My favorite for 3-5 year olds

What We Liked:

If you’re familiar with any Orton-Gillingham inspired intensive phonics programs, a lot of the methodology used by Pre-K Letters and Numbers will seem familiar to you. Not only is the letter name and formation of the letter taught, but the SOUND of the letter is presented right alongside that information. Even two letter teams are presented, which is a gem for a phonics-loving mom like myself. This developer has worked hard on the phonics, and they are very accurate, a rarity amongst educational apps.

The ability to have multiple children use the same app and to have detailed statistics generated is incredible. I love how the statistics really help to focus in on any problem characters so you can target those for your child to practice further.

You can have your child use their finger on this app, or buy a capacitive touch stylus which works like a finger on the screen of your iDevice but helps to develop those pen holding skills if your child is ready.

My five-year-old started trying to write early, and she picked up some incorrect stroke directions. Teaching her to correct them has been a struggle though, she thinks she knows better than I do! With a step-by-step guided app like Pre-K Letters and Numbers, she’s basically forced to form the letters correctly, because each dot must be touched in the correct order to complete each character. This takes all of the conflict out of our penmanship lessons. Not only is she not arguing with me and telling me she knows how to make an “R”, but she’s also laughing when the funny block-headed animal corrects her! If she starts making her "R" incorrectly we do one session on "R" with this app and the next day shes forming it correctly when she writes her name! Even my three-year-old has really been enjoying this one, she carefully touches each dot one-by-one to form the strokes and laughs whenever an animal pops out to uh-oh! her.

What We Didn’t Like:

I’d like to see an easier way of selecting a character to work on, right now you need to move through each one in order to get to the next by tapping an arrow key – a selector tray would make it easier to work on trouble characters as identified by the statistics.

Overall:

The more I use Pre-K Letters and Numbers, the more I love it! This app has become my favorite printing app for the 3-5 year-old crowd. It is absolutely wonderful for teaching small children how to form their letters accurately with appropriate stroke direction as required by the dot-to-dot tracing method. Including phonics, multiple users, statistics, phonological/number concepts, and more - it really is a huge value for the cost and I can confidently recommend it!

Appsforhomeschooling.com about Pre-K Letters and Numbers, v2.1.1