Perfect for kids who aren’t big into page-turning.

Some kids love the thrill of turning the pages of paper book. They enjoy visually gauging their reading progress and find reading on a comfortable chair or couch simply relaxing. Many children, however, gravitate to tech tools. They jump on any opportunity to swipe, press, or share, and are easily engaged by digital content. Tap into this “tech savvy-ness” with the reading apps below for kids ages 4-11 to help your child build critical reading skills while still having fun.

Age 4-8

Starfall Learn to Read

With this engaging app, kids can practice their decoding skills using 15 mini multi-sensory books, each of which focus on an individual sound, including short vowels, long vowels, vowel teams, and r-controlled vowels. When reading each book, your child can click on the word if she has trouble decoding it and the app will vocalize its correct pronunciation, and if she clicks on the image on each book page, the characters and objects will “come alive” with movements and sounds, providing humor and loads of fun.

Bob Books Reading Magic

This app helps emerging readers learn to blend sounds together to both read and spell words. It contains four levels, starting with basic consonant-vowel-consonant words and progressing into longer, more challenging words, and serves as a great supplement to Orton Gillingham reading lessons. Players must spell basic words first by matching letter tiles to ones already provided as visual hints. Once they have done so, the app sounds out the word and the images become colorful and animated. Later, “visual hints” are not provided and players must drag letters in order to spell words, providing higher level reading and spelling practice.

Homer-Kids Learn to Read

This app helps kids develop their early reading skills, along with other basic skills such as shapes, numbers, and color identification. It also integrates reading comprehension and critical thinking practice, skills that become increasingly important as students move through school. To play, students follow a “wickle avatar” around a map containing various activities, through four different levels. Kids enjoy learning about a variety of topics, including animals, transportation, music, and more, through both listening and reading. The app contains enjoyable worksheets to practice specific skills and 60 books to read.

Age 8-11

Duh Books

This app is a great one for curious kids who love learning about zany, interesting topics. It contains a variety of e-books‎ on various fascinating topics including animals, natural disasters, the universe, and many more. Players learn new information provided in simple terms, enjoy the engaging visuals, and can click on links if they are interested in learning more about a topic. It’s great for kids who love learning new facts and information about the world.

National Geographic Kids

This is a great app for kids who love seeing amazing, hard-to-capture photographs and are inspired by reading new information about fascinating topics. The app contains stories, “weird but true” facts, jokes, photo games, puzzles, and quizzes on topics such as history, science, technology, wildlife, and worldwide cultures. Kids love the engaging, eye opening content and have fun learning loads of new information.

‎As students move through school, the reading requirements will increase rapidly. Help your child develop key reading skills while enjoying the process, and she will be well on her well to excelling in school!

The post The Best Reading Apps For All Grade Levels appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Montessori Crosswords

This app helps students develop their decoding, spelling, and writing skills by teaching them to build words with different phonics patterns. Students start by building basic CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, then move into words with blends, digraphs, silent e, vowel teams, and other combinations. Students are initially given a picture (like “bag” or “kid”) and are asked to drag letters from the alphabet at the bottom of the screen to spell the word displayed. Later, students spell words following specific phonics patterns in the form of crosswords. Students can also choose themes for the activities, like animals, food, clothes, etc.

Short Vowel Word Study

This is a great app for reinforcing basic word decoding at a Kindergarten/1st grade level. The app contains three main sections: word families, short vowels, and longer words. The first game is “Sort It,” where the child must sort a word into its proper vowel category; i, u, or a. In the “Find It” game‎, the child must find the “oddball” word that doesn’t belong in the same vowel family, and drag it to the bottom of the screen. The “Spell It” game reinforces spelling by displaying an image (like hat) and the child must drag letters to spell the word. The “Write It” game teaches students to trace and then independently write words. Other related fun and engaging reading games are also integrated into this app.

SuperWhy!

This app is a great one for building reading, spelling, writing, and phonemic awareness skills. It includes four games, each led by a different character: Alpha Pig, Princess Pesto, Wonder Red, and Super Why. In the Alpha Pig game, students find letters on a path to form different words. ‎In the Princess Pesto game, students practice writing letters to form words that are modeled first by Princess Pesto’s magic wand. In Wonder Red’s game, students identify rhyming words, and in Super Why’s game, students build their reading comprehension skills by identifying words that complete sentences in a given story.

