Parents' Guide to Endless Reader

App iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad Free to try , Free Education
Endless Reader Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

Amanda Bindel By Amanda Bindel , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 5+

Super engaging, but an ineffective way to learn sight words.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 5+?

Any Positive Content?

  • Endless Reader App: Screenshot #1
  • Endless Reader App: Screenshot #2
  • Endless Reader App: Screenshot #3

Parent and Kid Reviews

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age 2+

Based on 5 parent reviews

 

 

See all 5 parent reviews
age 3+

Based on 1 kid review

 

 

See all 1 kid review

Privacy Rating Warning

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  • Unclear whether data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
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What's It About?

ENDLESS READER introduces kids to sight words and phonics with interactive animations that demonstrate the meaning of the words as well as how to spell them. Each word is presented as a card inside a monster's mouth. Kids scroll through the cards to choose the word they want to explore. When they tap the card, they'll hear the word and see it written before it gets scrambled up. Kids then use the outline of the word's letters to match the right letter and drag it into place in the word. As they touch the letter, they'll hear its phonetic sound and name. They'll then drag different sight words into place in a sentence. They'll hear the sentence read aloud and see a cute animation demonstrating the sentence. From there, kids can play around with the animation, tapping to see letters fly around, listen to the sentence again, or move on to another word and letter.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say ( 5 ):
Kids say ( 1 ):

The animations are adorable, and the illustrations demonstrating the meaning of the words are not only cute but effective. The word dog, for example, is drawn and colored to look like a dog. The problem comes in with the disparity between the idea of a sight word -- a word that is recognized without sounding it out -- and the phonetic sound for each letter that kids will hear when they touch the letter. Touching the e in cake, kids will hear the short e sound and get no explanation of silent e in that word. It's confusing. For early readers, focus on one or the other -- sight words or phonics -- to avoid confusion.

There's also not much content included for the price -- six free words and $4.99 for 20 more.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Read aloud to kids and let them fill in certain sight words (start with letting them read the word "the" in a short picture book.

  • Point out words on signs to help kids recognize common words and names by sight.

App Details

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