Endless Alphabet

This app drives me crazy. It has recently become my two-year-old's go-to app; it wins awards left and right; and friends recommend it to me all the time. And yet, from a literacy point of view, it's pretty terrible. There is so much to like about it, that I feel bad criticizing the flaws in the literacy learning. When I talk to other friends with two-year-olds who adore Endless Alphabet as much as my daughter does, it feels like splitting hairs to point out that in many instances the letters make sounds they don't actually make in the context of that word. Or that "gargantuan" is a ridiculous vocabulary word for our toddlers to be practicing. Because what does it matter, really, when we've found an app that holds the two-year-olds' attention spans for longer than five minutes at a stretch? And one that encourages the kids to practice letter names and learn new words at the same time? It's gold... right?

Endless Alphabet opens with a parade of adorable monsters playing musical instruments. You then choose from a variety of continuously-updated words and a monster scatters the letters from the word. Your job is to put the letters back into their proper place. As you drag each letter into place, the letter says its most common sound (although NOT necessarily the sound it makes within the word; for example, the letter e always says "eh," even though in reality it is silent in many of the words, such as "dye"). Once clicked into place, the letter says its name. Every time Autumn plays with this app she editorializes as well: /a/, /a/, /a/, A "... for Autumn!"  buh, buh, buh, B ".... for Brooklyn, and there are two of them!" " V ... Vivian starts with V. My friend, Vivian! She starts with V!"  

Please note that in the letter A example above, the word could have been "musician." Yes, Autumn has learned that the letter A is for Autumn. And the reading teacher in me cringes when she says, aa, aa, Autumn. But that part is not the app developers' fault; after all, they don't know my daughter's name. They do, however, know their own words. And the sound /a/ (as in "apple") is very hard to hear in the word "musician." If they had consulted a literacy expert in the development of this app, they would have been told that the letters should make the sounds that they make within the actual word. 

Another problem is the pronunciation of some of the sounds themselves. The first, most essential, rule in making a phonics app is to make sure that there is no distortion in the pronunciation of the stop sounds (letters like B and D, which have sounds you can only say quickly and then you have to stop. As opposed to M and N, which are continuants: you can say their sounds as long as you have the breath to hold it.) In Endless Alphabet, monster voices make all of the sounds. Which is cute, but the letter sounds come out in deep, guttural voices, sounding like "BUH, BUH, BUH." Worse, if you hold your finger down on the letter B, the "uh" sound gets stretched out even further, so that it sounds like "buuuuuuh." This is nothing like what the letter sounds like within the word: NIBUUUUUUHLE? 

After the word is built, the monsters return and act out the meaning of the word. Some of the words strike me as more interesting / appropriate than others for the youngest learners, in terms of the vocabulary learning that toddlers should be doing, but Autumn's decision-making process is always inscrutable.

The companion app to Endless Alphabet is Endless Reader. That one looks and feels almost exactly the same as Endless ABC (and is made by the same folks), but the words are smaller. Some recent words I saw include "ball," "cake" and "eat," and they get used in a sentence during the definition portion. Originator calls these words "sight words," even though they are phonetically regular, and clearly thinks that they are teaching kids to read with this app. Of course, this app has all the same problems outlined above (the A in "eat" does not make an /a/ sound!) They have recently started charging for many of the words in the app, and I say good riddance to those words. My kids know they are not allowed to touch anything with a lock on it. These apps have so much potential. It is a pity that they did not consult with a literacy expert.

It is probably worth noting here that I am the only person on the Internet critizing these apps. Do a quick Google search of the reviews of Endless Alphabet and you will see only raves... "Wit and whimsy," "charming," and "surprisingly sophisticated" are just some of the words that pop up. And everyone's kids are apparently addicted. Resistance is futile. Those darn monsters are just too cute.

