stash though
this is such a great idea! Would be lovely it was available in different languages
J is more of a mark maker too but he is just getting in to his letters at the minute so think he would like these. Great review 🙂