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Accessible Literacy Learning (ALL) App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on December 17, 2024

Empowering Nonverbal Learners with Phonics and Reading Skills

Are you curious about other literacy apps that may be a good match for your child? Check out additional expert reviews at phonics.org.

Continue reading to learn more about the Accessible Literacy Learning (ALL) app.

What is Accessible Literacy Learning (ALL)?

The ALL (Accessible Literacy Learning) program is designed to help nonverbal students, particularly those who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), develop foundational reading skills. Priced at $79.99 USD, it offers an evidence-based approach that allows learners to engage with the material using touch, eye gaze, or scanning instead of verbal prompts.

The ALL app covers six key reading skills:

Sound-blending
Phoneme segmentation
Letter-sound correspondence
Single word decoding
Sight word recognition
Shared reading

The ALL app progresses through these skills in various degrees of difficulty moving from easy to more difficult.

Is the ALL App Easy to Use?

The following factors impact the usability of the ALL app.

Getting Started With ALL

Getting started with the ALL program is straightforward and relatively simple. A short introductory video provides a clear and quick guide to help users begin, while additional system tutorial videos in the Teacher Mode offer further support. Setting up student profiles is simple and requires minimal information, with the flexibility for multiple children to use the same license.

Teacher Mode also includes convenient features like individual student reports, tracking session frequency, duration, and performance data from student sessions. Switching between Teacher and Student Modes is easy, and both modes are designed to be highly navigable, ensuring a smooth experience for both educators and learners.

Getting started with the ALL app is simple and straightforward.

Modes of Play

The ALL program features three modes of play:

Independent Mode– student independently completes activities and records data (default mode)
Practice Mode – student completes activities independently or with a facilitator (data not recorded)
Teacher-Assisted Mode– teacher provides some instruction while student completes activities

There is also an option to access a library of books in addition to progressing through the lessons. While the game instructions are clear and concise, they are not repeatable, which could pose a challenge for some learners needing to review the instructions.

Advanced Settings

The ALL app offers customizable settings, including advanced options to adjust the text-to-speech rate and response delay. It is advisable to adjust two important advanced settings:

Text-to-speech rate controls how quickly the instructor speaks
Response delay sets how much time a student has to answer before the app provides a response

It is highly recommended to tailor these settings to meet the specific needs of each learner. Slowing down the response time could significantly improve the learning experience for many students, making it more effective and accessible.

Adjusting the advanced settings is important in the ALL app

Engagement in the ALL App

The following factors influence user engagement in the ALL app.

Rewards

The ALL program uses positive reinforcement to motivate students, providing encouraging messages like “You’re right!” along with a rewarding sound and a short and simple animation. There are no distracting reward systems, which helps maintain focus on learning and emphasizes intrinsic motivation. Additionally, students can earn “Skill Acquisition Badges” for successfully mastering specific skills, further rewarding their progress in a meaningful way without taking away from valuable learning time.

Progression and Pace

The ALL program includes an animation at the top of the screen that shows how many questions have been answered and how many remain in the activity set. This feature helps students predict the duration of the task, offering a sense of progression.

However, the timing for answering questions can be frustrating. There is a narrow window to tap on the correct answer—if tapped too early, nothing happens; if tapped too late, the app provides the answer and quickly moves on. Requiring a delicate and specific time to answer questions could be frustrating and unmotivating for some young learners.

Literacy Learning With the ALL App

The following factors influence the quality of literacy instruction in the ALL app.

Direct and Sequential Phonics Instruction

The ALL app follows a direct and sequential learning approach to literacy learning. This is recommended by literacy experts for building skills from simple to more complex concepts, ensuring mastery at each step. The scope and sequence of the program are clearly outlined and publicly available in the online manual, even without purchasing the app—this is a great feature for transparency and connection to classroom or at-home practice.

The ALL app uses synthetic phonics, which focuses on blending and segmenting individual letter sounds. This is an efficient method of learning to read and spell words. The letter sounds are clearly and accurately represented, which is another great feature.

Students are considered to have mastered a skill once they achieve 80% accuracy or higher in two consecutive sessions on that skill. For instructors who prefer more flexibility, there is an option to override this process by using the “Set As Acquired” button on the Skill Overview screen, allowing them to mark a skill as mastered immediately.

Phonemic Awareness

The Phonemic Awareness section of the ALL app provides a solid foundation for learners, especially when it comes to critical skills like blending and segmenting sounds, which are key to reading and spelling. The app begins by showing four real photographs, with the corresponding vocabulary spoken aloud, which also builds vocabulary skills. Repetition of the pictures further reinforces learning.

The app effectively models phonemic awareness skills and encourages learners to apply these skills to answer questions. One standout feature is the app’s use of continuous blending, which is an excellent way to help students learn to read words. In continuous blending, sounds are pronounced without stopping or pausing between them – for example, when reading “am,” the “a” sound is held continuously and flows directly into the “m” sound, rather than breaking it up into separate sounds. While it’s rarely featured in other literacy apps, ALL’s implementation of continuous blending is a valuable addition to its teaching toolkit.

