Horton Hears a Who
© 2016 Oceanhouse Media
Available on all major tablet formats, this is another one of the well designed "read and learn" format apps from Oceanhouse Media. This means that as you explore the pages, you can discover hidden stars that lead to ten bite-sized structured memory and phonics practice activities called Memory Match, Jigsaw Puzzle, Word Search, Sequence and so on. But the genius of the design of these apps is that there is a control panel that lets you toggle on or off these features, making it easy to turn off all the pedagogical bells and whistles and simply page through a silent version of the story. We think Theodor Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) would like this type of control over the presentation. The main strength of this app is the narrative -- about an elephant named Horton, and his attachment to dust particle. We learn that “a person’s a person, no matter how small” -- as told by Dr. Seuss rhyme read by excellent narrators. The text scaffolding features are well designed, letting you tap on any picture or word to see and hear the associated concept. As with other Oceanhouse titles, you can easily jump to any page, and a parent's reporting feature lets you track the number of minutes spent reading.
$3.99, iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle
Teaches: language, reading, spatial relations, memory
CTR Rating: 98%