Letter Buddies AlphaBooks iPad App Review
As a mom who does not readily turn to electronics to entertain my kids, I was at a disadvantage when it came to figuring out what would be a good iPad app for my 3-year-old on our driving trip this summer. Luckily, the folks who make the Letter Buddies AlphaBooks iPad app contacted me and asked if I’d give it a review so I said sure, why not?
Well, I’m really glad I did because it has been great for our driving sanity and my daughter’s riding pleasure. We handed the iPad over right when she was getting fussy and I thought it would take some doing to tell her how to operate the app, but clearly I am from last century because she hurriedly shooed me away, knowing exactly how the thing worked in nanoseconds
Of course she did – she’s a kid. I remember when my dad used to turn to me to program the VCR – remember those things? It always flustered him. Now I’m the stodgy old fart. :/
Anyway, on the Letter Buddies AlphaBooks iPad app the alphabet is represented by fuzzy little letter creatures that seem awfully simplistic to me, but to a three year old they are engaging. They line up on the main menu and you touch the one you want to see. Then, you get photographs beginning in the letter that appears – like an airplane for A, a boy for B, you get the picture.
I love that photographs of real things represent the alphabet, not some icky drawing. That is one of my pet peeves about apps and games in general, that the “learning” tool is removed from the actual thing, like having an animated pink perfectly round pig with a curly tail instead of a long, fat beige-ish pink piggie. Do you know what I mean?
I know, that’s very elitist of me, very particular. I want my kids to learn about how a real chicken looks, or an apple, or an iguana. But still, it is true. That is how I want my girls to learn. Just one of my quirks.
So this app delivers. Yes, the weirdly hairy letters appear in some of the photographs, but I can deal with that.
Letter Buddies AlphaBooks is a pretty decent little game that introduces not only letters, but words, too. And, it lays the ground work for learning to read because as the narrator talks, the words in the sentence she is reciting light up in red so that the child can hear and see what the word is. Pretty cool.
Over all I’d give this my thumbs up. And so does my girl. She now pesters me to see the letters every time we get in the car.
