# READING MAGIC-Learning to Read — CVC Advanced Phonics Games

> Interactive phonics games for children learning to read CVC words. (iPhone/iPad app by PRESCHOOL UNIVERSITY.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/reading-magic-learning-to-read/id416896853 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [PRESCHOOL UNIVERSITY](https://appshunter.io/developer/404048727)
- Category: Education, Games, Family
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 4.60/5 from 41 App Store ratings · 37 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 13.7 · 208 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2011-02-03
- Data updated: 2026-08-27
- Monetization: free with in-app purchases
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/reading-magic-learning-to-read/id416896853/reviews.md

## What is READING MAGIC?

Unlock the Magic of Reading with READING MAGIC 1!

Transform your child into a confident reader with READING MAGIC 1! This app makes learning to read an exciting adventure with interactive activities focused on short-vowel words, specifically CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words.

Meticulously designed to provide an advanced boost to your child’s phonemic awareness, this app combines three foundational pillars of literacy science into one powerful, interactive ecosystem: Blending (Listening), Segmenting (Speaking), and Decoding (Reading). Grounded firmly in Science of Reading principles and utilizing University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) guidelines, READING MAGIC provides specific, precise training with extensive repetitions to help young brains bridge the gap between spoken sound units and complete words.

IDEAL FOR BOTH BEGINNING PRE-READERS AND STRUGGLING READERS

For Beginning Pre-Readers: A stress-free launchpad. By practicing words through pure sound sequences first, your child masters the internal mechanics of reading without cognitive overload. This keeps them from being frustrated by trying to learn separate, difficult skills at the same time.

For Struggling or Remedial Readers: If your child's reading is hesitant or choppy, or if they guess at words, this app provides the targeted intervention recommended by modern reading science to help young brains bridge the gap.

THREE CRITICAL SKILL-BUILDING PILLARS
While many phonics programs completely overlook the auditory mechanics of reading, our program systematically guides your child through the complete progression of decoding:

Skill 1: Blending (Listening): Interactive listening activities train your child’s neural processing ability to hear isolated sounds in words and join them together mentally. This builds the vital auditory runway required for future fluency.

Skill 2: Segmenting (Speaking): True spelling and reading independence require the ability to pull spoken words apart into their individual sound units. These exercises build explicit awareness of the acoustic structure of language.

Skill 3: Decoding (Reading): The ultimate bridge to literacy. Your child applies their mastery of blending and segmenting directly to text, smoothly moving from spoken sounds to visual words.

STRUCTURAL SPACING & INSTRUCTION (Science-Backed Layout)
Our app builds the actual findings of reading science directly into the user interface for maximum visual clarity:

Anti-Crowding Design: Peer-reviewed research, including Marinus et al. (2016) and Wery & Diliberto (2017), demonstrates that generous letter spacing is critical for early decoding. By placing each letter on its own isolated card with distinct physical gaps, our layout eliminates visual crowding, allowing your child to isolate each sound unit cleanly.


True Comprehension: The app strictly discourages picture guessing, forcing children to rely purely on their decoding skills to foster true comprehension and build lasting confidence.

INDEPENDENT LEARNING & AESTHETIC SIMPLICITY
Distraction-Free: Our minimalist design eliminates overstimulating audio-visual clutter, excessive sound effects, and animations to keep your child entirely focused on the mechanics of reading.
Stress-Free Growth: Built-in natural feedback loops offer gentle corrections, nurturing self-discovery and independent learning at your child's own pace.

EXPERT RESEARCH BACKING
"Before a child can read fluently with their eyes, they must be able to blend fluently with their ears. Weakness in auditory blending is one of the strongest early predictors of later reading failure." — Dr. Joseph Torgesen, Florida State University.

"Teaching students to blend and segment benefited their reading much more than did a multiple-skills approach... and teaching phonemic awareness with letters created effect sizes almost twice as large as teaching children without letters." — The National Reading Panel (NRP) Meta-Analysis.

## Key features

- CVC word focus
- Blending and segmenting practice
- Phonemic awareness building
- Phonological processing improvement
- Engaging games and activities
- Discourages picture guessing

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Deluxe Upgrade | $3.99 | one-time |


## Recent user reviews (10 of 37)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/reading-magic-learning-to-read/id416896853/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Great learning resource

*2026-02-28*

This is phenomenal way to have your toddler sit down practice to learn his or her cvc words.

### 1/5 — Worst Ap I have ever used (ever!)

*2025-03-17*

1. Once you open the Ap there is no way to close it. No “x” or exit. I have to turn my phone off and on.

2. Paid for deluxe, no sounds, i select male or female voice. It makes so sound. 

3. Have not been able to use it all.

Total garbage!

### 5/5 — 3 games for reading fun

*2016-05-25*

This app helps children read short words, but more importantly it gives them practice blending and segmenting words. This is what makes it a superior app, as few apps help with these essential reading skills.

### 5/5 — great app for blending segmenting and reading

*2016-05-18*

This app focuses on blending segmenting and reading CVC words. It teaches these advanced concepts in a clear and friendly way for young children.

### 5/5 — Solid Approaches to Learning to Read CVC Words

*2016-02-17, version 6.4*

This app focuses on CVC words.
It separates the words by vowel categories.
It uses letter sounds and helps children with the letter sound association.On a certain level, this app would be a clearer presentation if it only had the reading part.
This app might be confusing to some, but it uses the two best approaches for building strong foundational reading skills-blending and segmenting. Experienced reading teachers know that these skills are very effective for building strong reading skills.
This app does a good job of helping children practice those skills. It has been helping my students become better readers. It also helps my students reinforce their letter sound associations. At times it uses unfamiliar words, but it never asks the user to identify such a word without an accompanying picture.

