Endless Reader, a popular educational app designed for young learners, captivates children with its animated letters and engaging gameplay. Aimed at making the initial steps of reading enjoyable, the app boasts a visually appealing interface and straightforward activities.
Beneath the surface, certain aspects of the Endless Reader app warrant careful consideration, especially regarding letter sounds and phonetic accuracy. In this review, we explore both the positive attributes and the concerns surrounding the Endless Reader app in its effectiveness as a tool for early literacy development.
Endless Reader App Description
The Endless Reader app begins with an alphabet displayed on a friendly monster’s face. Players can explore the alphabet sequentially or select specific letters and words to work on. The initial experience includes the first six letters for free, with the option to unlock additional paid word “packs.”
Once a word is chosen, it appears on a paper background, with the entire word pronounced clearly. Adorable animated monsters then playfully scramble the letters, prompting players to drag each letter back to its designated outline. The letters ‘come alive’ as they are touched on screen. Each touch or drag produces a sound associated with the corresponding letter.
Subsequently, a longer sentence is presented, with three words missing. Players must strategically place these words back into the sentence based on their outlines or shapes. Once the word is successfully reconstructed, a vivid scene unfolds, where the word’s meaning is brought to life by a group of charming monsters. The sentence is then read aloud and the player moves on to play the next word.
How Endless Reader Works
The educational goal of the Endless Reader app is to introduce early readers to “sight words.”
The app describes sight words as “the most commonly used words in school, library, and children’s books.”
However, this definition is not entirely accurate. A sight word is any word that a person can recognize instantly. What Endless Reader is describing in its description are “high-frequency words.” These are words that are most frequently used in written language.
The goal of the game appears to be to turn these highly frequent or common words into sight words through repeated exposure.
What Does Endless Reader Do Well?
Here are some of the “pros” of Endless Reader if you’re considering it for your child or student.
Adorable, Animated Letter Characters
The visual appeal of the cute animated letter adds an element of engagement for young learners. The vibrant and friendly design makes the learning experience more enjoyable.
Simple and Straightforward Gameplay
Endless Reader excels in its simplicity. The straightforward gameplay ensures that children can easily navigate and play the game independently. There are no distracting ads, pop-ups, or loud music interfering with a child’s focus and attention.
Builds Language Comprehension
The enactments of the sentences aid in language comprehension and provide grammatical context for how the word can be used. This feature enhances the understanding of vocabulary and sentence structure in a fun and interactive way.
Alphabet Matching for Beginners
Matching the same letters together may support letter recognition and help children differentiate individual letters from one another.
Valuable Learning Goal
There is evidence that learning a small number of high-frequency words alongside phonics can support students learning to read texts. It makes sense to have a game with a focus on improving a student’s recognition of words that are frequently used.
Concerns With Endless Reader
Learning a small number of irregular high-frequency words can help children with overall reading ability. However, the methods used by Endless Reader could be improved.
Inaccurate Letter Sounds
One of the critical components of early reading development is a solid understanding of the connection between letters and sounds. This is called a grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC). Unfortunately, Endless Reader falls short in this aspect, potentially hindering the progress of young learners.
A notable example of the app’s letter-sound shortcoming is the addition of sounds to certain consonant letters. For example, the letter <N> represents the sound /n/, but Endless Reader’s pronunciation of the letter <N> sounds like “neh.” When teaching letter sounds to kids, it’s important to clip the sound entirely so children hear one accurate sound, not multiple.
Learning these sounds inaccurately may confuse children and eventually hinder their ability to read and spell words. This could potentially be an even larger problem for children who have difficulty with speech sounds and articulation. Unfortunately, most consonant sounds in Endless Reader are inaccurate or unclear.
Misrepresentation of Sounds in Words
Another concerning aspect of the Endless Reader app is the mismatch between sounds in words. For example, the word ‘eat’ has two sounds: /ē/ and /t/. However, in the Endless Reader app, the word ‘eat’ is represented by three sounds /ē/ /ă/ /t/. This is inaccurate. Ideally, the <ea> letters in this word would stay connected and make one sound /ē/ (long e).
Additionally, in the app, the letter <E> in the word “cake” makes a short /ĕ/ sound. This misrepresentation not only confuses young learners but also undermines their ability to apply phonetic decoding skills when encountering new words.
Regular vs. Irregular Words
Some high-frequency words can be easily sounded out or decoded. For example, words like ‘in’, ‘it’, and ‘on’ are frequent and easily learned by blending the sounds to read the words. Other words, like ‘said’ or ‘of’ are very common, but do not follow typical phonics patterns. These words are sometimes referred to as “irregular.”
There is some evidence that suggests pointing out the irregularities in these words helps children recognize them. Notably, Endless Reader teaches these irregular words in the same way as the words that are phonetically regular and does not show where the irregularities occur.
For examples of resources that do make this differentiation see: The University of Florida Institute and Heart Word Magic videos.
Subpar Word Choices
The Endless Reader app says, “We have added a few words that are not usually regarded as ‘sight words’ so we can present a complete A-Z collection of words for each level”. Even with this consideration in mind, Endless Reader’s word selection has room for improvement.
For example, the first word for the letter c is ‘cake.’ This is not a particularly common word in children’s books. The words ‘can’, ‘came’, and ‘come’ also start with the letter <C> and are much more frequently occurring in children’s texts. Choosing words that are higher-frequency in this game would have more impact on improving a child’s reading ability.
Is Endless Reader Worth It?
The Endless Reader app has a cute and simple approach to introducing high-frequency words to new readers. However, the inaccurate sounds it teaches can cause children to learn letter sounds incorrectly. This could negatively impact word-reading and spelling development.
Addressing these issues is crucial for ensuring that young learners develop a strong literacy foundation, setting them on a path toward successful and confident reading. Parents and educators should be aware of these challenges and consider looking elsewhere for “sight word” practice.
Want to learn about more effective phonics instruction programs and learning apps for kids? Browse the resources on phonics.org including expert reviews and recommendations.
