Student Links
Free safe online kids games that are both fun and educational
20 iPad Apps To Teach Elementary Reading
As anyone with a toddler knows, iPads are addictive for children. They seem to have some sort of special radar that lets them know when an iDevice is within their reach, and they’ll do anything they can to get their hands on them. Resistance is futile, but instead of lamenting excessive screen time, you can make your child’s iPad addiction a productive one with educational apps, including those that promote early reading.
With these 20 apps, children can learn how to write letters, improve phonics fluency, and even write their own books. Read on to find the very best iPad apps for developing young readers, and feel free to share your own favorites in the comments.
Kids can develop skills in letter sounds, writing, and first words with ABC PocketPhonics. Independent research has shown kids using this app can learn even faster than they would in a classroom lesson. Parents and teachers alike love this app as an early childhood learning tool.
2. Play & Sing
Preschoolers can get interactive with this app that encourages reading, teaches colors, letters, shapes, and even animals. Children will trace numbers and letters, pick out colors, shapes, and animals, plus pick out what’s next in a sequence.
3. Booksy
Students in Kindergarten to second grade can learn to read on this free platform. Designed to help children practice and develop their reading skills, students can download books that help to build comprehension, give cues, and even track progress with detailed user stats.
4. My Word Wall
Children can develop early reading skills with the help of My Word Wall, an educational app for budding readers. Students will hear, visualize, vocally repeat, and write down letters and words to learn, plus get engaged with educational activities that are great for all learning styles. Fun games and structured learning make this app a great choice.
5. Letter Lab
An incredible tool for learning to write and recognize ABCs, kids will trace uppercase and lowercase letters with their fingers on this app. Letter Lab not only teaches kids to write, but also about real-world objects with an audio component.
6. Story Patch
Teach students about the flow of stories by helping them to create their own. Story Patch for the iPad makes it easy for children to create their very own picture books. Customizable characters, hundreds of illustrations, and built-in story themes make this a very fun and engaging reading and writing app.
Kids can get a head start on learning to read with this app, designed for kids from Kindergarten to second grade. Using a flash card deck of sight words, children will develop the building blocks of reading. Voice prompts, examples, and easy-to-read text come together in this highly educational app.
With the Rock ‘N Learn Phonics Easy Reader, little ones can practice their phonics. Short vowel sounds, combinations, memory words, and more are all covered in this app. Kids can choose whether a story will be read aloud to them and highlighted, or if they’ll read by themselves, tapping words when they need help.
An awesome phonics game app for kids, Alphabet Phonics offers a great way to teach your child their ABCs. Using sight, sound, and touch, this educational app is useful even at the infant stage.
10. Reading Raven
Reading Raven is a beloved reading game app for the iPad. A favorite of teachers and even Apple staff, the Reading Raven is a fun reading adventure guide offering excellent features for kids, teaching phonological awareness, full sentences, and even printing skills.
11. SUPER WHY!
There’s so much to love about this reading app. Featuring characters that many kids already love from the SUPER WHY! TV show, children can choose from several different activities that develop their vocabulary, reading, and writing skills. Letter hunts, tracing letters, rhyming, and completing sentences are just a few of the ways kids are engaged in active reading development in this app.
12. K-3 Sight Words
Children can learn “sight words” with the help of this app that focuses on words that must be memorized instead of sounded out. With five different levels, young users can gradually build their skills and word memorization.
13. Find the Words
Kids will have fun playing word search on this easy-to-use educational app. Several different backgrounds and themes keep things interesting and engaging.
14. Aesop’s Quest
In Aesop’s Quest, Aesop the Ant reads through stories, revealing clues that help him in his quest. Little readers must remember important elements of each story to help Aesop along the way, developing reading comprehension and cognitive reading skills in a really fun way.
15. Read Me Stories
Develop a daily reading habit with this app that delivers a brand new book every day. Fun features include text highlighting as it’s read and the ability to touch characters and explore story lines.
Encourage daily reading with this iPad reading timer that keeps track of reading minutes and monitors weekly reading goals. It works just like a real stopwatch, but it’s fun for kids to see their reading minutes add up.
17. Kids Can Spell
Using fun animal images, kids can learn how to spell with this app. Through Kids Can Spell, children will see many different animals with sounds and spelling lessons to back them up. They’ll check out beautiful photos, then drag letters in place to assemble words. There’s even a timed version for an added challenge!
Reading for Details is a great app for helping kids build reading comprehension skills. Students read passages, then test their understanding of the who, what, why, when, and where at three different levels of reading difficulty.
19. Word Magic
Created by the parents of a 5-year-old, Word Magic was designed with young readers in mind. Kids find missing letters that identify photos, featuring attractive and funny pictures. Parents and kids alike love this learning app for its positive reinforcement, bright colors, and simple design.
