Common Sense Media Review
By Christopher Healy
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Hundreds of learn-to-read flash cards, good customization.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 4+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Smiley Sight Words
Privacy Rating Pass
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
Kids or parents start at level one of the sight words or choose a specific set of words to practice such as shapes, nouns, days of the week, and Dolch. Once kids read the word out loud or, if they cannot read it, tap on the word to hear it spoken aloud, they tap on a smiley or frowny face to log it correct or incorrect. Kids shake the device or double tap the screen to re-shuffle the cards. After a round of words is complete (most rounds have 20-40 words, more or less), kids can see their learning data.
Is It Any Good?
If you're seeking a set of virtual flash cards with which to drill your child on reading common words, SMILEY SIGHT WORDS might be the best you can get. It's got over 1,500 words arranged into five decks, each with multiple levels of difficulty. Kids can interact with the words, tapping to hear them aloud and marking them with either a smiley or frowny face. They can also shuffle the deck with a shake of the device. Parents have a lot of control here with the ability to track progress, remove already-mastered words, and even create a custom deck. Up to 40 kids can each have their own profiles on the app.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Assign verbal statements to the smiley and frowny faces to put a positive spin on the sad ones. For example, the frowny face could be saying, "Keep working on it," or "Oops! Try again."
Encourage your child to use the words in a sentence to reinforce learning and provide reading clues.
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Subjects : Language & Reading : letter or word recognition , naming
- Pricing structure :
- Release date : June 16, 2012
- Genre : Education
- Publisher : 24x7 Digital
- Version : 2.0.1
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 3.0 or later
- Last updated : November 11, 2020
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