>Nellie the Elephant and Thomas the Tank engine here.We had a couple of video cassettes of them so you'd hear the theme tune again and again and again..............................
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>I never minded re reading the same book repeatedly.

Same here. There were a couple books that became favorites and we read them every day , sometime multiple times throughout the day. I enjoyed that. When she started preschool, she had to take an entrance test (for kindergarten as well) to make sure she was at least at the level of the other kids. It paid off. We had spent a lot of time learning the alphabet and their sounds and learning to write short words. We made a game of it. If she wanted apple slices for a snack, she would write her name and the word apple for me on her writing board like a waitress. I would fix the apple slices, sit down at the table, and she would bring it to me like in a restaurant. Orange was very difficult -- I think she just learned to memorize that word :o) I kept having to think of simple words for snacks. :o) Funny how when young, those pretend games are the ones they love most.