Reading instruction is especially important for young children. Reading helps children to be able to understand and learn about the world around them. With school closures across the country because of COVID-19, millions of children and parents are left with bringing school to their living rooms. Luckily, technology can help parents who are unsure of how to homeschool their children. Here is the best app to help improve reading for kids while at home.

What is the best app for phonemic awareness?

One of the best ways to improve your child’s reading skills is to improve their phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is being able to see letters and recognize the sounds those letters make. Your child should then be able to put together and recognize words based on these sounds.

Hooked on phonics – This app is based on a classic reading program that has been recommended for generations. The app version of the program makes learning to read interactive and fun for your child. They’ll never know how much they are actually learning as the app uses games to help your child become more familiar with sounds and letters. 

What is the best app for vocabulary building?

Along with improved phonemic awareness, vocabulary building is important to improve your child’s reading skills while at home. Vocabulary building is key for children to be able to understand actual sentences in a text. The first step in vocabulary building is often having your child learn sight words, which are the most commonly used words in a language.

Sight Words – Sight Words is a great app for young readers. Through a series of word games, your child learns new sight words and helps build their vocabulary to prepare for reading longer texts. By the end of third grade, your child should know over 300 sight words making it possible for them to read independently.

WordMaps – For older and more advanced readers, WordMaps is a great way for your child to learn new vocabulary words and learn a more advanced vocabulary using words they already know. Essentially an interactive thesaurus, WordMaps visual shows similar words and word forms of a word.

What is the best app for reading speed

Part of successful reading is being able to read at an appropriate speed. Being able to read faster comes from being able to recognize words quickly. Once your child’s vocabulary is improving they can also begin improving their reading speed.

ReadEye– ReadEye is a simple app that allows your child to improve their reading speed using whatever text they might be reading. All you need to do it is copy the text into the app and the text moves across the screen at the pace that you choose. Your child can increase or decrease the speed. This can help them to continue to improve their reading speed as their reading level increases. 

What is the best app for overall reading skills?

While all these apps target specific skills of reading, some children might benefit more from an app that targets all these reading skills at once.

Readability – This app is a great way to address various reading skills at once to give your child a more holistic experience to improve their reading skills. Readability basically works like a private reading tutor for your child. The app uses A.I. and speech-recognition technology to help give your child instant feedback that helps them improve their reading skills. Readability has a large library of original stories that your child can choose from and the library is constantly being updated with more. Your child has the option of having the app read the stories to them as they follow along or they can read the stories aloud while the app actually listens to them read. Readability is great for parents too because it provides progress reports so that you can keep track of your child’s progress.

Homeschooling your child right now is likely stressful and overwhelming. Many parents and students were unprepared for such a drastic change in education so quickly. However, thanks to apps like Readability, your child can still be learning while they are at home and actually improve their reading skills. Keeping your child on task with their learning outcomes right now is important so that they are prepared when they finally return to school.