App Profile: PocketPhonics Stories (full)

This award-winning app is the one to get if you are passionate about your child learning to read, and your child is aged between 4 and 6, or older but needs some extra help with reading.

It teaches phonics and handwriting (including joined up). It has a first set of storybooks for them to read, written specifically for children learning to read using the app.

Your child will prefer our books to paper books, because they help them read - if they get stuck, they tap a word to get help sounding it out. You will prefer our books, because the quizzes check they can read the words and understand them.

The books get progressively harder, but kids don’t realise because they are getting better at reading all the time.

Our apps are used in hundreds of American elementary schools. One of only nine education apps awarded the top A+ rating by Balefire Labs.

The app is aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Children master these skills:

* writing letters
* recognising 72 letter sounds (e.g. ‘ch’ are the letters that make the initial sound in ‘chat’)
* blending letter sounds together to make words (e.g ‘ch-a-t’)
* hearing a word and selecting its written form (e.g. the app says, “chat”, the child has to select ‘chat’ from a group of words - some of which are similar to chat)

Parents and teachers can easily monitor children’s progress online. They can see what stage the child is at, any letter sounds they are having difficulty with and what storybooks have been read.They are also emailed a certificate when a child completes a task. These certificates are a much-loved feature of the original PocketPhonics app, which launched in 2008 and has been downloaded over half a million times.

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.  Children can use the app at home, and continue from where they left off at school.

Order the app's FREE GUIDE to teaching kids to read to understand how it teaches.

Phonics (letter sounds) help children to read by understanding the sounds that letters make. The National Reading Panel concluded that “children who have phonics instruction read better and spell better than other children”.

Montessori & other experts recommend not including letter names when teaching letter sounds.