ABC: Look. Listen. Write.

When I first purchased my iPad on launch day, I was very optimistic.  This was the device that was going to help me read more books, carry less laptops, and – *cough cough* – watch more Netflix.  And in many ways, the “magical” iPad has delivered on that promise.  For some strange reason, I do find myself reading more books, I will only bring my iPad with me on Thanksgiving, as opposed to a full-fledged laptop, and I definitely watch more Netflix!  What hadn’t occurred to me is that this thing could be a really good educational tool for our three boys, too.

So, my 4-year old and I decided to browse the iTunes App Store one fine morning, and came across ABC:  Look.  Listen.  Write. We decided to make the $1.99 plunge, and purchased the 67.6 MB app.

ABC:  Look.  Listen.  Write. was developed by Tangorang Labs, a self-described “team of semi-domesticated orangutans dedicated to spreading the fun through original and innovative mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad.”  I took a brief look at their site (which is rather cute), and they offer several other apps as well.

Anyway, we sat down and started our ABC:  Look.  Listen.  Write. adventure.  And for the most part, it was a fun journey.  Whenever I review educational apps, I like to look at the functionality, and of course, what kind of educational value the app offers, but just as important, I try to pay careful attention to the “independence” factor, too.  For example, my 4-year old doesn’t read yet, but that didn’t stop him from being able to figure out how to get started with this app, thanks to the simple splash screen accompanied with a very obvious “Start” button.

Once you enter the app, it really is quite easy for a child to figure this process out.  The whole alphabet is presented to you, and the helpful voice prompts tell you to touch on a letter to get started.  Again, that all important “independence” factor!

After deciding which letter to tap on (that was easily a 2-3 minute process for us), you have several options available to you.  Initially, the screen will show you the letter you selected, a picture of something that represents that letter, and the lovely voice prompts will read to you as well (”K is for Knight”, etc…).  You can tap the speaker icon to hear the voice prompt again, tap the arrows to navigate through other letters, tap the pencil to enter the “tracing mode” (more on that in a minute), and there is also a home button that will return you to the letter selection screen.  So far, so good!

The “tracing mode” feature of this app is pretty well done.  It’s nothing fancy, but it doesn’t need to be, does it?  You are given a simple outline of a letter, and with just the dragging of a finger, you can trace that letter over and over again.  You can clear the screen to start over, tap the speaker to hear the letter and word combination again, navigate through other letters, flip back over to the word/picture combination screen, and head back to that letter selection screen.  Easy-peezy!  And, perhaps most importantly, this app was able to harness my son’s attention for over 10 minutes – which is quite an accomplishment.

There are a few improvements, to the “tracing mode” in particular, that would make this app even better.  My son can easily trace within the outlines of a given letter, but he doesn’t necessarily do it in the right order.  Some directional arrows of some sort would be a helpful addition for teaching kids how to create letters, rather than just learning how to outline them.  Also, when you are in trace mode, my son became frustrated because at times, when he attempted to trace a letter, he pressed one of the navigational buttons by mistake, which switched him to a different letter.  I don’t know exactly how to improve upon this, and it may have been the way he was holding the iPad.  One item that I found somewhat humorous was the words that were sometimes chosen to represent a given letter.  Maybe I am not as refined as I should be (maybe I need to read more books on my iPad), but when I think of the letter “F”, I think of “Flag”, or “Firetruck” – not Film Noir. I still chuckle at that one!

But overall, I found this to be a really solid app, and I highly recommend giving it a try.  $1.99 perhaps is a little pricey, but with a few refinements, I think that price would likely be well worth it.  Kudos to that team of semi-domesticated orangutans!