fab find: bob books reading magic

The fabulous minds at at Bob Books and Learning Touch have teamed up an app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that puts the Dick and Sally word workbooks I suffered through in kindergarten to shame...

{{Remember those books? Yeah. Stimulating. My thoughts exactly. Did anyone else not care where Dick was running?}}

Here's where I geek out for a second. You all know that my background is in literacy development. But as a mom that believes in the power of play, I'm always wary about inundating my not-yet-two-year-old with flash cards or apps that simulate flash cards. Einstein never used them, right?

I love when learning and fun are fused purposefully -- and creatively -- through technology. Which is why I'm impressed with the Bob Books Reading Magic app. By blending animation, letter recognition exercises, letter-sound matching, touch screen technology and simple stories, the best selling Bob Books become more structurally interactive for emergent readers.

Pretty (cool).

Let me give you a concrete example: when a child correctly matches letter tiles to the word, the image goes from black and white to color. In my mind, this illustrates just how text comes to life when you're able to comprehend it. A very powerful message to send to developing minds.

The stories themselves are not -- well -- deep. Nor are the sentences complex. But they aren't supposed to be. Sentences are designed to teach word families and help developing readers recognize word patterns (i.e. "Sam had a cat." and "Mat sat.") Perfect for pre-schooler/early elementary readers, but the content might not be compelling if you have an older struggling reader at home.

You can download Volume 1 of the Bob Books Reading Magic App from iTunes for $1.99. Well worth it.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free download of Bob Books Reading Magic from Learning Touch in order to evaluate the product for review. All of the opinions expressed in this post are mine. That's (cool) progeny's promise to our readers: 100% honesty. If we didn't love it, we would never have shared it!