Montessori Letter Sounds HD by Les Trois Elles Interactive

Montessori Letter Sounds HD by Les Trois Elles Interactive is an all-in-one app for learning to read, write and spell using the Montessori Method. It supports multiple student profiles and includes an option to have instructions in French as well.

Learning of the letter sounds (phonics) is done progressively and practiced in a variety of ways. Students start by listening to the different sounds in a word, learn the shapes of the letters corresponding to each sound, practice how to write them and then use them to form the words learnt in the app. These four steps are taught in four sections – I Spy, Letter Sounds, Mix & Match and Sound It Out. Each section provides a learning activity and a game with three progressive levels to reinforce the learning. Students play the games to earn marbles to unlock the next levels as well as new games.

I Spy
The student chooses from a total of 54 images to play the ‘I Spy’ game. Here, students become aware of the sounds at the beginning, middle or the end of the word. They will love to record themselves saying the word and check it against the answer, recording over and over again to their satisfaction. This recording feature together with the focus on different sounds contained in the word are great tools that help to improve my son’s articulation.

The vocabulary words introduced in this app are varied and a few longer and more difficult words are intentionally included to enrich the students’ vocabulary e.g. wapiti and xerus.  While I prefer the inclusion of more functional words instead, young children may like to learn these big names to impress! Images used are uniform in style and are attractive. It may be helpful for parent and teachers who are new to the app to go through all the words in the stand alone image box found in the tool box.

Letter Sounds

Students get to choose which letter sound they would like to hear and then learn to trace the letter. After tracing the letter, they can proceed to write the letter freely in the sandbox, complete with realistic sound and a rake to clear up. My son just loves to write in the sandbox as there is no restrictions and it gives him tremendous confidence to be able to form the letters before attempting to write on ruled/lined paper in the tool box.  In the game mode, students are asked to identify the correct letters and earn marbles to unlock the next levels.  They start with vowels only, then vowels with consonants and at the advanced level, phonograms are introduced.

Mix and Match
This game is unlocked by winning marbles in the first two games. In the learning mode, it highlights to students that they can hear and see each letter sound in the beginning, middle and at the end of words. It continues to build the students’ phonetic awareness by getting them to match the appropriate beginning letter sounds to the words/images presented. Here, students are also introduced to the upper case and cursive writing of each letter.

Sound It Out
Unlocked by playing ‘Mix and Match’, this activity allows children to form the words they learnt in the app using movable letters.  It starts with phonetic words of 3 letters or less, moving to phonetic words of 4 letters or more and then words with blends.  Students drag the letter sounds that they hear and place them onto the spaces provided.  The app allows multiple attempts for getting the right spelling without penalizing the wrong attempts.  If necessary, students can ask to see the answers.  They will have to know their sounds fairly well as the app does not say the sounds when the letters are touched and students need to be able to identify the individual sounds independently in order to meet this spelling challenge.

Tool Box

This app also includes a toolbox for easy access to:-
- phonetic alphabet (lower case, upper case, cursive and phonograms)
- notebook for tracing the individual letters
- sandbox to trace letters freely
- image box showing all the 54 images

Wishlist:-

• Option to easily unlock the ‘Mix & Match’ and ‘Sound It Out’ activities for individual student profiles in the Settings. More advanced students may then proceed directly to these activities without having to earn the required marbles to unlock them.
• Ability to choose which vocabulary words to be displayed in the ‘I Spy’ game.
• Inclusion of a separate activity in the toolbox to introduce the letter names and create awareness of the order of the alphabet letters.
• Begin by giving less hints for the ‘Sound It Out’ spelling activity e.g. have an option to hear the letter sound upon touching the letter, letters hints, etc. and then give progressive more hints before the answer is shown.

This is a very kid-friendly app.  It is voiced by a child, has a very motivating marble reward system and visually, it is very attractive, yet the overall design is non-distracting which is ideal for children with special needs.  Using an errorless learning approach, it encourages self-checking and correction.  In summary, this app is simply great, it offers a lot more than the typical Montessori Phonics app.  Systematic, comprehensive and progressive via multiple levels, Montessori Letter Sounds HD is a complete teaching app for beginner readers to become confident readers in their own pace. This Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner is the basic Montessori Phonics app that all young readers should have access to!

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Montessori Letter Sounds HD by Les Trois Elles Interactive Category: Education, Educational, Kids, Games Requirements: Compatible with all Size: 38.4 MB

$2.99USD

Montessori Letter Sounds HD - Learn French with Tam & Tao by Les Trois Elles Interactive Category: Education, Games, Educational, Kids Requirements: Compatible with all Size: 39.41 MB

$4.99USD

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Grace

Grace is a mother of 4 children aged from 6 to 18 years. She checks the daily free apps listing and is most excited to share good app finds. Living in fast-paced education-obsessed Singapore, Grace recharges her energy by watching K drama on the iPad (there are apps for that too!)

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You can email me direct at grace(at)theimums.com