ABCs Alphabet Phonics Games

For parents of children who are in the UK, it is important to note that the app is in American-English. This means that that “Z” has the American pronunciation and the word “axe” is written as “ax”.  The different spelling was a bit of a shock as I was not aware of that spelling in American-English.

Despite the differences in accents and one spelling, the rest of the app has been done with great care. There are over original animations with over 70 cute characters and original sounds that children will engage with whole-heartedly.

Children can learn in alphabet order or return to the ‘Home page’ and choose a random letter so that each letter acts like a flash-card. Each letter shows its formation in upper and lower case. There are animations that you tap on in order for them to come to life.  The animations represent the sound of the letter. For example, with “A” we have an apple and an alligator. Before the illustration comes to life and the name of the object is said, you can hear the phonic sounds of the letter so “M” gets a ‘muh’ sound before “mouse” and “music”.

This is an app that children will engage with by themselves. However guidance from an adult will really enrich the experience so that the child can be asked questions about what he/she sees and perhaps to make other associations with other words that begin with the letter in question.  Essentially, the app is more about setting the first stepping-stone for learning letters. Further understanding of spelling and interacting with the app in order to read/spell does not take place here.

There is also a progress chart so that parents and teachers can create separate profiles for different children.  In the progress section, the app is tracking how many times a flash-card has been opened with each profile. This helps adults know what other letters they might need to concentrate on or whether a specific letter has been done many times but the child cannot remember it. This type of progress measuring is really just how many times the flash-card has been opened, there are no other testing or correction features in the app.

We would take away the in-app purchases and pop-up ads as we found them a little intrusive. We think that the developer could add a feature to say that they have more apps for reading/spelling etc...  This app can stand-alone by itself to be successful and, we are sure, that parents and teachers will gravitate naturally towards their other products if they are satisfied with this app.

We would take away the in-app purchases and pop-up ads as we found them a little intrusive. We think that the developer could add a feature to say that they have more apps for reading/spelling etc...  This app can stand-alone by itself to be successful and, we are sure, that parents and teachers will gravitate naturally towards their other products if they are satisfied with this app.