I’ve been on the hunt for a while for a reading app for my youngest daughter. So when I was asked to review this one, it came at just the right time. Miss A (7) hasn’t really got the reading bug, that her sister had from an early age, so I’ve been looking at different ways to encourage her to read, just a little bit every day. Something has really clicked recently, thanks to her school having a new library built, and a sponsored read. So I wanted to use that impetus, and see if I could add another level of reading to it. Like most children her age, she loves using the iPad, so that’s why I thought eBookadabra would be a good one for her to try.
eBookadbra is a “one-stop” solution for children’s reading designed for kids between the ages of 3 and 7. The app allows kids to read hundreds of books from leading publishers such as Disney and Harper Collins. By doing so they unlock educational puzzles, games, collectable stickers and much more.
We’ve been trying it for around 1 week now, and overall we like it. I think my reservations in the beginning were that it seemed a little over complicated with all of the extra activities, I actually don’t think the app needs those, and MissA quickly discounted doing them, preferring to actually simply read the books that were available instead. I do however think it is good to have other types of literacy activities within the app, especially for reluctant readers.
You can set up a profile for yourself, as well as the child. Adding an avatar of their chosen animal and they also get to sign their name which Ava thought was very cool, and choose a theme. She really didn’t need any supervision when it came to choosing what books she wanted to read, and easily flicked through the pages. We downloaded some books for her to take on her next trip in the car, which worked really well too. You can download up to 15 I believe,to read offline, which is so useful especially for travel.
There are 100’s of book available, and they will be adding new ones too. Here are some of the genre’s they cover :
- Fairy Princess
- Adventures
- Animals
- Songs & Rhyme
- Vehicles
- Family & Friends
- Witches & Wizards
- Discover
- Dinosaurs
- School
- Films & TV
- Bedtime
- Aliens & Monsters
- Classic Tales
A good mix of styles, which I think is great to keep the kids interested, and encourage them to try new things.
Ok, lets look at the main features of the app :
- The ability for parents to record themselves reading the stories that their children are looking at
- A safe and secure messaging system that allows a child to talk to their parents about the progress they are making in app.
- An innovative visual search engine designed for kids that lets the use visual search terms to explore our library of books.
- The ability to save stories to your in-app library so you can enjoy them on the go.
- All of this is available for less than the price of a book a month £5.99 along with a 30 day free trial.
I would definitely recommend this to parents, especially with younger 3-5 years old children and reluctant readers as a great way to encourage children to read more. It’s a well made app, and great value when you consider the its the price of only one book, for a months worth of use.
Collaborative Post
Leave a Reply