5 apps to teach English to your kids — Part 3

Last week it was my birthday and I decided to spend a couple of days without the computer—sometimes it feels good to disconnect from technology.

This week, after having started on a bit of a sad note when we lost Froggy, I’m continuing my posts about my favorite applications to teach children how to read and write English—and doing so while playing.

The first week we played with Phonics Match, a great app to learn the English phonemes; the second week, we used Car Factory, perfect to practice the spelling of the words your kids are studying in school.

This week, however, I’ll write about an app that I find very useful as English—which you write in one way and read in another—has some words that you just have to learn by heart.

Sight Words by Teacher Created Materials:

Age: From when the child can hold the pencilPrice: Free, with In-App Purchases

Sight words are all those little words of the English language that should be recognised at first sight. This app is great to learn to read and write them.

At first I was a bit skeptical—when it comes to writing kids are not always cooperative—but I came around when I saw how much they like it. Kids use their finger (or a special pen) to write and the iPad as a whiteboard to trace the words that appear on the screen (and that they can hear by touching them).

After writing five words, they get a prize: a matching game, a word puzzle, word tic tac toe, hangman …

Sight Words is free and includes the first 25 words, but you can buy the first 100 words (with in-app purchase) for $ 1.99. The next levels are separate apps: 101-200 ($ 4.99) and 201-300 ($ 4.99). Alternatively, you can buy the complete app ($ 8.99) which includes all 300 sight words.