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Apps for Literacy and Learning

Apps are fun and motivating for kids! Let Reading Rockets help you find the very best educational apps that provide practice with essential skills in alphabet knowledge, phonics, spelling, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. We’ve also included apps to support children with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism.

Topic
Grade Level
Device
Sortegories

Sortegories

Sortegories features nine activities that target essential literacy skills and concepts in a web-based practice setting. Multiple layers of word knowledge — phonemic, phonological, semantic, morphological, and syntactic — are woven together to give kids the chance to apply reading practice. Sortegories is for kids who need practice with phonics, vocabulary (word meaning), and syntax (phrase and sentence meaning) to become fluent readers and comprehenders. A variety of subscription plans are available. 

Duck Duck Moose Reading

Duck Duck Moose Reading

Go on a phonics adventure in the zoo! An award-winning app based on Common Core State Standards, Duck Duck Moose Reading teaches phonics and reading skills in a fun zoo-themed adventure. With word and letter activities, kids learn by playing with flamingos, monkeys, lions and more. Keep track of progress through a new parent reporting tool.

Montessori Words and Phonics

Montessori Words and Phonics

Montessori Words helps kids learn and understand two fundamental concepts. First, the app helps kids understand that words are made up of sounds or phonemes (phonemic awareness). For each word, your kids can touch the empty rectangles where letters must be dragged to complete the word, and hear the sound the corresponding letter produces. Secondly, the app helps kids memorize the phonics associated with letters by providing a phonics-enabled alphabet where kids can touch each letter and hear the associated phonic.

LetterSchool — Learn to Write

LetterSchool — Learn to Write

LetterSchool — Learn to Write is a fun and intuitive alphabet tracing and handwriting app, for preschoolers. The updated version has an option to download and switch between 12 different languages.

Dinosaur Train A-Z

Dinosaur Train A-Z

Based on the PBS KIDS show Donosaur Train, this app can help kids build reading skill while also encouraging the exploration of life science and natural history through discovery, play and reading. Through the letters of the alphabet, your child will learn about 26 dinosaurs by touching and feeding them, x-raying them, discovering dinosaur facts and more!

Elmo Loves ABCs

Elmo Loves ABCs

From Sesame Workshop and designed by educational experts, this app features more than 80 classic Sesame Street clips, 75 coloring pages, games, music, and more, this app lets your child explore letters A-Z in a variety of ways. 

Zebrainy ABC Wonderlands

Zebrainy ABC Wonderlands

Zebrainy is an interactive alphabet app for young children with variety of educational games around learning ABC’s. This quest game will help your child to learn alphabets, letters and sounds through 26 wonderlands of English alphabet. This app helps children learn to identify letter names (uppercase and lowercase) and letter sounds, match a letter name or sound and form letter shapes. 

Blending Board

Blending Board

A powerful educational tool for teachers and parents working with dyslexic learners or anyone else still learning the foundations of blending sounds (phonics) and the multisyllabic rules of English. Create a deck of phonemes that can be substituted and manipulated to create various kinds of blending activities. The decks enable users to practice decoding simple words, and multisyllabic words, too.

Visual Schedule Planner

Visual Schedule Planner

Visual Schedule Planner is a multi-screen scheduling tool that opens to the current day, divided into three areas: morning, afternoon, and evening. Students can add activities, scroll through options for the frequency of events, and link video, sound, or photos to the activity. Kids can add one of more than 1,500 pre-built icons to accompany the event that you’ve scheduled, or they can upload their own images from the device’s camera roll.

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