A Simple and Playful Phonics Experience

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Continue reading to learn more about Read With Phonics Games app.

What is Read With Phonics Games?

Read With Phonics – Games is an educational literacy app designed for children ages 4 and up. The app features an engaging alien character named Albee who guides young learners through various phonics activities with a British English accent. Read With Phonics has no advertisements and is free to trial. However, to access full learning content there are some optional one-time, in-app purchases.

Is the Read With Phonics App Easy to Use?

The following factors influence the usability of Read With Phonics app.  

Set-Up & Navigation

Read with Phonics is user-friendly, allowing users to simply download the app and get started. The main interface is a map with four distinct categories, each targeting different phonics concepts: 

• Water World – Common consonant sounds and short vowels
• Forest World – Less common consonant sounds, digraphs, and long vowels
• Lava Land – Digraphs, vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, diphthongs
• Jelly City – Long vowels (CVe), diphthongs

The four sections are arranged in a logical and sequential order for children to follow. Players can skip ahead to any section based on their individual needs. The parent area is easily accessible, offering a few options for managing the app. One downside is that there isn’t an option to adjust the sound effects, which could be annoying for some users, especially with the frequent giggling of the alien character.

Instructions and Gameplay

The instructions in Read With Phonics Games are short, simple, and clear. The app as a whole is delivered in a British English accent which may be a downside or limitation for students with different accents. One great feature is the ability to replay the instructions as many times as necessary, thanks to a clearly marked audio button. This ensures that children can follow along at their own pace without confusion. The games are designed to be easy to play and intuitive, allowing kids to engage with the content independently while building their phonics skills.

Engagement in Read With Phonics App

The following components influence player engagement in the Read With Phonics – Games app. 

Positive Reinforcement

The app encourages player engagement primarily through positive feedback and progress tracking. The app allows children to easily see how far they’ve come by showing progress on a map, with each map level indicating how much further is left to complete. A progress bar helps kids understand their advancement and motivates them to keep going. There are also completion badges to collect which may visually enhance progress in the game. 

One of the app’s strengths is its avoidance of distracting external rewards. Rather than bombarding players with flashy incentives, it keeps the focus on learning and steady progress, which helps children stay engaged without losing sight of the educational goals.

Mistakes

In Read With Phonics Games, when a player makes three mistakes in any activity, they are immediately booted out of the map level and must start over. While this may encourage persistence, it could be discouraging for some children, especially if they struggle with a particular skill or concept. 

The current approach relies heavily on a “guess and check” method, which might not be the most effective way to support learning. It could be more beneficial to introduce a mechanism that helps teach or reinforce the specific phonics skills a child is struggling with, rather than forcing them to restart. This could reduce frustration and provide a more supportive learning experience.

Literacy Learning With the Read With Phonics App

The following components impact the quality of the literacy instruction in the Read With Phonics Games app.  

Direct and Explicit Instruction

This app does not provide direct and explicit phonics instruction, which is typically recommended by reading experts for building foundational literacy skills. Instead, the app functions more as a practice tool rather than a “learn to read” game. The setup encourages children to learn new concepts by providing clear positive or negative feedback based on their answers. 

While this feedback system can help reinforce learning, it does not offer the in-depth instruction or skill-building that some children might need to master phonics concepts. For example, players will learn how to read ‘-ll’ at the end of words but now why or how the FLOSS rule is relevant. This approach places more emphasis on practice and self-correction, rather than providing explicit teaching of phonics rules.

Sequential Learning

Sequential learning, which is recommended by reading experts, is an important principle in phonics instruction. It ensures that phonics concepts are introduced in a logical order, starting with the simplest concepts and gradually progressing to more complex ones. In Read With Phonics Games, the intended sequence is designed to follow this principle. 

However, there are some inconsistencies in how the game handles this approach. For example, the second activity in the entire game involves placing the correct vowel sound in the word “ham,” even though the sounds /h/ and /m/ haven’t been taught or practiced yet. This can disrupt the flow of learning, as it doesn’t always adhere to the progression from easier to more difficult concepts. 

Learning to Read Words

In the app, the letter sounds are usually clearly pronounced and accurately represented with a British English accent. This clarity helps young learners focus on the precise sounds needed for reading. 

The app also uses synthetic phonics, where individual letter sounds are blended together to form words and segmented to spell words. Research shows that synthetic phonics is one of the most effective methods for both reading and spelling, making this approach a strong educational choice. 

The app does a good job of modeling how to blend sounds together to read. As part of the gameplay, kids are asked to match words with pictures, which encourages them to sound out and read words. This method of associating words with images is good for children with strong vocabularies. However, children who aren’t certain of the initial meaning of the word or do not know what the picture is may have more difficulties completing this activity. 

Is Read With Phonics a Good Literacy App?

This app offers a user-friendly interface with four distinct levels that cover various sequential phonics concepts. The app is easy to use and fairly engaging. It provides positive reinforcement through progress tracking and badges. The app also uses systematic synthetic phonics to teach children how to read words. This approach is backed by reading experts.  

However, the app doesn’t offer direct and explicit phonics instruction. Instead of providing an in-depth explanation of phonics rules, such as why certain spelling patterns are used, the app focuses on practice and feedback. It also occasionally strays from the ideal sequence of learning, with some concepts introduced out of order. 

Overall, Read With Phonics is a good app that would work well alongside a full literacy program. While the app is a good tool for reinforcing phonics skills, it may not fully support children who need more explicit instruction or guidance. Check out more phonics reviews at Phonics.org to find the best app for your child!

Read With Phonics Games: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3 / 5

Usability:  4 / 5

Engagement:  4 / 5