Prince Phonetics HD for iPad

There are plenty of Reading iPhone and iPad apps for children but most stick to pronouncing B as “bee” rather than the phonic “ber”.

For children to really get the most out of an early years phonic education it’s best that they stick to that pronunciation only at the beginning.

(Of course they’ll probably be able to sing the alphabet by rote but for learning to read letters and how they’ll sound phonics has a lot going for it.)

Prince Phonetics HD is a very simple phonics iPad app that teaches the letter shapes and phonic sounds.

The clear English voice-over is by five-year-old Molly, aged 5. Thankfully it’s ‘Zed’ – I mean ‘zzz’ – rather than the American ‘Zee’.

It’s called Prince because it’s in blue, and generalists will be pleased that there’s also a Princess Phonetics HD app in – you guessed it – pink.

It’s great that the app shows both uppercase (capital) and lowercase letters, as children can get confused why there’s two different shapes and showing them together should help understanding.

You touch the individual letters to hear the letter sounds. It’s that easy.

It’s a shame you can’t use more of the iPad functionality – for instance, swiping to the next letter. The only options this app offers is to change the background to different types of blue.