Best reading/phonics apps for Reception?

[Rainallnight]

DD refusing to engage in anything school sends (long story, not relevant here).

She might, however, do some games.

I’ve heard of Reading Eggs, Teach Your Monster to Read and Reading Wise.

Anyone with any experience of any of these?

Hard to know what’s best.

Thank you.

There's a Jolly Phonics app. Lots of bugs and worms and lovely graphics.

We have Teach your Monster, I'm not sure I'd recommend it as the games are not very intuitive, sometimes it isn't clear what you have to click on or how the game works and my DD gets frustrated.

My ds loves reading eggs. We downloaded it during lockdown 1 and he was happy to do a little each day (he was nursery age then) he started reception in September able to read. The main thing for me is that he enjoyed it. Which he does and because it’s a series of little games he’s learning without realising!

We also have teach your monster to read but he was less keen on that one.

My ds adores Teach your Monster. Agree not all games are intuitive but once they get it they're off and the phonics learning from it is great

I think teach your monster to read is fantastic.
It really helped my son with his phonics, DS2 (3) is picking up the phonemes and recognising the graphemes really quickly using it. He thinks it’s fun and wants to rush through it, but it’s really important to ensure they truly ‘learn’ the sounds so we have gone back to the beginning a couple of times. Games are really fun. I always recommend it.

DD had Reading Eggs and really enjoyed it.

The only thing I wasn't so keen on was that it strayed from phonics now and then, asking them to memorise random words by sight. I think "dinosaur" was one of the early ones.

They usually have a 2-week free trial so it could be worth giving it a go to see how DD gets on?

Phonics Play is free at the moment. I haven't used it myself but it's the one my DD's school recommends.

Hairy letters is another great app. There's lots of letter formation and little games/animations to watch.

I like the apps you've mentioned. We use them in our reception classes.

Phonicsplay.co.uk is great

Oxford owl

It’s free

Thanks very much, all!

I think Teach Your Monster might be frustrating if it’s not always intuitive, because I can’t help her as she’s in a place where she won’t be told anything at the moment!

School have sent a couple of games from Phonics Bloom but some of them can be played without engaging with the phonics - eg you can get the frog across the river if you just randomly click on things - you’ll get the right one eventually.

The Jolly Phonics songs cd and book from Amazon was great for mine, songs with actions that got always from pressure of reading and writing and easy to have on several times a day, I put them on my phone and would play them when we got dressed, in the bath. There are writing activity books to follow up with if she likes it. The nessy.com site is great for phonics and I second phonicsplay - it's free at the moment for parents and the games are great. BBC Bitesize has fun video clips for phonics too but not an app.

We love Teach Your Monster to Read. The desktop version is free so you could always have a go and see whether you think she could manage it before buying the app?

Reading eggs. I've used it for my older children (8 and 6) and my just turned 4 year old has started using it.

It's easy to navigate and use without much adult help and it teaches rather than just tests.

We also use Mathseeds and reading express as they get older.

Cannot recommend it highly enough

We loved Teach Your Monster to Read. It was pretty straightforward. DD has a good grasp of phonics, so doesn't need it any more but still chooses to play it sometimes.

Reading Eggs is great. DS used Teach your Monster to Read for a while but discovered that if he wanted to skip through he could just select all the options until he found the right one, and its pretty repetitive. Reading Eggs is a whole Reading Programme. Well worth the money when they are in Year R and Year 1.

We have Reading Eggs and Teach Your Monster for my just 4 year old. We tried a free trial for RE in June and it was brilliant. We get the full subscription where we get MathSeeds and Fast Phonics too. We don't use it exclusively, we still have the Read Write Inc materials too so that I can link things to how school will teach her in September, but it's really great. I dislike Teach Your Monster. I don't personally find it very user friendly. We started off with Khan Academy Kids (a free app). I wasn't that keen because it's American and so some of the words eg. cab didn't mean anything to my DD, but she still likes to play some of the videos and stories.
Definitely try a free trial of Reading Eggs and see what you think.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I went with Reading Eggs and DD LOVES it. (Difficult to get her off it, actually!).

I’m really happy with the way she can’t skip through it or play randomly by trying lots of wrong answers. She definitely seems to be learning. Thank you all.

Flashily on android is really simple to use and my 3 year old made really good progress with it

Saw this - there's actually a really good breakdown of what the best phonics apps are for kids, here: Best toddlers phonics apps -hope this helps!😊