Most Liked Positive Review

Loves them but quality spotty

WHY WE'RE SHOPPING FOR THIS:Son just turned 18mos old. We have been reading to him since he was born. He points out letters around the house, so it seemed like a good time to try something like this. Mom's a teacher and she suggested it wasn't too early to try.WHY WE LIKE THEM: 1. We liked the size ...of the letters, especially because all of the more commonly available ones are so small that they slide under the refrigerator. These are large and thick enough that they do not do that, and when they are scattered, they are easily found.2. He enjoys handling them, and the tactile interaction is helping him learn his letters also.3. We like the lack of sharp edges on these letters vs other sets, as he likes to carry them around the house and although we watch him carefully when he does this, I worry about some sharp edge causing a cut.4. The colors are bright and stand up to washing with a very mild bleach solution; they do not fade or bleed.5. The extra, more commonly used letters (S, A, etc) added to the pack are great for word formation in future.6. The letters are durable. He sits on them, throws them, steps on them, and they are holding up just fine. He plays with them about 2 hours a day, if added all up. They are his first go-to item in the morning, even before breakfast, and what he likes to handle even when eating. The letters have not broken, splintered, or chipped.PROBLEMS:All that said, there were some problems. There are 2 larger magnets attached to each uppercase letter (we are using on the uppercase letters for now, until he fully internalizes the alphabet). However, when we first opened these, I noticed that some of the letters were sliding down the board/refrigerator. After checking it out, we realized some of the magnets were set a millimeter or two lower into the letter than they should be, as if they were pressed harder into the letter or they were too short for the letter. This was causing the slight to significant sliding of the letters down a magnetic surface, as the magnet was coming into contact with the magnetic surface at the same time as the plastic letter.SOLUTIONS:After several attempts at fixing it, including sanding down the letters' back, I had to pry off the magnets with a flathead screwdriver, fold some paper to create a small platform into the space where the magnet was, and use white glue to secure the paper and magnet back into the letter. This caused the magnet to rise by just the amount needed so that the magnet was the first thing that came into contact with the magnetic surface. The letters no longer slide.ANY RETURNS/DEALBREAKER?:We're keeping them. It wasn't a dealbreaker for us, since it was on less than 20% of the letters and was a relatively quick fix, once we figured out what was happening. Plus, since manufacturing is sometimes a spotty process (it is made overseas, if you care about that sort of thing) and it likely would happen regardless of where we purchased these items, we figured it was within a reasonable margin of error, anyway. WHY DID WE BUY HERE?:We shopped around locally at teachers' stores as well as on the internet, and these won because of1. item pricing/value for the money,2. [...],3. size of the letters,4. upper and lower case letters of the same style and color family,5. size of the magnets,6. the number of magnets per letter,7. and the hard plastic material. We did NOT want foam letters because of teething and also because it would be difficult to sanitize foam in the long run. We plan to have these for at least 2 more years and so far these seem like they'll hold up.BOTTOM LINE:All said and done, he loves the letters. I would buy this product again, from this company again. 4 stars only because of the problems with some of the magnets on some of the letters, but only 1 star off because it was a problem on less than 20% of all items. It's a winner. Would recommend as a gift to others after inspection at home first.