Phonics study and practice is an essential skill for young readers. Pre-School Phonic Crosswords is a great app for students just beginning to develop phonics skills. With five levels of play, this app will give students differentiated practice in using phonics to spell and read words. Each level has players move letter tiles to gray boxes to spell a word or words shown in a picture. If students struggle, they can tap the gray box to hear the sound that should go there. Tap the letter tiles to hear the sounds that each letter makes. If the student is still struggling, tap and hold the hint button to reveal the correct spelling of the words. Incorrect letters return to their original spot, while correct letters remain in place. After spelling a word correctly, the narrator sounds out and then reads the word correctly.
-Level 1 - Short Words - spell simple three letter words one at a time based on the picture shown.
-Level 2 - Double Words - spell two crisscrossed three letter words using two pictures. This is where the crossword aspect of the app comes into play.
-Level 3 - Longer Words - spell four letter words with both short vowel sounds and vowel blends.
-Level 4 - Number Words - count the items and spell the number word. Numbers 1-10 featured.
-Level 5 - Free Word Play - given the alphabet in letter tiles, build words up to five letters long and hear the letter sounds as they are built. It does not read the finished word.
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Phonics is an important part of early literacy instruction. This app is focused strictly on education as it provides an opportunity for young readers to practice phonics skills. I liked the variety of ways students could practice. Higher level readers can easily spell words while middle readers can tap the sounds to find what order the letters go in. It even provides hints for lower level readers. It is self-checking in that it is impossible to get the incorrect answer. This makes it an independent activity for children. I also liked the differentiation in the levels. From single three letter words to double three letter words and four letter words. This provides a nice practice arena for young classrooms and parents looking to support their children's schooling.
There were a few cautions this elementary school teacher found. First, all of the letter sounds end in a hard u sound (B says BUH, C says CUH). While the general idea of the app is perfect, and I would still use it, I have struggled to get my students to say the correct sounds, leaving off that 'uh' sound at the end of a letter. I don't want to see my students practice letter sounds the wrong way. One other issue I had was that in the four letter words, the narrator says all of the short vowel sounds for each letter as the letters are being placed. Happily, when the narrator sounds out the word after the letters are placed, they are blended with the correct sounds. (For instance, as the OA in goat is placed the letters are sounded out separately, but when the narrator sounds out the word goat together the OA says 'oh'.) I see this causing some confusion as my students working on blends hear the short sounds as they place the vowels together.
Overall, this app would be a good tool for young readers to use as they practice phonics and early literacy skills. The various levels of play and the scaffolded levels of help are great for struggling readers. The repetition of sounds and also the blending of the whole world nicely tie the words together. With guidance, this would be a good tool to use with young readers.
This app was reviewed by Sarah Emerling, a mom, a special education teacher, and a technology coach. She is a self proclaimed nerd with a passion for incorporating technology into education and you read her findings at The iLesson Lady .
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