Interactive Storybooks

For a wide selection of interactive, digital story books,MeeGenius is a great app that provides access to more than 700 children’s e-books for children up to age 8, which are accessible on iOS, Android, Windows 8, Amazon, Nook, and online.

Through the Princess and the Pea interactive story app, students either practice reading the Princess and the Pea or listen as the story is read aloud to them, reinforcing auditory comprehension, auditory processing, and listening skills. They can also play interactive games related to the story that are contained within the app, such as matching pictures, completing puzzles, and filling in missing items to complete a picture, all of which reinforce early learning skills.

Nursery Rhymes with Story Time

For younger children (ages 5 and younger), this app is great for building phonemic awareness and early reading skills. The app presents classic rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, Jack and Jill, and others, in an interactive, playful format. While listening to the rhymes, children can “play” with the images. For example, when listening to Jack and Jill, children can drag a bucket of water up a well and watch flying fish and bubbles burst out of the water. The interactive illustrations make listening to rhymes and building core phonemic awareness skills great fun for children.

Encourage your child to use these apps and watch the colorful illustrations, energetic animations, and bursting colors turn reading into sheer excitement and joy.

Dr. Emily Levy is the founder of EBL Coaching, a tutoring program that specializes in one-on-one home and on-site instruction for students in grades preK-12 in NYC and NJ. She is also the author of Strategies for Study Success, a study skills workbooks series emphasizing test taking, note taking, reading comprehension, writing, and summarizing strategies, and the Flags and Stars Orton Gillingham student workbook series. These workbooks are currently used at schools nationwide.

The post Top Reading Apps That Make Learning Fun for Kids appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Princess and the Pea (and other interactive storybooks)

In this app, students either practice reading the Princess and the Pea or listen as the story is read aloud to them, reinforcing auditory comprehension, auditory processing, and listening skills. They can also play interactive games related to the story that are contained within the app, such as matching pictures, completing puzzles, and filling in missing items to complete a picture, all of which reinforce early learning skills.

This app is free and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Short Vowel Word Study

This is a great app for reinforcing basic word decoding at a Kindergarten/1st grade level. The app contains three main sections: word families, short vowels, and longer words. The first game is “Sort It,” where the child must sort a word into its proper vowel category; i, u, or a. In the “Find It” game‎, the child must find the “oddball” word that doesn’t belong in the same vowel family, and drag it to the bottom of the screen. The “Spell It” game reinforces spelling by displaying an image (like hat) and the child must drag letters to spell the word. The “Write It” game teaches students to trace and then independently write words. Other related fun and engaging reading games are also integrated into this app.

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Montessori Crosswords

This app helps students develop their decoding, spelling, and writing skills by teaching them to build words with different phonics patterns. Students start by building basic CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, then move into words with blends, digraphs, silent e, vowel teams, and other combinations. Students are initially given a picture (like “bag” or “kid”) and are asked to drag letters from the alphabet at the bottom of the screen to spell the word displayed. Later, students spell words following specific phonics patterns in the form of crosswords. Students can also choose themes for the activities, like animals, food, clothes, etc.

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Nursery Rhymes with Story Time

For younger children (ages 5 and younger), this app is great for building phonemic awareness and early reading skills. The app presents classic rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, Jack and Jill, and others, in an interactive, playful format. While listening to the rhymes, children can “play” with the images. For example, when listening to Jack and Jill, children can drag a bucket of water up a well and watch flying fish and bubbles burst out of the water. The interactive illustrations make listening to rhymes and building core phonemic awareness skills great fun for children.

This app is free and available on iTunes –> Click Here

SuperWhy!

This app is a great one for building reading, spelling, writing, and phonemic awareness skills. It includes four games, each led by a different character: Alpha Pig, Princess Pesto, Wonder Red, and Super Why. In the Alpha Pig game, students find letters on a path to form different words. ‎In the Princess Pesto game, students practice writing letters to form words that are modeled first by Princess Pesto’s magic wand. In Wonder Red’s game, students identify rhyming words, and in Super Why’s game, students build their reading comprehension skills by identifying words that complete sentences in a given story.

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

The post The 5 Best Reading Apps for Kids appeared first on EBL Coaching.