However, while the app introduces phoneme segmentation tasks, these are more aligned with phoneme isolation. Instead of having learners break words into their individual sounds, they are asked to identify the first sound in a word. Though both tasks are valuable, the labeling of these activities as segmentation is slightly misleading.

Learners are asked to choose a picture that starts with the highlighted letter sound.

Shared Reading

The Shared Reading feature in the ALL app is designed to support nonverbal learners by allowing them to interact with sentences read aloud by the app. The learner is prompted to complete a sentence by tapping on a corresponding picture.

However, the app’s computer-generated voice reads the sentences in a fast and monotone manner. It is not the same clear voice used in other parts of the app. The voice lacks expression or fluency, making it sound robotic and abrupt, which makes it difficult to understand.

Players are expected to tap a picture that represents the highlighted word in the sentence.

Is the ALL App Good for Learning to Read?

The Accessible Literacy Learning (ALL) app is a valuable tool for helping nonverbal students, particularly those who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), build foundational literacy skills. It offers an evidence-based, systematic approach to teaching phonemic awareness, blending, and sight word recognition. The app provides customizable settings, modes of play, and positive reinforcement techniques to keep students engaged. However, while it has strong features, there are areas in need of improvement.

The phonemic awareness section is particularly strong, especially with the inclusion of continuous blending, a feature not commonly found in other literacy apps. However, the app’s shared reading function falls short, largely due to the poor quality of the computer-generated voice, which undermines the fluency and expression essential for effective learning.

Despite these issues, the ALL app offers a structured and accessible approach to literacy learning for nonverbal students. Educators and caregivers should consider the app’s strengths in phonemic awareness and phonics instruction but should also be aware of its limitations, especially in shared reading. With some refinement, the ALL app has the potential to be a more effective and engaging tool for literacy development.

ALL (Accessible Literacy Learning): Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3.5 / 5

Usability: 4.5 / 5

Engagement: 3 / 5

Sound Beginnings App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on November 29, 2024

A Simple Approach to Phoneme Isolation

Check out the other articles at phonics.org to see how other literacy apps measure up.

Continue reading this article to learn more about the Sound Beginnings app.

What is Sound Beginnings?

Sound Beginnings is an app created by Preschool University, designed for children ages 4 and up. Its primary goal is to help young learners practice phoneme isolation—identifying and isolating individual sounds in words and matching them to their corresponding letters. This is an early literacy skill. The app offers a free trial, and users can unlock full access with a small one-time fee.

There are four practice games for children in the app. All four games help children identify individual sounds in words:

Game 1: Images to Letters – Match images with the given letter sound
Game 2: Letters to Images – Fill in missing letters in a given
Game 3: Which One Doesn’t Belong – Find the image that doesn’t fit the sound pattern
Game 4: Double Match – Match image pairs that fit the given letters

*Four game options on the landing page of the Sound Beginnings App*

Is the Sound Beginnings App Easy to Use?

The following factors influence how easy it is to use Sound Beginnings.

Getting Started and Navigation

Sound Beginnings is easy to get started with—simply download and begin playing. No sign-up or account creation is required. The main landing page presents four games to choose from, along with settings and instructions. Navigation is straightforward, and it’s easy to access all sections.

Instructions

The instructions section of the app is lengthy and detailed, but it is written exclusively for adults, not children. There are no verbal instructions within the games themselves, which means children will need an adult to guide them through each game (at least initially). This reliance on adult assistance can be inconvenient and limits the app’s overall usability, particularly for young users who may need more in-app support and reminders. Also, even adults may have difficulty figuring out how to play the game at first. A simple, repeatable oral direction for each game would be a beneficial upgrade.

Engagement in Sound Beginnings

The following factors influence a child’s engagement in the Sound Beginnings app.

Positive Reinforcement

One of the standout features of Sound Beginnings is its approach to positive reinforcement. The app avoids an elaborate external reward system, which ensures that the focus remains on learning rather than on distracting rewards. This minimalist approach supports the educational goals of the game without overwhelming young users.

The grid of 12 bears that fills in with each correct answer is a subtle yet effective motivator. Additionally, it provides children with a clear sense of progress by showing how many questions are left, helping them understand how much longer the game will last. The absence of flashy “bells and whistles” is intentional, ensuring that the learning experience stays front and center without unnecessary distractions.

Visual Appearance

The visual appearance of Sound Beginnings feels somewhat outdated, which may not appeal to all users. However, the app’s use of real images is a notable strength. These images are generally clear, and there’s the added benefit that they can be clicked on to hear their names, eliminating any ambiguity about what the pictures represent. This feature is particularly useful for vocabulary building, as it helps reinforce word-object associations in a straightforward and engaging way. Despite its dated design, the app’s image-based approach effectively supports early learning.

*The visual design and some images in Sound Beginnings are outdated*

Literacy Learning With the Sound Beginnings App

The following factors impact the quality of literacy instruction in the Sound Beginning app.

