App Review: Dora ABCs Vol 1: Letters and Letter Sounds - Teaches Children on Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

Reviewed by Elena – I’m a SAHM who is trying to homeschool my 18 month old. I have a BA in Computer Science and Information Systems. My professional background is in quantitative analytics.

Details

The app has three practice modes or curriculums where children practice letters in uppercase, lowercase, both upper & lower cases and there is a picture to letter matching activity. The app allows for up to four user profiles. There is a report card for each profile that shows the percentage progress on each curriculum. The app is narrated by a child’s voice, Dora. This app is appropriate for young children just learning to write letters.

In the curriculums, the letter to be learned appears with a tracing outline that puts a skywriting plane at the start of an acorn studded path. The child uses the plane to trace the letters by following the acorn path. The letter sound is repeated as the child is tracing the letter. If the child’s tracing doesn’t follow the correct path then the incorrect trace disappears and the correct path is shown again. When the letter is correctly traced, the letter name and its sound is spoken. Then a shadow outline appears with empty acorn slots around the edges. The child has to drag acorns to fill the acorn slots thereby revealing a picture and word that introduces the sound of the just completed letter. The letter name, letter sound and item name is then spoken.

In the picture to letter matching activity, the child has to identify items that begin or end with a specified letter and drag them to a cloud. You can hear the word by tapping on the picture. If the child keeps picking the wrong pictures, an audio hint is given along with a blinking picture of a correct choice.

The app starts the player back at the letter they were last working on. However, there is an icon at the bottom of the screen that opens a window to choose any letter to work on.

What Elena Liked

Dora is a popular character which encouraged the kids to practice more. The app was very straight-forward and easy for little kids to use. There was no required navigation between letters. Once a letter was completed the next letter appeared.

The older kids loved flicking the acorn and watching it bounce around before settling into an empty spot. They thought that was much more fun than dragging each acorn around.

Suggested Enhancement

I would prefer that no data was being collected by the app.

I seem to have found an error in the report card feature. After I selected the letter X to work on because I wanted to see what word would be used, the report card incorrectly showed the curriculum as being 92% completed.