New & Featured App Reviews

The Sight Word Adventure App Review

Kathryn Jenkins April 23, 2015

App Overview

The Sight Word Adventure is a fun app that teaches children to recognize, read, and write up to 320 sight words. It contains 11 mini-games that have various sight words integrated through out the activities. Sight words might be hard to sound out, or have a confusing spelling. For that reason, memorizing these words can help. The developers of this app chose a lot of words based on research studies and chose activities that would help children to memorize on sight. They included 320 words across 5 levels. All of the learning games are very different and they all work on unique elements for reading or writing. This app was developed by Seven Academy. They offer a lot of different and unique early learning apps that help children have fun and progress at the same time.

App Features

There is a lot to do within this app. When you first get to the main menu, you can choose a level. The app really suits children from preschool to 3rd grade so using the levels helps set the child up for success. After you have chosen a level, the child can choose to practice reading, writing, or play hide and seek with the kangaroo. To play hide and seek with the kangaroo, the child will click on the kangaroo and she will go to hide. The child will scroll through the screen, clicking on various objects, and trying to find her. Once the child finds her, he or she will collect more sight words to put in their treasure box. It’s a fun and easy game and after a few rounds of hide and seek, the kangaroo will navigate the child back to a learning game.

One thing that I did notice is that there are some waiting and loading times throughout the games, menus, and activities. This might cause some anxiety or distraction but the wait times aren’t terrible and once they get to the games and know what they are waiting for, it will likely be okay.

The parent features are some of the best I have seen. You will find the settings in the main menu where you would choose the level. They do require a multiplication problem for access which prevents little ones from playing with the settings. I love that the navigation menu for setting everything up is simple, and easy to figure out. The features include being able to add in your own custom words, and track your child’s progress. You can view the progress by level. It gives you a lot of data for each child. It also lists the total amount of time they have played the app. To create different accounts for different children, you will need to sign up for an account within the settings. Once you have done that, you can login each child and then see their individualized progress over time. Another great resource for this app is the curriculum manual. You will find this in the parent settings menu as well. The manual discusses the purpose of the app, how to use it, and what other educational resources can compliment it. I highly recommend checking that out because it discussed in great detail how the app can help your child and how to use it effectively.

Reading

In the reading door, you will find 6 different games that encourage reading, and sight words. Some are easier than others. A child may become frustrated if they start one that is too hard. Children with fine motor delays may struggle with a few of these games. It may be a good idea for the parent to take a look at the app first so that they can help the child navigate where they should start. The games to choose from are: Balloons, Bingo, Whack-a-Mole, Silly Song, Memory Match, and Construction. They are all educational games that work on building, matching, and memorizing words.

Writing

Inside the writing door is very similar to the reading door. It has 4 learning games to choose from. They are completely different games than the reading ones. You will be able to choose from: Bear’s Maze, Letter Scramble, Speed Racer, and Type Writer. Bear’s Maze and Letter Scramble are a lot easier than Speed Racer and Type Writer. The Type-Writer game requires the child to hear a word and try to spell it. Bear’s Maze offers more support in that they step the child through each letter.

What’s Great About This App

Overall, I think that The Sight Words Adventure app is clever, fun, and definitely will improve reading or writing skills for children. I think that this app would benefit children between the ages of 3 to 8 years of age. Your child can grow and develop within the app for a long time before they will master everything which is great. I love the bright colors and fun activities. Both of my kids loved the Balloon game and the Speed Racer game. I would love to see shorter load times between games in the future. I absolutely the parent settings and the ability to add custom words within the games and activities. I also love that I can view the data of progress for child. Be sure to check out The Sight Words Adventure app for your child today!

The Seven Academy website provides children with early learning activities on the iPad. At the time of writing this review, The Sight Word Adventure retailed for $1.99.

Buy The Sight Word Adventure in the App Store

A fun app for teaching kids to learn, recognize, read, and write up to 320 sight words.