"buy now" *****
“Brilliant app my wee boy started school and gets phonics homework I can use this on the go without carrying books plus most books you but are uppercase and you can't beat 59p more enjoyment that you would out a sweet at that price plus it helps the develop further xxxx ”
By: Tinkerbell (UK iTunes Store, 29 August 2009)
"Mom" *****
“Great app! My 6 year old just loves it!”
By: Biodieselmom (US iTunes Store, 29 August 2009)
"Abc pocketphonics" *****
“This app is nice I really like how you learn the sounds and than they put them into a game with the words.”
By: Lolo 88 (US iTunes Store, 29 August 2009)
"ABC Phonics" *****
“Great for teaching letter sounds”
By: Rbrown9262 (US iTunes Store, 27 August 2009)
"Great app!" ***
“Very impressed. I had to sit through it with my son for the first few tries to show him what to do. Needs a automatic prompt for the kids after they finishing tracing the letters to be more kid friendly. Even my second grader enjoyed it as a review.”
By: Bellaydiego (US iTunes Store, 24 August 2009)
"Great" ****
“My 3 year old loves it!”
By: Nizzle1212 (US iTunes Store, 23 August 2009)
"Mom" *****
“My daughter struggles with spelling and sounds. She enjoys this app and really likes that she can listen to the sounds with a UK accent and write in cursive.”
By: LeAnn Carr (US iTunes Store, 21 August 2009)
"Fantastic" *****
“Really helping my 4 year old grasp letters and pronounciations”
By: Gooner uk (UK iTunes Store, 20 August 2009)
"PocketPhoncs" ****
“This App was good before, the update has made it excellent. Thoroughly recommended.”
By: diggerdug (UK iTunes Store, 19 August 2009)
"Improvements have been Excellent!" *****
“Wow! When I first bought this App, I would have given it 1 or 2 stars. It was a bit rusty. But the producers have been *amazingly* responsive to feedback, and it has steadily improved. I can honestly say now, that this is a polished and brilliant game for kids to learn phonics with. It's absolutely wonderful! Easily gets 5 stars now. Thank you producers!”
By: Thing5 (US iTunes Store, 18 August 2009)
"Nearly perfect!!" ****
“Just needs the font to be a San serif and it would be brilliant! The serifs are making the writting more tricky than it needs to be.”
By: Tomkatfish (UK iTunes store, 15 August 2009)
Good news: the release to improve the fonts as you describe will go live soon.
"Awesome go learning to read" *****
“Great app”
By: World harvest (US iTunes store, 15 August 2009)
"PocketPhonics" **
"Need More Feedback" **
"Wonderful learning tool" *****
“My daughter is going into kindergarten and this app has really helped her learn the sounds that go with each letter and how to put sounds together to form a word. It is very convenient to pull this out when she starts getting bored. She enjoys it, too. The updates have really helped the sound quality.It is definitely a good tool for preparing kids for kindergarten. “
By: Student (nursing) (US iTunes store, 11 August 2009)
"Almost perfect" ****
“My 4 yr old loves this app. It's probably the best app I have downloaded and the only one I have ever bought the full version of. One improvement I would like to see is for the app to recognise when an error has been made on the writing sounds part. This is only a small observation though, it's completely fantastic.”
By: Tattoo Gaz (UK iTunes store, 1 August 2009)
Many thanks for your very kind words. The improvement you describe is on the to-do list.
"Fantastic!!" *****
“I've had this application for several months now and have to say that it has improved greatly from when I fist downloaded the pencil & pen people make it fun & the voice sounds are clear this has helped my daughter so much with her spelling & reading”
By: Higgy72 (UK iTunes store, 29 July 2009)
"Thanks" *****
“Amazing app. My son (3) loves it”
By: Sutty22 (UK iTunes store, 29 July 2009)
"Great app" *****
“Amazing app. My 3 year old loves it.”
By: Hfdtyjncxddty (UK iTunes store, 23 July 2009)
"Great little program for preschoolers" ****
“My son loves tracing the letters and repeating the sounds. It's worth spending the small amount to get the full version. Much more comprehensive than the lite version. Great learning tool and good for kids entertainment at doctors waiting rooms etc.”
By: Clikchic (Australia iTunes store, 22 July 2009)
"Excellent" *****
“Educational and fun. My grandson loves it and it's good to see the continual improvements.”
