My godson is just learning how to recognise the alphabet, and one of the things I want to do is to make sure he not only learns to read, but also learns to love reading. His parents have surrounded him with books and set aside a reading time since he was an infant, so he is used to being around books. But as he grows older and gains more independence, how do we encourage him to keep that natural love of reading?
Oceanhouse Media has teamed up with Dr Seuss Enterprises, to make a spectacular mobile application of Dr Seuss' ABC. The app combines the tactile ability and immediate response of the iPad with spoken words to give an amazing amount of play value.
Learning the alphabet is always a case of identifying the image of A with the sound of its name first and then learning nouns that begin with that letter. Dr Seuss' ABC adds another mnemonic device by using alliteration, a writer's tool that Shakespeare used in the 16th century to help his audience remember his works. The images are classic, as is the rhyming word play we have all come to associate with Dr Seuss books such as The Cat In The Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, which makes this the perfect app to seed the next generation of Dr Seuss readers.
The book has three modes of play. In Auto Play, a storyteller brings to life the words on the page with full sound effects and on-screen words are highlighted as they are read. This mode will help the reader recognise patterns and words.
Read to Me mode works best if you want to use the iPad as a medium to spend time and learn with your kids. You can browse the images and words with them by touching the pictures to hear the word after the text has been read to them. Words and graphics respond with animation and zoom in and out as the app focuses on words that correspond to the pictures, or reads out the words as they are tapped. I prefer to do this, but I'm sure as my godson gets older, he'll start to enjoy the Read Myself option. There is no narration, and kids can have a go at reading the words and identifying the images before touching the text to check if they get stuck on a word.
Moving from paperback and hardcover books to reading on tablets will be a natural step for the current generation of digital pre-readers. Dr. Seuss' ABC makes the act of learning even more fun by making reading an enjoyable process of discovery. It's not something my godson has to do, like another activity checklist to prepare him for school, but something he already finds himself doing in his natural play patterns.