My preschooler has just started to be introduced to letters and letter-sounds at nursery so I was on the lookout for a game (it didn't have to be an electronic one!) to help her get more involved with letters and words when what should arrive in my inbox but the announcement of a new app from Night and Day Studios - My A-Z.
The app is available for IPhone and IPod touch for £1.49 from the Apple App Store and is also available for IPad.
Essentially My A-Z is a flashcards app but it is customisable until your heart's content! Fresh from the install, each letter comes with a bright, bold graphic to represent a word that starts with each letter. Some of the words were americanised, but that's OK because changing it took seconds! Also, one or two of the default images were a bit tricky - E for eggplant threw me (not to mention my 2 year old) and V for volcano was a bit iffy. So, I got to work personalising the app and putting in some pictures and words of our own.
L, quite naturally had to be for our daughter, Lara and M for Mummy, D for Daddy and nobody was going to argue with me if I changed the dodgy volcano picture for a Vacuum cleaner instead! For each letter you can add in several images and words so after struggling to think of anything Lara would understand for the letter Y, I then discovered Y for Yoghurt, Yak, Yam and Yoda (she didn't approve of Yoda at all).
If your child has favourite belongings or words you can add them in as recognisable images and noises. As their language improves you can add more challenging words. If you are trying to teach a second language, you can add in a few words in different languages too; you can even record the word and it will play back when your child uses the app.
I love this app for its simplicity and it's configurability and I can already see it working wonders for my daughter - I think she is slowly grasping the fact that the noise of a letter indicates the sound at the start of a word - it is great fun watching her learn.
The app is available for IPhone and IPod touch for £1.49 from the Apple App Store and is also available for IPad.
Essentially My A-Z is a flashcards app but it is customisable until your heart's content! Fresh from the install, each letter comes with a bright, bold graphic to represent a word that starts with each letter. Some of the words were americanised, but that's OK because changing it took seconds! Also, one or two of the default images were a bit tricky - E for eggplant threw me (not to mention my 2 year old) and V for volcano was a bit iffy. So, I got to work personalising the app and putting in some pictures and words of our own.
L, quite naturally had to be for our daughter, Lara and M for Mummy, D for Daddy and nobody was going to argue with me if I changed the dodgy volcano picture for a Vacuum cleaner instead! For each letter you can add in several images and words so after struggling to think of anything Lara would understand for the letter Y, I then discovered Y for Yoghurt, Yak, Yam and Yoda (she didn't approve of Yoda at all).
If your child has favourite belongings or words you can add them in as recognisable images and noises. As their language improves you can add more challenging words. If you are trying to teach a second language, you can add in a few words in different languages too; you can even record the word and it will play back when your child uses the app.
I love this app for its simplicity and it's configurability and I can already see it working wonders for my daughter - I think she is slowly grasping the fact that the noise of a letter indicates the sound at the start of a word - it is great fun watching her learn.
