Parents' Guide to

Match2Say

By Ashley Kemper, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 5+

Solid sound-matching game with slippery outcomes.

App iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad Paid Educational Games
Match2Say Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

  • Match2Say App: Screenshot #1
  • Match2Say App: Screenshot #2
  • Match2Say App: Screenshot #3

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What’s It About?

Players can choose to play alone or with friends using the same device with MATCH2SAY. Users then select a balloon with a specific sound to practice and decide in which part of the word this phoneme will appear (initial, medial, or final). Next, players decide whether they want the sound to be presented as a single word or a multiword phrase. On the next screen, kids choose which level they would like: Easy gives eight cards to choose from, medium has 12, hard has 18, and super hard has 24. After all these pieces are selected, kids play a memory game and match cards. You also can take the word off the card so kids can hear the word without seeing it represented (focusing on phoneme sounds).

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

The bright graphics and game vibe help make Match2Say a fun game for kids practicing sound-letter association. It's great at providing beginning-, middle-, and end-sound-specific words with phrases to match. The record feature is good for kids willing to practice repeating the words that are spoken by the device but may not be useful for many. In the challenge levels, the only difference is the number of cards kids have to choose from, which may test memory and processing more than whether kids understand the sound produced by the word or phrase. Additionally, kids with strong visual memories may quickly identify matching pictures without connecting those words to the sounds being targeted.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how different letters can make the same sound (such as the "c" in "cereal" and the "s" in "sea"). As kids explore their world, ask them to decide which sounds and letters new words begin and end with. Talk about tricky words that have similar sounds but different letters that represent those sounds.

  • Create your own word cards to practice sound and letter association. Draw a picture of words on some cards, and write the beginning, middle, or end letters of each word on other cards. Then play your own matching game and ask kids to match the image to the correct beginning, middle, or end sound letter or combination of letters.

App Details

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