### 5/5 — Perfect for children to learn reading the right way!

*2015-03-17*

This update is excellent, especially with the addition of great explainations of what blending and segmenting are and how important these are for building a firm foundation. Preschool U's apps are the only ones I found that actually teach children the proper way to learn to read. I love the updated interface and games. Keep up the good work!!!

### 1/5 — Used to be good

*2015-02-17, version 6.0*

The most recent update took away the only useful stuff for my pre-k classroom that was available. Now it's pointless to have...deleting.

### 4/5 — Valuable, but flawed for PreK-2 Instruction

*2013-04-02*

Great app for phonemic awareness and phonics, but the words used are frequently not within a preschooler's listening or speaking vocabularies, which makes some of the items quite challenging and instruction ineffective.  Even in this video, we see the reading of the word "hull" and then a picture of grain.  How many preschoolers have heard or will use the word "hull" with any frequency?  Updating this app with more appropriate words for PreK-2nd grade children would improve it's effectiveness.

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback! We truly appreciate your insights as they help us improve our app for young learners.

We want to share that since your review, our app has undergone two significant upgrades. These updates include enhancements that aim to better align with the vocabulary levels of preschoolers.

While some programs utilize nonsense words to teach reading, we chose to focus on real, albeit less common, words. Our intention is to enrich children's vocabulary by introducing them to new terms in a fun and engaging way. Learning new words can be a valuable experience, helping to expand their language skills.

We also want to emphasize that our app's auditory features ensure that children never have to guess the meaning of a word. The app will always provide clear audio guidance for each word, helping children connect the spoken word with its visual representation.

In our development process, we used all the common words available in English that could be visually represented and fit the CVC word pattern. To provide a broader learning experience, we included some uncommon words as well. These uncommon words are conveniently placed in a separate tab, allowing parents and educators to choose whether to engage with them or focus solely on more familiar vocabulary.

Thank you again for your feedback! We’re committed to continually improving our app to support the learning journey of every child.

### 4/5 — good

*2013-01-06, version 4.5*

i appreciate this app a lot. it helps my lil sister and its not join to replace traditional learning.

### 3/5 — It's ok.

*2013-01-04, version 4.5*

It's a good learning tool for kids. The layout is a bit dull, I think it could be more colorful. It's also very easy to use.

## Frequently asked questions about READING MAGIC

### What is Reading Magic - Learning to Read?

Reading Magic - Learning to Read is an educational app designed to help young children learn to read. It focuses on CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words and uses interactive games and activities based on the science of reading to build essential literacy skills.

### What are the key features of this reading app?

The app emphasizes phonemic awareness, phonological processing, and provides practice in blending and segmenting skills. It specifically focuses on CVC words and uses engaging games to reinforce learning, while discouraging reliance on picture guessing.

### How much does Reading Magic - Learning to Read cost?

The app is free to download and use. However, it offers a deluxe version with additional features like lesson tracking and a sequenced curriculum, which is available through an in-app purchase.

### Who is the target audience for this app?

This app is ideal for young children who are just beginning to learn reading skills. It is also beneficial for children who are acquiring English as their second language and need to build foundational reading abilities.

### What makes this app different from other reading apps?

This app is developed by educators using accelerated learning techniques and Montessori principles. It strongly focuses on the science of reading, including crucial skills like blending and segmenting, and discourages picture guessing to foster true reading comprehension.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 6.9 — 2026-07-08

BIG USER INTERFACE UPGRADE The layout has been completely refreshed for maximum visual clarity, ensuring a cleaner, distraction-free environment that helps early readers focus entirely on learning. The Navigation system has been clarified and simplified for easier navigation.

CRITICAL PERFORMANCE & SOUND FIXES
We heard your feedback and have completely resolved the crashing and silencing bugs reported in previous versions. This build delivers rock-solid performance, steady system stability, and completely reliable audio playback so your child can practice their letter sounds entirely interruption-free.

NEW 4-CHOICE GAME OPTIONS Both the Blending and Decoding games now feature an expanded four-choice mode. This gives children more variety and repetitive practice opportunities to build robust phonemic awareness.

CUSTOM BLENDING SPEEDS You now have direct control over playback. New speed options let you slow down or speed up the sound blending delivery to match your child's exact learning pace.

If you love these new features and seeing your child thrive, please take a moment to leave us a review!
Reviews REALLY help small developers, and your feedback is much APPRECIATED.

### 6.8 — 2024-09-24

User interface has been upgraded.
If you like this app, please leave a review.
Reviews REALLY help.
Reviews are much APPRECIATED.

### 6.4 — 2015-11-07

This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.

We used creative programming to reduce overall file size of the app.

If you like READING MAGIC, please take the time to give us a nice review: it really helps.

### 6.2 — 2015-08-04

We upgraded for the latest iOS and for the iiPhone 6.
More background options and more letter color choices were added.

### 6.0 — 2015-02-12

Upgraded User Interface.
Upgraded App flow.
Clearer Concept Implementation.

If you like READING MAGIC, please take the time to give us a nice review: it really helps.

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## More apps by PRESCHOOL UNIVERSITY

- [ABC MAGIC PHONICS](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abc-magic-phonics/id404048724)
- [ABC MAGIC PHONICS 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abc-magic-phonics-2/id411576364)
- [ABC MÁGICO Abecedario](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abc-magico-abecedario/id418049164)
- [ABC MÁGICO 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abc-magico-2/id425013436)
- [ABC SPELLING MAGIC](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/abc-spelling-magic/id429301553)

All apps by PRESCHOOL UNIVERSITY: https://appshunter.io/developer/404048727

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-27.*