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How to Choose an ABC Teaching App

Sept. 14, 2014

Have you ever felt lost among educational apps on app stores? No, wonder, there are thousands of apps that claim to serve educational purposes.

We are planning to publish a series of articles that would highlight features an app should have in order to be classified as truly ‘educational’.

Let’s start with ABC teaching apps, as there is a variety of them on the app stores. Ideally, an app that teaches the ABC would have the following:

1. Upper and lower case versions of the letter.

2. A voice-over that speaks the letter when it is presented or tapped

3. Examples and illustrations of words that start with that letter (not necessarily written, images would be enough)

4. (Nice to have) the phonics of the letter spoken, as opposed to just the letter's name

5. (Nice to have) a version of the ABC song animated with letters 

6. (Nice to have) all letters of the alphabet in the correct order

The first three points would be enough if you just want to present the alphabet to a kid.  Introducing phonics is crucial because when children learn it as opposed to the name of the letter, they understand the difference between a letter and a sound, This is a necessary thing to know before your kid starts reading.

If you want your child to not only learn, but also have a blast from the app, you might want to look for one with an ABC chant or song. Kids memorize them in the wink of an eye and keep singing along!

To top it all, a great educational app would also have a testing mode to check how well you kids have learnt what they were supposed to learn.

We hope that this short overview will help you make the right choice!

If you are looking for easy and enjoyable learning opportunities for your child, try kids educational app and reading worksheets

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