Zooper ABC Animals

Zooper ABC Animals is an app with a clear aim - to get young children to engage with the letters of the alphabet and begin to understand their sounds and formation. It does so by connecting each letter with an animal character. Each character is delightfully designed in a cartoon style, which will appeal greatly to its young audience. The structure of the app is very simple - from the home screen you can either choose one of the twenty six letters of the alphabet to investigate, or parents can enter a special zone with a few useful parents’ notes.

Once a letter has been selected, there are three main activities relating to the letter and its corresponding animal. Firstly, the animal is introduced with a vibrant illustration, and a short poem. Throughout the app, a child-friendly sense of humour is apparent. The app can be set to either read the words aloud to the child, or they can choose to read the words themselves if they are able. Once the poem is finished, the illustration runs a short animated sequence. There are then further ways to explore each letter. First of all, the child can practise writing the letter in both upper and lower cases by using their fingers on the touch screen. Although there are guides provided to help children follow the correct way to form each letter, there is no assessment as such. Following this, there is a page of items beginning with the letter in question, each shown in silhouette form. The pictures reveal themselves when the child touches them. Once all of the pictures are pressed, a special “Zooper Dooper Blooper” video is revealed. Each of these is a humorous animation showing imaginary outtakes from the main animations.

The entire app is so well thought out, with delightful illustrations, a wonderful sense of humour, deeply engaging content and all accompanied by fantastic sound effects and clear narration. Parents or teachers may wish to be aware that some of the spellings and pronunciations differ slightly from the British standards, but otherwise the app is ready to use and so simple that even young children will be able to access the content by themselves. With so many activities for each letter, there is a good amount of content to keep children busy, and the app will have a good replayability factor.

Overall, this app very competently treads the line between fun and educational content. It oozes appeal for young children and will surely encourage them to learn about the letters and become familiar with their shapes, sounds and characteristics. The developers clearly care about the content and design, and great imagination shines through in each animation, illustration and poem throughout the app.