DK 5 Words vs Penwick

5 Words a Day is a series of illustrated vocabulary books for children that teach and test five new words each day, for five days a week, over the course of one year. Learn to read and speak more than 1,000 words. The 5 Words app provides offline access to the audio recordings that accompany the print books. The app contains approxmiately 45 minutes of high-quality audio per title. Please note that the 5 Words app is designed to support printed course books. For more information, visit dk5words.com. An internet connection is required to download audio content. For DK's English language courses visit dkefe.com, where you can view courses for both adults and children.

Penwick teaches cursive / joined-up handwriting the way schools teach it: one letter family at a time, starting with how the letter is formed. Most handwriting apps look at the shape a child leaves behind. Penwick watches how they made it. Where the pen started, which way it travelled, whether it lifted in the middle of a letter, whether the exit came back down to the line. A tidy-looking "a" drawn backwards is still a backwards "a", and it causes trouble the moment your child tries to join it to something. WHAT YOUR CHILD DOES - Writes on a proper four-line stave, with a stylus or a finger - Works through the letter families in the order schools use them: the straight letters, the anti-clockwise family, the clockwise family, the diagonals - Moves on to joins, then words, then sentences and short stories - Earns their way through activity maps, two mini-games and an eight-land Story Quest ONE THING AT A TIME When a letter falls short, Penwick picks the single worst thing about it, replays the correct formation stroke by stroke, and says one sentence. Not a list of five corrections. A five-year-old reads none of a list. BUILT WITH A TEACHER Every lower-case letter, and the joins behind dozens of common words, was recorded stroke by stroke by a qualified primary teacher rather than pulled out of a font. It is why the joins move like handwriting instead of like letters pushed together. KEPT, MONTH BY MONTH Penwick keeps your child's actual writing, not just a score. Every month shows their real work oldest to newest, so you can see January against June, tap any piece to watch it redrawn stroke by stroke, and print a keepsake page. It stays on the device, for years. FOLLOWS THE CURRICULUM Letter families in Year 1, joins from Year 2, in line with the national curriculum for England. Useful anywhere cursive is taught. MADE FOR HOW CHILDREN ACTUALLY HOLD A TABLET One finger always writes. Scrolling is a side slider or two fingers, so a hand resting on the screen never sends the page flying. Five writing sizes, because a five-year-old and a nine-year-old do not need the same line. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT No accounts and no adverts. Your child's writing, their scores and their profile stay on the device. Only three things ever leave it: referral codes if you share one, the weekly leaderboard, and anonymous usage counts. All three are switchable in Settings, and every detail is at penwick.app/privacy. FAMILY SUBSCRIPTION, FREE TO START The full lowercase alphabet, the assessment and 45 practice sittings are free, with no locks mid-alphabet, ever. A single family subscription unlocks every word, sentence, story and the Story Quest for everyone in the house, with 7 days free before anything is charged. Cancel any time in the App Store. Privacy policy: https://penwick.app/privacy/ Terms of use: https://penwick.app/terms/