Best Apps to help learn to read?

[lyssie29]

5 year old just started reception and just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for reading apps for her to practice at home? She's just turned 5 and she knows letters and she's bringing picture book home from school for now but I know soon she'll have words so I just want to help her a bit. I don't mind if it's a small monthly fee to pay.

Reading Eggs and Teach Your Monster to Read apps/websites have worked well in our house.

Also look at book series such as Read Write Inc and Songbirds - these were great for our two in the very early reading stages.

Reading Eggs I think is the best and is paid for but free months trial.

Teach Your Monster to Read is free, made by Usborne. Also good.

Get first 100 high frequency words, in flash cards and do a few every day.

Books. Proper books.

Just leave her alone. Read to her, and let her develop at her own pace.

Subtitles on the tv at all times. Accidentally learned this was a fab way to teach reading.

I'm in the 'it's school's job to teach them to read' camp, but if you do anything you should first check which phonics scheme the school use and then get an app or books that follow this.

I definitely didn’t leave it to school. Early reading helps them progress in so many ways. My two liked reading eggs. Phonics flash cards are good. Also good to buy a pack of Oxford reading tree books eg biff and chip to work through at home.

An app sounds great but mix it up a bit and don’t make reading a chore .Lots of real books ( cheap picture books to start with) , put them in baskets around the house.Label things in her room ( sock drawer, light, etc etc ).Read to her and point to each word as you read.Have a plentiful supply of paper and pens , fold paper in books and let her make her own.. write the story using high frequency words ( And her ideas) ..then read them to her.

Did the above with dry in the 90s...she read at a very young age, loved books and reading and then .she went on to study English at Oxbridge.x

Oh and she loved Biff and Chip!

@bossybloss

An app sounds great but mix it up a bit and don’t make reading a chore .Lots of real books ( cheap picture books to start with) , put them in baskets around the house.Label things in her room ( sock drawer, light, etc etc ).Read to her and point to each word as you read.Have a plentiful supply of paper and pens , fold paper in books and let her make her own.. write the story using high frequency words ( And her ideas) ..then read them to her.

Did the above with dry in the 90s...she read at a very young age, loved books and reading and then .she went on to study English at Oxbridge.x

dry. .i. Ran daughter !

That should say .....Did the above with daughter ! You can tell I never studied English !

Teach your monster to read is excellent. My DS loves playing it and he's now an excellent reader. He's only 6 but he has started reading Harry Potter by himself.

Read to her lots to foster a love of reading is the most important.

Teach Your Monster to Read though is great to help reinforce phonics. Its based on synthetic phonics so will be compatible with what's being taught at pretty much any school and is really fun.

Jolly Phonics Cartoonito DVD is also good for helping with blending and phonics too.

Read to her. And as you do - you can always point out letters and worlds.
But generally - if you want her to learn to love to read books - don’t rely on apps.

Problem is that apps are more interactive and exciting than b/w text on a page. Get her hooked on stories before you let her spend unlimited amount of time on the screens.
So - read to her as much as you can. Read with her and praise her achievements.

Agree with pp's best "app" is someone reading proper books with them.

Leave it to the school to teach the letters, sounds and phonics, do the homework they send home, then just read and enjoy other books with them. Don't confuse them with apps that might teach differently to the teacher.

@UniversalTruth

I'm in the 'it's school's job to teach them to read' camp, but if you do anything you should first check which phonics scheme the school use and then get an app or books that follow this.

As a teacher, I strongly disagree with you. Your job as a parent is to not just nuture but to teach as well, be it colours, numbers, table manners, how to hold cutlery etc etc.

Your job as a parent is to be ahead of the game as far as your child's education is concerned. To know and hopefully understand the phonics scheme that the school will be using and to encourage your child as/when they are ready to learn.

Lots of children are more than ready and capable of learning their phonics and how to blend/read basic words before they start at school and parents should help them with this.

To encourage reading/love of language you should read, read and read some more! Lots of sharing of books, lots of talking about what they can see in the pictures. Those contextual clues will really help them with early readers. Play lots of games like "I spy" but ensure you use phonics when saying 'something beginning with...' so that you're saying and embedding the letter sounds and not just the name.

Reading Eggs is a good app but I personally really like the Jolly Phonics approach, which a lot of schools use as a base. There's a great app and some excellent accompanying books.

Most of all make it fun and foster a love of learning!

Thanks everyone 🙂 I do read to her and have done every single night since she was a baby. For now she's trying Teach your monster to read. This was never to replace me reading to her just to help along a little bit.