Direct and Sequential Instruction

Sound Beginnings focuses primarily on practicing the identification of individual sounds in words, but it doesn’t provide direct instruction on sound-letter associations. The app assumes that children already have a basic understanding of all letter sounds, as it is designed specifically for practicing this skill rather than teaching it from scratch.

While there isn’t a clearly outlined scope and sequence or phonics plan, the game follows a logical progression by starting with beginning sounds, moving to ending sounds, and then focusing on middle sounds. This sequence aligns with how children typically develop their phonemic awareness, making it a sensible approach for reinforcing sound identification.

Letter Sound Correspondences

Sound Beginnings does a decent job of reinforcing phoneme-grapheme (letter to sound) correspondences. It presents letter sounds clearly and accurately with an American English accent which is important for children who are learning to read and spell.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to manipulate spoken sounds in a language and is an essential skill for new readers to develop. Phoneme isolation is one key component of phonemic awareness and is the simplest and most basic skill for new readers to learn. However, it is important not to linger on this skill for too long. Moving on to blending and segmenting phonemes to read and spell is more important for developing reading and spelling proficiency. Choose a different app to move on to these other essential phonemic awareness skills.

Is Sound Beginnings a Good Literacy App?

Sound Beginnings offers a focused approach to practicing letter-sound associations and building one specific phonemic awareness skill: phoneme identification. The Sound Beginnings is easy to get started and navigate. It offers real images and subtle positive reinforcement to engage new readers. The letter sounds in this app are accurate and it does reinforce an important phonemic awareness skill.

However, its limitations include a lack of direct instruction and a reliance on adult guidance for young users. Each of the four games would be easier to play and understand if simple, repeatable, oral directions were an option. Additionally, the absence of additional phonemic awareness skills such as blending and segmenting means it should not be the only tool for developing a child’s literacy skills.

Overall, Sound Beginnings is a solid choice for practicing foundational phonemic awareness, but parents and educators should consider using additional resources to support further phonics development.

Check out Phonics.org for more phonics app reviews, instruction tips, and learning resources as you teach your child to read!

Sound Beginnings: Overall Ratings

Quality of Literacy Instruction: 3 / 5

Usability: 2.5 / 5

Engagement: 3 / 5

Read With Phonics Games – App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on November 22, 2024

A Simple and Playful Phonics Experience

There are tons of phonics reviews at phonics.org! Check them out to become more informed about educational options for your student or child.

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 main page is divided into four levels of phonics games*

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.

*Read With Phonics does not explain why this word ends in a double ‘ll’*

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.

*Sequence of lessons in one segment of the Read With Phonics app*

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.

*Matching words to pictures in Read With Phonics*

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

GraphoGame: Learn To Read App Review

Jaymi Thiessen on November 16, 2024

Does The ‘World’s Most Researched Game’ Meet Current Standards?

Are you curious about how other literacy apps measure up? Check out the other detailed literacy app reviews on phonics.org.

Continue reading to learn more about the GraphoGame: Learn to Read app.

What is GraphoGame: Learn to Read?

GraphoGame: Learn to Read is an educational app designed for children aged 3 and up. The app aims to make the learning to read process engaging and accessible. Initially developed in Finland, it was created in collaboration with the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Neuroscience in Education. With support for nine different languages and usage in over 20 countries, GraphoGame has a significant reach.

The app makes bold claims about its effectiveness, stating that it can help young children learn to read in just days. It also touts itself as “the most researched game in the world.” This review will take a critical look at the GraphoGame: Learn to Read app and the feasibility of these grand claims. This review focuses on the American English version of the GraphoGame app.

Is the GraphoGame: Learn to Read App Easy To Play?

The following factors impact the usability of the GraphoGame app.

Getting Started With GraphoGame: Learn to Read

Getting started with GraphoGame requires a sign-up process that begins with selecting the child’s gender. It is unclear why this information is relevant. Users must then create a username and a 4-digit pin code, which combines pictures and letters—an approach that feels overly complicated for young children.

Once set up, the app offers two distinct modes:

The Adventure Map – designed for independent play
The Stars Mode – more suitable for older children and educational settings

Additionally, there doesn’t appear to be an easily accessible method of changing the starting point in the game to match the literacy skills of the player. While the app claims to be adaptive, providing the option for a grown-up to choose a starting point would be an advantageous feature. Finally, the navigation in the Adventure Map can be clunky and awkward, especially for young players.

*The Adventure Map in GraphoGame can be awkward to navigate*

Instructions and Settings

GraphoGame includes helpful features for guiding young players through the app. Instructions and sound cues can be repeated as needed, and they will automatically repeat if too much time passes, which is a great support for children who may need extra reminders.

Data Collection

GraphoGame offers detailed data collection regarding student performance and achievement at each level, providing valuable insights for parents and educators. This feedback is instrumental in helping adults understand how well a child is progressing, identifying areas where they may need additional support. By highlighting specific strengths and weaknesses, the app enables parents and teachers to guide their children more effectively in their literacy journey.

*GraphoGame offers detailed data and feedback on individual student progress*