I don't really have a problem with our kids having some screen time (without commercials, because it's so easy now), but we had to drop Youtube Kids because of this very reason as well.

Amazing that Google thinks that unboxing videos of products paid by the companies to the "entertainers" is good content for developing minds. I was under the assumption that app was curated, but it must not be.

Amazon's Freetime Unlimited with a Kindle and a soft case has been the best setup so far. Lots of educational stuff from PBS, but they can also mix in the Pokemon or super hero cartoons.

Surprisingly (or not), the kids sort of gravitate towards the more educational PBS shows.

Another huge perk on Amazon is there's tons of decent kids games for free on their Underground app store. Kids games are really expensive ... it still burns I paid $10 to unlock all the utensils in a Strawberry Shortcake cooking game!

I'm not a parent myself, but my mother didn't teach me to read by age three with numbers-and-letters TV shows. She did that by teaching me to read. I'm not especially smart or perspicacious, but I gather from what she's told me that it didn't take her very long.

On average kids are vastly smarter than we give them credit for. From 18 months to 4 years, kids add ~10,000 words to their vocabulary with minimal repetition. 26 letters and 10 numbers is nothing as long as it's meaningful for them.

Educational entertainment is more about parents than education. However, kids also like to learn things so interesting and educational are frequently linked when done well.

PS: If you actually want to teach kids to read then integrating subtitles and story seems like a great option.