Sky Fish Phonics

Sky Fish Phonics is the first phonics app both my kindergartner and I love. It feels like a fast-paced video game with sharks to dodge and CVC words to decode. First you choose a fish to represent yourself, then you begin a journey through the sky,  shooting from pod to pod avoiding the poisonous sharks. As you go you have the opportunity to collect new costumes and to rack up points by collecting stars. Every so often you also have to answer a multiple choice phonics question to advance to the next pod. For example, change "jet" into "net." JET -> _ET with the choice of three  letters you can click on to hear their sounds.

Costumes include shark, princess, cowboy, ninja, and more.

The game is smart, in that it adjusts to the student's level of play.  The level of the phonics questions adjusts depending on how many you get correct at each level; and there is a Progress Dashboard for monitoring how a child is doing. While Brooklyn's phonic skills are quite good, her executive functioning skills (impulse control, attention and planning) are not as good. When she gets frustrated with this game, it is usually because her fish gets fried in a trap. But the rewards are worth it.

An early level

A middle level

She reports that "It's fun because you might get shot, and then you have to start over. But you might get costumes, and sometimes it's the costumes you already have, but sometimes it's your favorite costume." When asked about the reading part of the game, she answered that she "just knows how to do that," because "she's in kindergarten."

We love almost everything about this game. I think the practice with executive functions and dealing with frustrations is just as valuable for Brooklyn as the phonics work. I hope in the future that the app developer releases more advanced levels with blends and digraphs to decode and substitute.

Super Why!

 

           

           My two-year-old has recently started singing the alphabet song. She sings, “A, B, C, W, X, Y, Z, NOW I KNOW MY ABCs! NEXT TIME WON’T YOU SING WITH ME…!!” Whoops. Beginning reading—specifically phonics—is my professional specialty, so I may take these things a little too personally…  That said, I was amenable, but not expecting much, when she wanted to play her older sister’s Super Why! game on the iPad.

            Super Why! is a PBS Kids show, but we don’t watch it at home; I’ve seen it a few times, and vaguely think of it as the show where those cartoon kids jump into a book. But Autumn clearly knew the show: she recognized the icon and chose the app herself. They must watch it at her babysitter’s house.

            At any rate, she opened the app and chose to play Princess Presto’s Wands Up Writing game. When the game opens, you see a four-letter array and three lines for letters. Princess Presto explains that you need to listen as she says the letter sounds so that you can choose the correct letter to spell the word. For Autumn, the first sound was /m/. Then you are supposed to choose the M from the array. So Princess Presto asked, “What letter makes the sound /m/?”, and Autumn turns around to me and asks, "Mom, which one is the M?" At that point, I stopped what I was doing and started paying more attention. Since when does my toddler know her letter sounds?! But she does—she got the next few right as well. I don’t know if this phonological knowledge is a product of watching Super Why! with the babysitter or what, but we’ve been playing with the Super Why! app all week now.

            In addition to Princess Presto’s Wands Up Writing game (which is called that because you are asked to trace the letter with your finger after identifying it by sound), there are three other interactive games in the app. You can practice rhyming with Wonder Red; go on a letter hunt with Alpha Pig; or finish sentences to save stories with Super Why. Each one is visually appealing to match the PBS show. More importantly, the designers got the educational aspects just right: the sounds are crisp and clear, everything is spelled correctly, and the games move at a pace controlled by the app user. Believe it or not, this is not the standard in every app. I have reviewed many a free phonics app available for the iPad, and it is often the case that there are small errors in the apps: In the really pretty and innovative Endless Alphabet app by Callaway Digital Arts, for example, the vowels make their short sound as you drag them into the word, but that is often not the sound they make within the word being spelled (the o’s in “kazoo” sound nothing like the short o sound). And Super Why! does more than just practice phonics: in other games, children practice reading words, comprehending stories, and recognizing letters, among other beginning literacy skills.

             In sum, if you are looking for a solid app for practicing beginning reading in a game-like atmosphere, this is $2.99 well spent. Both of my kids like it, and I like what they are learning from it.