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My 9-month-old son, Miles, could tap and swipe on an Apple iPad before he could wave or clap, and we've tried a number of kid-centric apps together. ABC Phonics Animals for iPad (from Brain Counts, which offers several like-minded graphical learning games) is by far my son's favorite. It's an educational children's app that teaches them to identify, say, and spell the names of animals.
The app is simple to use, even for a child. A left side scroll panel lets you choose from 50 different animals. Like his farm book, it shows pictures of animals—but when you touch a picture, the iPad plays real sounds from the corresponding creature, and a cartoon picture of the animal pops up in the center of the screen. A woman's voice clearly says the name of the animal: "Bee!" "Viper!" "Bear!"
Underneath the animal is the spelling of its name, which you can clearly trace in the color of your choice. You can also choose to trace the first letter of the animal name in both upper and lowercase.
The animal noises are fun, but if the animal is the silent type—like ants, for example—then nothing happens. This can be confusing to my son, who expects a noise from every animal.
The app also teaches primary colors. When you change the color of your writing instrument, the woman's voice clearly says "Yellow!" or "Red!" If you can't stand all the declarative words and animal noises, you can turn the sound off (although that kind of defeats the purpose).
ABC Phonics Animals for iPad costs $2.99 in the Apple App Store. There's also a free ad-supported version, but I don't recommend it; Miles kept inadvertently tapping the ads and closing the app, so I upgraded. It was worth it. You can also find an iPhone version (free or $1.99) and an Android version (free or $3.99).
—Natali Morris
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