By: Cyn29 (UK iTunes store, 22 July 2009)
"Good stuff!" *****
“Fantastic, my daughter loves "playing" I love the fact she is learning too”
By: spj99a (UK iTunes store, 20 July 2009)
"Good for ESL, too." *****
“I found the app useful for ESL students. I found the game useful to understand the sounds by repitition. I hope the developer create ESL version by addting pronunciation symbols and grouping the sounds accordingly. Furthermore, it would be even more helpful if we can choose and compare the similar and complicated sound to us by listening as many times as we want .”
By: Yuyuyuki (Japan iTunes store, 20 July 2009)
Some interesting ideas here for me to add to the list. Many thanks for this.
"Great idea but...."****
“Some of the letter formation is incorrect and needs to be addressed i.e capital k you must take the pen off and write the ‘kicks’ seperately. Other than this it's great value and a wonderful tool for practising what's learnt in reception and year 1(as long as it is reinforcing the correct formation!) - mother of 3yr & 6yr old and also a primary school teacher.”
By: Bitzee10 (UK iTunes store, 19 July 2009)
Err, yes, you’re right. Sorry about that! I’ll get those fixed for the next release. Unfortunately, I failed to double-check some of the uppercase formations with our own resident primary school teacher!
"Has improved, new suggestion from teacher" ****
"XXX" *****
“Brilliant app. I bought it to teach my daughter since she always has my iphone. Very good value for money X”
By: Babyama (UK iTunes store, 17 July 2009)
"Good" ****
‘Good for my son to learn this. And would you mind make one more Iike "Mandarin" Pin Yin" I mean "b p m f" Is much work for everyone wanner work in China.’
By: Mother vivi (Hong Kong iTunes store, 16 July 2009)
Pin Yin (the use of roman letters to represent mandarin letter sounds) is something I know very little about. It sounds interesting though, but probably something I’d need to find someone to help me with.
"Great update!" ****
“Thanks for the update, looks much better on the eye, and makes it all the more interesting for my kids.I would like to see lots more words added in future updates and maybe a setting to choose how many questions to do. Or atleast how many questions are left would suffice
”
By: Rhartmedia (UK iTunes store, 16 July 2009)
Like the idea of showing how many questions left to do. I’ll add it to the list.
At some point, I’ll make another batch of around 130+ words available. The cost of providing this though means I’ll have to make an additional charge for these extra words for those who want them.
"Worth it" ****
“Very good app my 5 year old daughter loves it.Updates are great and useful.keep up the good work”
By: ak33lsolid (UK iTunes store, 16 July 2009)
"Great App - even better with the upgrade" *****
“My four year old in reception year loves this app. The new interface looks great.”
By: owain73 (UK iTunes store, 16 July 2009)
"Fab app, my daughter loves it!!"
“Fab application just got even better. Now it's all bright, clear and cheerful, as well as being great revision for all of the phonics they do at school!”
By: Musickluvva (UK iTunes store, 16 July 2009)
"Great but could be better" *****
"Great application" ****
“Helped my little daughter who is in first grade excel in sounds. Thanks for improved sound, colour and animation quality, daughter likes it even more. I only recommend more combinations and drills added for tion, sion, ci, more”
By: elzan (Canada iTunes Store, 15 July 2009)
"Fantastic!!" *****
“Fab app my boy can't leave it alone!!”
By: LeonDee!! (UK iTunes Store, 15 July 2009)
"Excellent" *****
“Very useful. Please add more words !”
By: Dot P (US iTunes Store, 15 July 2009)
Additional words are definitely something I’d like to offer. There’s about 170 words in PocketPhonics. It does though cost a lot to add more words. There’s the hire of the recording studio and voices plus a very lengthy editing process to get the individual sound files set-up correctly. And, that’s before any programming costs.
Thus, I think this is something I’ll have to charge extra for.
"Rhino" *****
“Awsome app for the kids. Kids actually learning on a iPhone is just phenomenal”
By: TARA4LIFE (US iTunes Store, 15 July 2009)
"Great app, my 4 year old loves it" ****
“I'd love to see a feature where the word is spoken and then you have to spell rather than the program telling you how to spell it outright. All in all, this app will help any young reader who uses it.”
By: Aseaga (US iTunes Store, 13 July 2009)
Well, I like that idea! It goes further than I’d been planning, but I think it’d work well. I’m afraid though, it will be a little while before I tackle it. I’ve several other burning requests in the pipeline that I’ve made promises on. And, I’m getting ever closer to finishing off my next app.
