Pirate Phonics 1 vs Phonics Connections

Rated 5/5 and Recommended by educationalappstore.com, official advisor to the Tablets for Schools scheme. Pirate Phonics offers fun and Phonics for kids who are just learning to read/recognise letters and simple CVC words. Pirate phonics uses the concept of a child’s dream about pirates as the theme of an educational game to develop skills in the basic phonics. It is a very large App which uses 5 ‘treasure islands’ with a ‘phonic’ route map across each island to recover the treasure stolen by Blackbeard the pirate. Each phonic is introduced by a pirate with ‘phonic challenges’. By passing the challenges coins are collected and the child heads towards where Blackbeard has hidden the treasure. Each island is completed when the children use phonic challenges to open the treasure chest, but of course that’s not the end! Pirate Phonics has been designed to support the first stages of phonic learning over an extended period, at least several weeks. Each phonic is emphasised through the use of several ‘picture words’ which are deliberately read slowly by the narrator. Once a phonic has been unlocked and learned the child can revisit that island and phonic at any time. The whole app introduces more than 300 words! The 5 Treasure Islands introduce the phonics 1 at a time before using blends to form simple words (mainly CVC). Phonics introduced in this App include: •s a t p d •n m i g o •c e u r h •k b f l j •v w x y z •ck ff qu ss zz •ll ch sh th ng th If your child just wants to learn words related to any individual phonic then that can be selected from the ‘extras’ area on the start screen without going through every island. Pirate Phonics 2 is also available now, with even more focus on blending, word building and reading groups of words!

Get your kids on the right track for reading with Phonics Connections. The app contains motivating word games where the goal is to match vowel sounds to blanks in a word that describes a picture. This app is for beginning readers. Each of the activities feature color pictures illustrating words with short vowels, long vowels, special sounds like ar, or, er, ir and ur. In addition some of the words in the activities use the ou, ow, au, aw, and oo vowel sounds. The app is designed to help students learn to read with ease and confidence. A connection from the vowel sound to the picture and word can be made using a finger, pointer, or Apple Pencil. Once the correct connection is made the word is pronounced and spelled using synthetic speech. At $1.99 the app is a great value and will provide a variety of learning experiences for young readers.