Alphabet Song Game

This app introduces a completely different way of helping young children learn the letters of the alphabet and to recognise each letter’s shape, both upper and lower case. Through the alphabet song the app encourages a music theme in a way to tempt users into the app and help encourage them to learn the very basics as they begin to learn how to read and write. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that the app is just based around music as there is a lot more to it as well.

It is worth mentioning that this is an American app so the audio definitely has an American speakers voice and the pronunciation of the letters are based on the American English dialect.

The developer of this app has a number of other educational games and it is clear to see that have a good understanding of the educational content that is needed to help young children to learn these important aspects as they become readers and writers. They also seem to understand the different elements that schools and teachers like too, and this app is no exception as there are certain features that are pitched perfectly for schools to be able to utilise.

The foundation of this app is the alphabet song and this is used as a vehicle to hook young children in as they can express themselves through singing along as they also learn the letters of the alphabet. The song features at the beginning of each of the 16 games in the app as a way to continue to remind the child the sounds of the letters. Once the song has been sung the user can then move onto the main content of that game. As mentioned there are 16 games which are split into 3 different categories. These categories are upper case, lower case and mixed case letters. Working through each game children follow a sensible pathway in helping them to become more proficient in their knowledge of letters. The games themselves help the user to not only know the alphabet but to identify the difference between upper and lower case as well as the ability to write each letter correctly too.

As mentioned previously the developer has a good knowledge of what works well for schools and teachers and this is the same for this app. Through the admin side of the app teachers can see the progress that users are making as they move through the app and this allows for them to adapt and personalise the learning depending on how well the child is doing and what aspects they are maybe struggling with. They can also bypass certain games and just focus on specific areas should they wish to. Again, this allows for the user’s learning experience to be personalised. However the educational elements within the app doesn’t limit it to just the schools market though as it could very easily be used in a home setting and these tracking features could be useful for parents too.

I really enjoyed the fact that the app used singing as a way to encourage young children to learn the letters of the alphabet and I can certainly see it appealing to young children just because of this musical element. Outside of this though the developer clearly understands its topic and has produced a solid app which schools could definitely use to their advantage.