Spelfabet

Free early literacy iPad apps

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The iPad apps store is a bit of a swamp when it comes to free stuff, with many wonderful things, but a lot of dross, and a few nasties worth avoiding.

Most parents don’t have time to trawl through the swamp finding good literacy stuff, even if they understood the literacy research well enough to know what to look for.

The kids I see in clinic for literacy problems often have younger siblings, and literacy problems can run in families. So I went looking for free apps that might interest and help my students, but also some give-your-youngest-a-head-start activities.

I blew about a quarter of this month’s internet access and half the weekend downloading free apps and checking them out, so hopefully now, you don’t have to.

My selection criteria for phonics apps

The main thing I was looking for was apps that are consistent with best practice in early literacy teaching, i.e. synthetic phonics. Synthetic phonics teaches children how to hear the individual sounds in words and learn the relevant letters/letter patterns, and how to blend sounds into words (when reading), and segment words into sounds (when spelling).

I’ve also weeded out apps containing phonetically inaccurate information, bugs, inappropriate pop-up ads, and activities that are just plain boring.

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