Hopefully though sometime in the Autumn, there’ll be some striking improvements in this area.
"Well designed, excellent value for money" *****
“Four year old loves using the app”
By: Gillpa (UK iTunes Store, 12 July 2009)
"Improvements have been Excellent!" ****
“Keep up the awesome work producers! When I first bought this App, I would have given it 1 or 2 stars. With the Amazing improvements you all have made, it easily gets 4 stars now. Thank you! One thought for improvement: Although it doesn't bother me at all, because I find cursive useless, the so-called cursive letters are the exact same as the printed letters. Personally, I wouldn't mind doing away with the cursive option and making some of the printed letters clearer. The lower case l, f, and j are a bit unusual, for example.”
By: Thing5 (US iTunes Store, 12 July 2009)
The next big item on the development schedule (once the new design is released) is to replace the font currently used with some new, custom fonts. Hopefully, this will deal with the issue you describe.
"Excellent" *****
“My four year old daughter loves playing it and it's helping her learn”
By: Top Toddy (UK iTunes Store, 2 July 2009)
"Wish list" ****
“I wished the letters were alphabetical so that the kids can know tht they are writing them in order. I like the tracing by computer and then the child traces. Good app”
By: Canuckprincess (Canada iTunes Store, 2 July 2009)
The order of the sounds is based around what’s the best order for learning to read. Thus it’s based around frequency of use and keeping apart sounds that children confuse if they learn them at the same time. For instance, many children confuse “b” and “d”, so these are deliberately kept apart.
UK parents might be interested to know that it’s pretty much the same order as used in the UK’s National Curriculum.
Obviously being able to apply alphabetical order is a useful skill to acquire. It’s one of the things that I hope our next app (Dot-to-dot) will help with.
"FANTASTIC!"
“I Just turned 49 June 22. I was NEVER EVER Tought this in school. Sad isn't it?”
By: USA Made? (US iTunes Store, 25 June 2009)
You are not alone, many of us weren’t taught phonics at school, because at the time it was considered “too boring”. Once though it became clear that reading standards were slipping, phonics started to make a comeback. Of course, it’s only part of the answer, but it is an important part.
The great thing about technology such as the iPhone is that it makes it possible to turn something previously deemed “too boring” into a fun, interactive game for kids.
Many thanks for your kind words.
"Great for beginner readers" *****
“This app has many many more sounds than the lite version - including the harder ch, sh, ng, igh and more!. My little girl really likes tracing the letters and saying the sounds. She asks to "play" phonics, and enjoys the simple games of listening to the sounds and making words. Good app for kindy kids.”
By: Mum of 5 y.o. (Australian iTunes Store, 24 June 2009)
"Letters and sounds" *****
“Broadly in line with letters and sounds from the primary national strategy (check online) it's so lovely to find an English accent. My kids love it! Good job. Matching sounds and sound pics next pls?”
By: Adenovirus (UK iTunes Store, 21 June 2009)
"Great learning game!"****
‘My 5 year old loves this! She said,"look, I am learning to read!"’
By: MarieGraham (US iTunes Store, 20 June 2009)
"Great app" *****
“Great app. My 5 year old enjoys playing with it.”
By: sashadimma (UK iTunes Store, 20 June 2009)
"GREAT !!!" ****
“Good app, just need more sounds like large and short for the vowels.”
By: Valolun (iTunes US Store, 19 June 2009)
Thanks for your kind words.
Just in case you’ve missed them, we do have the common vowel sounds. If you touch the right arrow to move between the different sets of sounds, you’ll come across the vowel sounds represented by two letters (like “ai”, “ea”, “ee” and so on). These are sometimes referred to as “long vowel sounds”. The short ones are just the single-letter sounds you’d expect to see.
We do miss some of the less common vowel sounds at the moment (for instance, “a” can make five or more different sounds depending on what word it is in). Often, these unusual cases are better taught as part of learning “tricky words” - words that are in common usage, but have unusual spelling. As yet, we’ve not tackled these, but they are on the to-do list.
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"Excellent learning aid for kids" *****
“I am using this app to teach a 3 year old who loves it especially drawing the alphabets. It is simple, easy to use. What more to say about this app that kids are loving and learning from this app.”
By: Go-Gator (UK iTunes store) 19 June 2009
"Very good but" ****
"Needs something more" ***
"No supplement for an interactive human" ****
"Impeccable Updated Version" *****
"Great app but one prob" *****
Macworld app of the day: PocketPhonics
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Tags: User review