PocketPhonics teaches kids letter sounds, first words and handwriting. It is used in over 300 UK primary schools, and tens of thousands of homes. It follows the national curriculum, and independent research (see appsinmypocket.com/research) found children learnt nine times faster using PocketPhonics compared to a classroom lesson. It works on iPhone as well as iPad.
Letter sounds are taught in small groups and a child is shown how to blend them to sound out words (e.g c-a-t is cat).
PocketPhonics shows children how to write letters using an arrow they can follow with their finger or stylus. PocketPhonics supports two different writing styles, and for each style, kids can write in lowercase, uppercase and cursive.
PocketPhonics teaches the sounds for all the letters in the alphabet plus over 30 letter sounds like ‘sh’ and ‘ch’, because they are key to reading so many frequently-used words.
Using a unique, “letter sounds make words” spelling game, children learn how to sound out and spell 160 frequently used words.
To understand the best educational practice underpinning PocketPhonics, order the FREE GUIDE to teaching kids to read from the app.
Parents and teachers can monitor kids’ progress online, and receive a weekly email on their child's progress. As the child learns something, the emphasis is switched to what they next need to learn. For instance, when a child learns a word, the app replaces it with a more challenging one.
Teachers don't need to worry about making sure kids have the same iPad each lesson. If a child switches iPads, they automatically continue learning from where they finished previously.
Buying PocketPhonics for school? See appsinmypocket.com/school
Phonics (letter sounds) help children learn to read by understanding the sounds that letters make. Letter sounds (how we say the letters when we use them in words) are not the same as the letter names (what we call the letters). Montessori & other experts recommend not including letter names when teaching letter sounds as it can confuse children by introducing too much at once. PocketPhonics focuses solely on letter sounds so children can learn to read more quickly.
You might also want to take a look at PocketPhonics Stories. It is the new and updated version of PocketPhonics that includes everything in the original plus 42 storybooks suitable for early readers. It is rated A+ by Balefire Labs. They review apps against scientific criteria to see how well they teach kids. Out of the 4,000 education apps they’ve reviewed, only four other apps have achieved that top rating.