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Looking for app suggestions for my child who is just finishing up kindergarten. Any thoughts on helping him keep up with his "reading" over the summer. Right now he is working on sight words and sounding out words.
The best way to get kids to improve on reading is sitting down and reading to them, with them and having them read to you and other people. I definitely recommend library card and starting a stash of his own books if you haven't done so already. Nothing beats the feel and smell of a real good book, IMHO
What does he enjoy doing? If there are words involved in whatever that is, it will help him learn to read. Lots of kids are learning to read in order to chat during minecraft with their friends; my youngest learned to read by playing lots of video games! Reading is a means to an end - to get information or conversation. Let him immerse himself in what he loves, and reading will come along. So, any app that he enjoys that involves reading or communicating via text will help him learn. Until he's proficient, he'll need you right there with him, reading or typing for him - that will help him learn, also.
Reading really doesn't need to be turned into a chore or broken down into exercises to be learned.
I realize that libraries have books but we want to use an iPad to supplement reading to our kids. So, focusing just on iPad apps, does anyone have any suggestions.
We don't want to buy a "leap pad" because we feel our kids will grow out of it very quickly.
In some communities libraries are not readily accessible, and while optimal, a collection of age appropriate books, can be too expensive. With the exception of coffee table and art books, I much prefer my Kindle Fire. First of all it is not as heavy or bulky to handle. I have an almost endless supply of reading material, including magazines and comics. I can read reviews of and sample parts of the books before purchase. This saves money, space, energy and trees.
There is nothing to keep a parent from sharing with and reading to a child from a tablet. Previous posts intimating this I find to be self righteous, and condescending.
The reason some have suggested using "real books" is because, let's face it, that iPad is going to end up becoming a video game machine more than a reading supplement. Trust me, it will. Just as my wife kept buying all of these "learn to read" DVDs for our 2 kids and I kept telling her "watch, they're going to nag you to death & whine for it to be playing Dora & Thomas the Train 95% of the time"--bingo! I've had to really lay it down with them to fix that. It's a battle I'm more than capable of winning and do, but a battle that always pops up nonetheless.
Besides, I have hardly found the previous posts self-righteous at all. If you want self-righteous, it would sound like this "I don't know why parents nowadays want to spoil their kids and get them addicted to those stupid i-This and i-That gizmos? What's going on with these freaks? Do they really think Apple invented reading supplements? Have they never heard of, gee, I don't know, FLASH cards? What have the libraries been getting by with for all of these years before almight Apple came along & saved us from our wretched, poor existence? Where would Einstein be if his parents had sat around on their fat lazy hind-ends going 'uh, duh, like, I can't teach you to read son, Apple hasn't invented the iPad yet.' "
My daughter is one of those children who learns really quickly regardless of delivery but has a strong preference for digital/online/electronics. Her school recently started implementing "online homework" and what used to be a somewhat of a chore to her is now actually fun. The online system constantly challenges her so that she has gone beyond many of her classmates. I don't know what it is, but children seem to like moving images and familiar friendly characters asking them questions. My youngest daughter loves the REading Rainbow app. When used correctly, electronics are a wonderful thing. I'm actually quite amazed at some of the apps out there.
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