Read with Phonics
Common Sense Media Review
By Mieke VanderBorght
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Alien-themed phonics games are thorough but lack variety.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 4+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Read with Phonics
Parent and Kid Reviews
What’s It About?
Kids play games with one phoneme at a time in READ WITH PHONICS. In each of four different alien worlds, phonemes are ordered from most simple to most complex. When kids complete a game set for one phoneme, they unlock the next. Games include choosing the letter or letters that spell the phoneme, building words from their individual phonemes, matching words to pictures, and identifying real words from made up ones. When kids answer incorrectly more than three times, they have to start the game set again from the beginning.
Is It Any Good?
This collection of games is a detailed, logical, and thorough journey for those wanting to teach their kids to read using a phonics-based approach. Read with Phonics presents the easy ones first: phonemes made of a single letter like "s" are clustered at the beginning. Through the first world, and then on to the next three, phonemes get increasingly more complex, such as "igh." This means that kids gradually build up their reading confidence and comprehension as they learn more ways to see sounds represented in letter combinations. The major downside to Read with Phonics is that the games kids play are more or less the same for each phoneme, which gets boring and repetitive pretty quickly. On an unrelated note, it can also be frustrating to be kicked out of a level after choosing the incorrect answer a few times. All in all, though carefully and methodically presenting phoneme after phoneme seems like a logical approach, it just needs a bit more variety in approach and working access to the parent section to make it even better.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the phonics approach featured in Read with Phonics. Point out words in books or in your surrounding environment and help kids break the words into their individual sounds. Then explore the letter(s) that make those sounds.
Play a rhyming game with the word kids are learning. Rhyming helps kids develop phonemic awareness by recognizing letter and sound patterns. It also helps increase vocabulary and motivates learning.
Give kids the big picture too. Let kids see the magic of reading by helping them identify whole words in full sentences that form a narrative. Some kids may learn better when they know the context of what they're reading and can get excited about its meaning.
App Details
- Devices: iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android , Kindle Fire
- Subjects: Language & Reading : phonics, reading
- Pricing structure: Free to try (free download includes limited content; in-app purchase unlocks all content for $2.99-$7.99)
- Release date: August 31, 2018
- Category: Education
- Topics: Numbers and Letters
- Publisher: Way We Learn
- Version: 1.0.16
- Minimum software requirements: iOS 11.4 or later; Android 4.1 and up
- Last updated: January 23, 2019
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