I'm a full-time mummy

This review started with an email for an interview opportunity with Dr. Bill Sears. I mean, the moment I saw this name, I was very interested to find out more. I mean, for someone who is best known for his attachment parenting philosophy, Dr. Sears is now working to help parents teach young kids to read BEFORE they get to school. I am of course interested to know what kind of reading materials and methods is he using to do so. Here goes my review:

About:
"American Reading at Home is a reading program from American Reading Company that helps children ages 3-6 during the earliest stages of reading development. The company publishes books that work like training wheels on a bicyclebecause so much of the reading support is provided by the books, children gain confidence as they master just one new skill at a time. The narrow hierarchy of skills required at each level ensures children don't get frustrated, but experience successful reading practice."

I created an account on their website and followed their easy to understand instructions in order to receive my first 5 e-books to read on my iPad. From my iPad, I just need to login once to the Bookshelf app using the email address that I used to create the account and I can immediately see the e-books there.

I have to say this is by far one of the most frequent used app in my iPad. Of course my 3.5 years old boy is not into reading stage yet so at the moment, I am the one doing the storytelling to him.

He just loves snuggling up next to me and listens as I tell him the stories, one after another! We sometimes go through as many as 10 books in a session, tiring for me yes but it is nice to see my boy so interested in books and I have been gently showing him the easy words in some books to get him to familiar with the words and I also sometimes tested him when we see the words being repeated again and again in the books.

He is more interested in the cartoonish type of books at the moment but I will definitely revisit the books with actual pictures of animals and objects later on. Pictures below are 2 of his favorite books at the moment, "Camping" and "Clean Cat".

And yeah, I mentioned in the beginning of my post here that this review started with an interview opportunity with Dr. Bill Sears, so of course I did posed 3 questions to him and got my replies! Below is the details in case you are interested:

Me: How do we begin introducing literacy to our preschoolers? Do we go with the phonics, or introducing the alphabets or sight words or what?   

Dr. Sears: The most important thing a parent can do to develop a healthy reader is to spend time side-by-side reading aloud to your child.  Learning to read takes a combination of many developmental skills so the answer is yes, all of the above!  Parents should try out the reading level wizard at http://www.americanreadingathome.com/wizard/  to identify your child’s reading readiness skills and independent reading level.  From there you will be guided on what skills to work on to move to the next level.

Me: Can we teach our children to read if they do not know how to recognize the alphabet yet?

Dr. Sears: Yes!  The first 2 levels for American Reading at Home (1 Yellow and 2 Yellow) do not require alphabet recognition or letter sound skills. Initially your child won’t actually read any words, and may not even look at the words, but she will remember the repeating sentence pattern and “read” the pictures. Your child is learning to read fluently, with confidence, and for meaning. She’s also learning that reading is thinking, which is an important foundation for future comprehension skills.  Knowing letter sounds isn’t required until the 3 Yellow level.

You can get the first 5 e-books for free at: http://www.americanreadingathome.com/bookshelf/

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

I received a pitch to review this app few days ago and after checking out the Lite version of the app, I decided to review it as I can foresee my 3.5 years old boy benefiting from using this app. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Sight Words for Kids
* Price: $2.99
* Category: Education
* Updated: Nov 11, 2012
* Version: 2.0
* Size: 20.9 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Talal Baweja © Nimble Minds Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"This app is the real deal when it comes to teaching sight words. It's highly educational, effectively contextualizes words by organizing them by location (e.g. "bathroom," "bedroom," or "park"), and makes excellent use of audio learning cues. It' also provides lots of positive reinforcement when the user succeeds."

* It is engaging and interactive and I love the beautiful illustrations!

* This is an easy to use app which my 3.5 years old boy has no problem using without my guidance. He just touch and touch whatever objects on the page and learns what is the name of the objects and we have great fun playing the game too!

* There are a total of 12 scenes that you can choose to learn or play with.

* In the learn mode, the items that you can learn has a question mark above it, once you touched it, the word will pop out followed by the narrator saying out the name of the object and the question mark will be removed then. Once you finished tapping all the question marks items, you will finish the scene and can choose to play again or go to the next scene.

* In the play mode, the narrator will ask you where are certain objects and you need to tap the screen to solve the question. My boy enjoyed the games as I pretended to race with him to solve the questions (of course I had to purposely delayed my response in order to let him solve on his own hahaha...)

* There are some objects which my 3.5 years old boy is not able to solve as we use different terms for it, such as mailbox (we use letterbox), gift (we use present) so these are some of the items that I am skipping for now as I do not want to confuse my boy with too many versions of an object at the moment.

* Other than the above feedback, I have also highlighted to the developer on the price of the app which to me is a bit pricey as I have reviewed similar type of apps like this one with cheaper range. Anyway, the developer has taken note on this and has already restructured the price for this app.

You can purchase the "Sight Words for Kids" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

The moment I saw this app about Red Fox in the latest Oceanhouse Media's press release in my email inbox, I remembered having reviewed a similar app like this few months ago about ladybug, I immediately request for the promo code to redeem this app. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Red Fox at Hickory Lane
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Nov 14, 2012
* Version: 1.09
* Size: 15.1 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

Description from the product page:

"Mother and Father Fox teach their four cubs to hunt, escape danger, and survive on their own. Their skills are tested when a coyote appears in the distance. How will the baby cubs react? Smithsonian's Backyard series features entertaining stories that answer many questions children have about the habits and habitats of the animals in our own backyards. Settle down on your sofa and open up this trip to nature just down the lane. 

What's good?

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I like the storyline where it tells how a Mother and Father fox teach their 4 cubs to hunt for food and also how they defend themselves and their cubs from predators (coyotes).

* I used the opportunity in this book to teach my 3.5 years old son about the Red Fox, how it hunts for food and also defends itself and its cubs from predators.

* The illustration is beautiful and quite life-like!

You can purchase the "Red Fox at Hickory Lane" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"