Review & Giveaway: Letters A to Z iPod Touch and iPhone App from True Learning

I know we are spoiled to have an iPhone. Generally, we’ve tried to keep it from our almost-3-year-old’s hands since, true to form, she is quicker at technology than we are (ok, I am). This was a great find and worth giving your iPhone to your child!

The Letters A to Z App is a benign way to let Anastasia get her hands on Daddy’s phone, and a great way to have her learn. It was also a great distraction when Adam was getting a chest x-ray at the doctor’s office and Anastasia had to stay in the hall outside with the nurse (who Anastasia schooled in using this App).

This iPhone application has a cartoon-animated image with accompanying sound for each letter of the alphabet. Anastasia has learned how to get to “her game” by herself and can manipulate it easily and deftly. She thinks some of the images are hysterical: the “F” frog swallowing a fly; and some she just finds entertaining: the “E” elevator and “G” golfer. The characters are cute and not those wierd looking "things" that some companies think appeal to children.

Click read more below to see my full review and giveaway details!


True Learning also has curriculum for other "early learning" and development- all in this same hands-on fashion. They will soon be coming out with a new App called Letter Match which builds on this alphabet learning by allowing children to match letters and phonic sounds in a spatial game. True Learning is also working on issuing a pre-math App to be called "Counting 1 to 20". So, be on the lookout for more learning fun in the near future!

The Letters A to Z is too easy to review, because it is easy, cheap, effective, and a distraction for kidd-o when necessary. This App lets Anastasia be independent and out of trouble, all at once! My formal review is below, each category of four stars.

Functionality: ****- Easy for a child to understand and use. Teaches the alphabet and basic use of technology (OFF of the internet!). It's fun for her to play with and the pictures keep Anastasia interested. My only suggestion is that there could be more than one “scene” for each letter- this would keep the application fresher, longer (from a parent's perspective- Anastasia has not noticed the repetition).

Ease of Use: ****- Anastasia, at under 3, took to this like a duck to water. She can slide from letter to letter and activate the sound/action without a problem. There was only one thing that we found difficult: to download this App, we had to download it to a computer and then to the iPhone- we were not able to do it directly to the iPhone.

Price: ****- Other than the price of an iPhone (let’s not go there), this is an inexpensive application to download- it’s just 99 cents. That’s cool!

Overall Score: ****- I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone with young kids and an iPhone.

Congratulations to Shelly - the winner of the Letters A to Z iPhone App!

If you'd like to win a free download of this fun Letters A to Z iPhone App from True Learning, you are in luck because you can win this and more! The good people at True Learning are also offering to give away a copy of the True Learning Curriculum CD! Please visit the True Learning website to look at all of their curriculum topics and sample pages. Come back here to KBP to tell us which one interests you the most and why. All entries must be received by the end of the day on June 15, 2009. Please follow this link to see our official rules for this giveaway.