"It's surprising how versatile this mere one-"pen" product is. Aside from the "On/Off" switch on the unit, every "button" needed for use, is offered on pages of the booklets themselves!"

---from the review

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How's it do it? Should I keep the pen/pad clean? The trick in how the pen reacts to the reading pad is in both the pen, as well as small, pinhole-sized holes in the corners of the device, which scan where the pen is at the time it is depressed. Each Read pad has been designed to have a "GO" button at a slightly different area of each page, to inform the computer chip which page that is, and what that page can do. Then its a matter of scanning the pen whenever pressed, to see where the pen is, and what word/"button" the child is pressing on at that time. Pretty cool...

There are hundreds of people (product manufacturers, TV studios, and of course parents, teachers, and book authors) who are trying to make it easier for kids to learn to read. However, most are either too condescending to make the child feel comfortable enough (telling kids it's "easy to do" when it's difficult for them is particularly frustrating), or too goofy for the child to take seriously (Barney the Dinosaur comes to mind). Then there are the tapes, which if you ask me don't always work very well (cynical T-shirts in joke stores read, "hookd onn fonics werked fir mee!"). Is there anything that truly works? Why not ask the kids; just about every parent I've heard from, with a child learning to read, has purchased the Leappad, and the kids love it. Just as importantly, the parents love it too, with a device that can just as easily be a parent-child tool as much as a tool children can use by themselves. It's the best use of computer-chip technology ever offered for education.

The unit consists of a hard plastic "shell" which a child can fold into book-size when not in use. When open, it creates a plastic "pad" the size of a small desk, where a specially designed booklet can be placed in the middle. Press the on switch, and the fun begins, via a pen that has been made to react to wherever the child presses it on the page. Press the "go" button on a page, and hear that part of the story slowly read to you. If a child clicks on a word, the word is pronounced for them. Clicking on pictures provides either a description of that object, or a further narration of that scene. At times, a lily pad at the bottom of a page provides a simple visual game (find the baseball mitt in the picture, for example). This is great stuff.

It's surprising how versatile this mere one-"pen" product is. Aside from the "On/Off" switch on the unit, every "button" needed for use, is offered on pages of the booklets themselves! This includes volume up/down buttons, "GO" and "Stop" buttons for narrations of that page's text, "ears" to repeat that page, and more. This enhances the child's need to look at the book's pages for what's needed.

The unit comes with a sample story book, though don't think the fun is over after that book is read 100 times. Numerous Reading Pad booklets are available separately. Each new booklet comes with a small cartridge not unlike the ones used for a video game system, which plugs into the LeapPad and tells it what new story is to be read. These booklets have three levels of reading difficulty, ranging from Leap 1 (beginners), Leap 2 (intermediate), and Leap 3 (just about ready to go out and read on their own). The list of optional Reading Pad booklets are quite extensive, ranging from the Leap 1 Reading Book: Pooh Gets Stuck, to the Leap 2 Reading Book: Disney/Pixar's Monsters Inc., to the Leap 3 Science: The World of Dinosaurs. My casual search for such booklets led to no less than 35 entries; click this link for Leappad accessories.

The gripes are very, very mild here. For one, the book is not infallible, and presumes the device is being read by a child without them "leaning" onto it. Not only is this not a good idea for any plastic "toy" of this type; it also confuses the pinhole-sized sonars within the leappad, which are trying to determine where the "pen" is when depressed. A child's elbow on the opposite page could confuse these sensors. Second, this is no mere product you can hand to your child after the batteries are installed and forget about it; parent-child interaction is certainly required for those first few uses, so the child can get used to it.

None of these are inherently "bad" flaws however, so there's no denying this is a great product. Even if your child loves to read --or just to be read to-- this is a great product, thanks to alternate "Leap" levels of the stories. Even a child already educated enough for "Leap level 3" will be impressed with this product. The parents will, too.