Kids Sound Lab Pro

This is a very good app in helping young children who are learning how to read become more proficient in the process of reading and learning the sounds of letters. From visiting the developer’s website it is clear that a lot of research has gone into the production of this app and that the author and consultants on the app are recognised professionals in their areas adding a lot of quality to this app. There has also been research undertaken on the methodology used within the app so the developer is clearly focussed on making the app as appropriate and beneficial as possible. There are also some other good features on the developer’s website that are worth mentioning including videos of how to get the best out of the app. These are always very positive additions to any app.

The app itself has been organised in a very sensible way and follows the same pathway that young people learn sounds. This means that the way you work through the app will be similar to the way that the sounds are taught in school meaning that the app would work in an educational setting but also via home use looking to embed the practices in school for maximum impact.

Once the user enters the app they have access to all the letters and can select where they wish to begin. This means that the user can ‘dip in and out’ as they wish, helping them to use the app on a long term basis and therefore improving their proficiency as they are able to continue to practice their sounds. In the paid for pro version all the letters and sounds are available to the user however there is also a free version where the user has limited access to the content. By selecting one of the letters the user is taken to an instruction page where they are given the pronunciation of the sound related to that letter. This can be repeated as many times as the user wishes to help aid in learning the sound. Once the user is happy they can then move on to hearing examples of the sound used in real words with the relevant picture shown on the page. Again, the user can as have this repeated as many times as they wish by clicking on the picture. This is a good aid in helping to differentiate for slightly different abilities. You would expect a more able student to only repeat the work a few times whereas a slightly weaker student may repeat it multiple times.

Once the user has worked through all the examples then there are taken into a couple of different games to help further compound their learning of these sounds. These are fun and interactive and with the good quality of graphics throughout the app will help to keep young people engaged in wanting to come back. At each point through the games the user is able to access some assistance if they are struggling by clicking on the sun in the corner. Although this isn’t obvious in the first instance once the user does this once they will always know that this help is available. There are three games in total and each requires a slightly different skill from the user to access and this helps in making the user repeat their knowledge of the sounds and letters in different ways.

Overall this is a really good app in helping young children in their initial stages of learning their letters and sounds. Due to its functionality I can see it being used both in an educational setting as well as in the young persons home. 

You can download Kids Sound Lab Pro on your iOS devices from the Apple App Store.