20. C is for Cow
With this app, kids can have fun learning phonetics and letter recognition. Even very young children love to see the animals, repeat their sounds, and learn their names.
Free Must-Have iPad Apps for Primary
10 Frame Fill – This app provides children practice with recognizing additive "10 Families" (e.g., 1 and 9, 2 and 8, etc.).
ABC Alphabet by Little Sorter - Little Sorter ABC is an exciting interactive game that helps your child rapidly learn to read and recognize alphabet letters, all with just the touch of their finger.
ABC Magic 5 Letter Sound Matching - This app will help strengthen the association of each letter with its most commonly occurring sound. Children can choose 4, 6, or 9 squares to work with and then choose whether they will match pictures to letters or letters to pictures. They then choose the correct pictures to match the letter or choose the correct letter to match their picture.
ABC Magic 7 Memory Match - Memory matching game with a helpful twist.
ABCs: Alphabet Learning Game - VocabuLarry the parrot is there to guide your children through the ABC’s: Alphabet Learning Game, giving them their very first chance to test out their reading and writing skills. Colorful and captivating, kids will love the simple navigation system and eye-catching artwork within our brilliant training tools.
Alphabet Organizer - The Alphabet Organizer enables children to create a calendar-style alphabet chart or letter pages for an alphabet book. Younger children can print the letter pages and draw pictures of things that start with each letter. They can also use the chart to learn the order of the alphabet and which words start with which letters—an important building block for reading.
Alphabet Tracing - Fun train, truck and worm animations come to life for children to follow, while showing the proper way to write alphabet letters and numbers.
BlobbleWriteHD - Learn to write letters and numbers with the blobbles. Children can copy the blobbles as they trace out the strokes to write letters and numbers.
ChatterPix Kids – by Duck Duck Moose - Chatterpix Kids can make anything talk -- pets, friends, doodles, and more. Simply take any photo, draw a line to make a mouth, and record your voice. Then share your Pix with friends and family as silly greetings, playful messages, creative cards, or even fancy book reports. TCEA Free Must-Have iPad Apps for Primary www.tcea.org
Doodle Buddy for iPad – This is a great app for all curriculum areas. It allows students to finger paint, draw, scribble, sketch, write, stamp, and create with a wide variety of easy-to-use tools. The free version includes ads.
Feel Electric! – In this app from Sesame Street, children learn about different emotions.
Line ‘em Up - Designed to promote kindergarteners' mastery of number order, this app replicates a simple classroom activity in which children place number tiles in order from least to greatest. Options include using 10, 15, or 20 number tiles and designating a range of beginning numbers.
Little Matchups ABC - Little Matchups is an exciting interactive matching game that helps your child rapidly learn how to recognize and identify important concepts such as uppercase and lowercase letters.
My First Words – Flashcards by Alligator Apps - Add your own cards, record your own voice, and add your own pictures. Includes 200+ gorgeous photographs that are carefully hand-picked and eight different play modes to show the flashcards anyway you like.
Number Rack - The movable, colored beads encourage learners to think in groups of fives and tens, helping them to explore and discover a variety of addition and subtraction strategies.
PBS Kids Video - Watch more than 1,000 videos from your favorite PBS KIDS television series anytime, anywhere. New videos are added weekly.
Shape Monster – Learn Different Shapes - The Shape Monster is a demanding chef who is very specific about the shapes of his ingredients. Among the spice racks, stacked plates, and oozing stockpot, you’ll have to feed this hungry, food-slobbered monster. The key to keeping his belly satisfied is knowing your shapes!
Sprout’s Good Night Star HD - Your preschooler can practice their bedtime routine with Sprout's lovable character, Star. Brush Star's teeth, wash Star's Face, read a Sprouterrific story to Star, and get him ready for bed.
Sound Beginnings - Six learning games provide practice in phonics and reading. Identify the beginning, middle, or ending sound of a word. Two modes of matching: letters to pictures or pictures to letters.
Toca Kitchen Monsters - In this Monster edition of the super-hit Toca Kitchen, you can cook and play with food for two hungry monsters. Pick any ingredient and prepare it in your own way; then see if the monsters like it.
Touch and Learn – ABC Alphabet and 123 Numbers - Teach letters from A to Z. Teach numbers from 1 to 20. Teach concepts - letters vs. numbers, big vs. small letters. Teach phonics - touch the "buh" letter. Fully customizable.
Toy Story Read-Along – This is a fully interactive reading experience packed with games, movie clips, coloring pages, sing-along tunes, and surprises on every page. Hear the story read aloud, record your own narration, or explore at your own pace.