Toddler Counting

It looks like a very basic app, and it is. But my 4 month old daughter (now almost 3 years) loved it. All it does is display a picture on the screen along with copies of the picture, and the child touches each one, in whatever order she wants. A number appears on each one touched counting higher and higher until all the pictures have been touched, and a voice calls out the number along with it. To toddlers, or at least my daughter, it was addicting, and when she started pre-preschool, she was the only kid who knew her numbers up to 20 (not sure if it goes beyond that, but for a 3-4 month old, I think that's pretty decent).

Counting items by touching each is a very natural way to count things, and so the visual and audio feedback on the item touched is a very natural way to teach counting that works well. I especially like how it does not enforce counting in a left-to-right-op-to-bottom order since that doesn't matter. So many children's apps enforce such arbitrary orders that only frustrate learning toddlers. This app was a refreshing break from that. It also wisely does not have any buttons on the screen for the child to accidentally press, interrupting the play by taking them to a settings screen or worse, to the app's website every time they accidentally touch it.

My son (20 months) loves this app! After only one week of playing it, my little guy (who hardly talks at all) tells me "One, two, three!" anytime someone starts counting. This app is very simple, but that is such a good thing for toddlers. My only complaint about the app is the robotic sound to the voice, which is really a minor complaint as my kid doesn't mind it at all. I also would have liked for there to be an applause sound along with the encouragements of "Bravo!" and "Good job!" All in all it is a fantastic app!!

Counting things well is an important skill -- it's been amazing to watch my child and her friends learn and get better at counting using this app. They are drawn naturally to touch the pictures, and when the pictures dim and numbers appear, they want to touch more -- the number symbols and the spoken words are great reinforcement. I like using this app way more than counting monkeys, flowers, ladybugs etc in printed board-books (although those are also fun)

My daughter is 16 months and enjoys this app quite a bit. It's not her favorite anymore since she recently got some fancier apps with lots of bells and whistles, but any time I go back to it she is in a number trace for at least 10 minutes. She can already count to 12, skipping 3 and 4 since those she can't say so well. I think this well made app really helped her learn so quickly.