As the holiday season approaches, it is a great time to explore ways to make reading both fun and enjoyable for your child. Why not discover reading apps that offer an exciting, interactive way to encourage your child to read while celebrating the holiday season?
One of the most valuable skills children develop during childhood is reading, but acquiring the ability to read is complex and takes time. As a critical lifelong skill, reading ability predicts a child’s future academic success (Lonigan et al., 2000), by enhancing their thinking and reasoning skills, and fostering their ability to become active learners (Hughes-Hassell & Lutz, 2006). Arguably, early reading success can set a positive path in life, since being good at reading is linked to better academic and social outcomes (Kern & Friedman, 2019).
The fast growth of technology in education has led to the development of many digital tools, including reading apps for young children. These apps are widely used by teachers and parents to help their young ones learn to read. With vibrant visuals, exciting sounds, and interactive games, these apps are designed to engage children’s attention, to make learning both fun and effective for them (Chuang & Jamiat, 2023).
However, selecting a useful reading app for our young ones can be challenging! Here are some important aspects to consider:
1. Age Appropriateness
As young children are still acquiring the ability to read, it is beneficial to look for apps that focus on foundational reading skills. These include letter recognition, knowing letter names and sounds, and learning about sounds within words, like rhymes or onsets (phonological awareness). Apps that allow children to draw or trace letters, or practice identifying big and small letters are helpful at this early stage. We could also look for apps that help our child recognise rhymes, such as those with rhyming games or stories built around rhymes.
For slightly older children, reading apps could focus on core reading skills such as phonics – the understanding of how letters map onto individual sounds (phonemes) in words. Apps that teach phonics recognition, help blend sounds into words and provide practice in manipulating phonemes by removing or substituting them can be particularly effective. For older primary school students, it is important to include elements of morphology. This would help children at this age understand how words are formed and related in meaning, such as how “beauty” transform into “beautiful” or “beautify” through different morphological endings. Furthermore, these apps should include grammar concepts such as plurals, past tense, adverbs, and adjectives, as these are essential for expanding vocabulary and improving language skills.
2. App Development
When choosing apps with verbal components, it is important to consider where the apps are developed, and which voices are used in the apps. Speakers with different accents (e.g., British, American) could influence your child’s learning, because some sounds may be pronounced differently across apps, and this could affect the learning of specific phonemes, especially vowels, and the mapping process for phonics.
Parents should also look into who created the app. Apps developed by experienced educators are more likely to use evidence-based teaching methods that can better support learning.
3. Game Structure
Apps offering different types or levels of games can be particularly beneficial, as they provide age-appropriate challenges for progression. This ensures that the app is both engaging and suitable for the child’s developmental stage, fostering growth while maintaining motivation and focus.
A good reading app can enrich your child’s learning experience by delivering engaging, interactive content that makes learning to read both enjoyable and effective! Below, we have put together a non-exhaustive list of reading apps for children. However, it is important to explore these apps yourself to ensure they are the right fit for your child.
As you prepare for a festive holiday season, why not make reading a part of the celebration? Explore the different apps together and nurture a love of reading that will continue to grow into the new year.
We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas filled with warmth, joy, and plenty of reading adventures!
References
Chuang, C., & Jamiat, N. (2023). A systematic review on the effectiveness of children’s interactive reading applications for promoting their emergent literacy in the multimedia context. Contemporary Educational Technology, 15(2), ep412.
Hughes-Hassell, S., & Lutz, C. (2006). What do you want to tell us about reading? A survey of the habits and attitudes of urban middle school students toward leisure reading. Young Adult Library Services, 4(2), 39-45.
Kern, M. L., & Friedman, H. S. (2009). Early educational milestones as predictors of lifelong academic achievement, midlife adjustment, and longevity. Journal of applied developmental psychology, 30(4), 419-430.
Lonigan, C. J., Burgess, S. R., & Anthony, J. L. (2000). Development of emergent literacy and early reading skills in preschool children: evidence from a latent-variable longitudinal study. Developmental psychology, 36(5), 596.
