ABC Gurus Reviews

Flawed Sounds for Some Letters

Gayle451

I am a special education teacher in the United States. I read a review of this app in Children's Technology Review and decided to download it. As a teacher, I feel that I should what I view as flaws in what is otherwise a very good app. The sound that you have for the letter A sounds more like the O sound as heard at the beginning of the word octopus instead of the sound that is heard at the beginning of apple. The sound that you have for the letter I sounds very much like the E sound that would be heard in eagle instead of the sound that is heard at the beginning of egg. Also for the letter Z you have the Canadian pronunciation Zed instead of the saying Zee like what is used in the U.S. Once changes are made to correct these errors, I would give this app 5 stars.

Touch the screen to stop game crashing

Robigan74

I saw this game was crashing when you open it then found out if you touch the screen as soon as it opens it doesn't crash. Could be a problem from the latest iOS update like I saw in other games

My toddler repeats the letter sounds

Coulbean

This app is a rather simple educational app for teaching letter sounds. My two year old has been able to recognize letters since before his second birthday so we've been looking for ways to further advance his knowledge and work towards early reading skills. He will color and decorate the letters and repeat the sounds as he does so. My criticism is the video ad on the opening screen. It's colorful and catchy, easily accessible by my toddler and has no option to be turned off or removed. He loves this video and is easily distracted from the letters to watch it repeatedly. He is unable to go to the App Store thanks to a lockout function that requires reading to bypass. This video is a distraction in an otherwise clever early education app. It also took me weeks to explore the settings and change the language from the default U.K. English to English. Not a big deal, but a lot of his reading apps have British accents and I think this could be confusing when learning letter sounds. Check your settings!