Phonics Museum - Learn to Read

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We greatly enjoy this app and use it daily for our preschool-TK child in our homeschool. The past week or so the app has become unbearably slow and glitchy. Today, we had to restart it over 10 times to finish the lesson. That does something to the attention span and motivation of a 4 year old... Also I share the same concerns one reviewer described about the lack of “buy-in” for children that don’t look like William in the app. I would love to see some avatar choices that more fully represent all children. The girl avatar looks very much like our children, but more choices would go such a long way in making everyone feel seen, represented and valued. The learning program itself is top notch and I’m glad our 3rd child can do his own Veritas Press learning like his older brother and sister do with their self-paced courses.

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There really is potential here, but it needs more work. The data is stored server side, but as we progress the app takes up more and more space on our device and we have to delete it and reinstall from the App Store with greater and greater frequency. We are currently 18 letters in on part 1 of 2 for kindergarten. We are using the app in conjunction with the print curriculum, so still making progress but I kind of wish there was a parental way to skip lessons as we sometimes work through a good chunk on paper and it would help if I could progress from where we are rather than having every activity locked. At first my child was excited to do the lessons, but some of the listening ones like the jack in the box or pig laughing are getting old and she has started to refuse to do some specific ones. Also, the pronunciation of the phonic sounds includes a very strong shwa or a vowel, like saying rah for R rather than urh in songs and videos, which the written text instructs to be careful not to include. It’s frustrating to experience the contradiction.

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We absolutely LOVE Veritas Press products and self paced courses and have for years! They're a favorite around here! But I'm a little disappointed with this app so far. For the high cost, I was expecting more. We have encountered skips and freezes in the videos and games. For the short "a"sound, using anchor for an example of a word beginning with short a is confusing and somewhat frustrating. My four year old knows the three sounds A can make (short a, long a, and short o) and he is frustrated by having to drag the anchor picture over because in his mind, he hears the second sound of a, not short a. A better example word could've been chosen for the beginning short a sound. So, after using the app for a few days, there's so much to love - like the art, the host, and the music! For the steep price tag though, I'm a bit disappointed. I want to love it like I love the self paced courses but it's difficult to justify the price for me at this point.

For the purposes of this review, we are using the iOS Phonics Museum App on an iPad 2. I have been a part of the beta team, review team upon updates, and we still use this app today more than a year later with two students (one for review and one for learning). I do have a full review on my blog with pictures and details for those interested. Search Creative Madness Mama Phonics Museum iOS App Review. We started with the physical Phonics Museum materials, merged to using the app with the materials and now with my youngest we just use the app. However as his motor skills improve I do plan to have him go through the physical materials to review what he is mastering through the app. I LOVE this Phonics Museum app. My only issue is that it is only available on the iOS platform. My children in general are much better moderated on a Kindle Fire in FreeTime mode and thus I hope and pray they will release an Android/Kindle Fire app.

We have tried many phonics programs, but the Veritas Press Phonics Museum exceeds them all. Why an app? The answer is easy: a paper phonics program can't provide auditory input! Many phonics products focus on visual cues, leaving the parent and child to decode letters on their own. But in the Phonics Museum app, Miss Biddle -- via high-quality recorded video -- demonstrates proper letter sounds. She guides the child through how to voice the letters and blends, even instructing the child how to shape his/her mouth and tongue to properly pronounce each sound. This pronunciation coaching aspect makes this app stand out vividly among the competition. The games encouraging listening and decoding by ear, not just by sight only. Extremely valuable, especially for kids who need a bit of coaxing to pronounce sounds clearly!