Monsters, Inc. Disney Read-Along

Monsters, Inc. Disney Read-Along
Follow Monster's Inc with words and pictures on the television screen. You can sing along with your favorite songs or enjoy reading, singing and vocabulary in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish with the Disney DVD Read-Along. Other great features include music videos, interactive games and sneak peeks at what's new from Disney. The DVD Read-Along can be used in DVD players, computer DVD ROMS, or DVD compatible game consoles.
Customer Review: It's good but...
My little guy was scared of the movie Monsters Inc. but he likes this video. This video isn't animated but is made up of various pictures from the movie which made it less scary for him. The story is good and condensed and the captioning is a great idea. But...the captioning is small and a bit difficult to read with the shifting pictures underneath and the changing text size (the captioning changes size as its being read). We haven't used the different languages much because my little guy loses interest. The picture-story doesn't provide much context. My little-guy (he's 3) loves Read-TV though. It's based on the same concept (that captioning helps children learn to read) but the captioning is so much better in Read-TV. It's large and catchy (bright colors and sometimes animated!) and has a lot of context clues so my child easily learns what a word means. If you're going to purchase a video that uses captioning for educational purposes I'd choose Read-TV. It's a bit more expensive then the Disney Read-Along but worth every penny!
Customer Review: From a foreign language teacher's point of view
I haven't used this video with little children, but it's great for a foreign language classroom. Students can hear and read along in the target language (and 5 languages to choose from!) so you get a good correspondance between word and sound for better comprehension. Anyone who has used a movie with subtitles knows that subtitles do NOT say the same thing the foreign language track says so it makes it difficult for someone to follow along. This format can really help comprehension skills. The story can be watched in a variety of combinations, English audio/2nd language subtitles, 2nd language audio/English subtitles and any combination of audio language and subtitles. There is a small vocab review section (only a few words, though, wish it were more), where there is a picture illustrating a word and then the word is printed and spoken. You can repeat any particular word as many times as you want before moving to the next word. There are 3 songs, the one from the end of the movie (If I didn't have you) and then 2 others that did not appear in the movie, but are cute (It's our job and Under the bed). Again, these are with both audio and subtitles, in any combination of languages. From a foreign language teacher's point of view, this is a great resource! It would be a great preliminary to watching the full movie in the target language. Be aware, though, that the actual movie DVD does NOT have any language but English! You can buy Spanish as a separate VHS (maybe DVD but I'm not sure) and then French separately. I couldn't believe they wouldn't at least have ONE of the languages in an audio track. (As a French and Spanish teacher, it's cost effective for me to buy only 1 DVD instead of 2 VHS tapes normally.) Overall, it's a good deal for a FL teacher and is a nice change from the same ol' same ol'. Only 4 stars for the items I mentioned above and because it would make my life easier if I had a written script for it.


Walt Disney's Vacation Parade #2
The second seasonal issue of this title which collects classic humor/adventure stories featuring Disney Standard Characters from the Golden Age of Western Publishing. This edition features "Dangerous Disguise," written and ilustrated by the legendary Carl Barks.