Apps for Literacy and Learning

Language-arts tool for kids who need to improve their sentence formation, storytelling, and speaking, and can be used in special needs classrooms.

Teaches students about grammar and descriptive writing through the process of creating sentences. 

Letter and number tracing for beginners with a numbered connect-the-dots method.

Word Magic a basic spelling app. For each word, the game presents a picture illustrating the word and the missing letter or letters has to be guessed. Difficulty options include: missing one letter or two letters, word lengths, upper or lower case letters, and if the missing letter(s) are at the beginning, middle, or end of words. As the game progresses, it provides a running total of right and wrong spellings, provides ongoing positive reinforcement sound effects, and awards prizes as the child progresses.

TeachMe: Kindergarten focuses on sight words, spelling, addition, and subtraction. Children answer questions and solve problems to earn sticker rewards. TeachMe: Kindergarten’s touch-and-drag controls are well designed for 4 and 5-year-olds. Parents can select subjects, difficulty level, and review performance history for each subject.

Pogg is a little green alien that acts out spelled words. There are two modes: pictures and spelling. Picture mode offers children that are not yet spelling an icon of the word, when clicked the word is read out loud, and Pogg performs the word. The spelling mode lets the child freely type words into the “What should Pogg do now?” box, encouraging kids to experiment with spelling basic words, and showing short movie clips of Pogg doing that action. The spelling dictionary offers over 300 word/phrase combinations and the developer plans to release many extra word animations as free upgrades to everybody who purchases the app.

Montessori Crosswords helps kids develop literacy skills by dragging and dropping letters into a crossword grid to form words that correspond to the given pictures. Young children can drag letters around in the moveable alphabet and practice linking phonetic sounds to letters, while older kids can expand their vocabularies in the higher of three difficulty levels. Crossword levels include simple words with one-sound, words with consonant blend, and words of any complexity.