Teach Me series of Apps

App Store – TeachMe: Kindergarten.

TeachMe: Toddler for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

TeachMe: 1st Grade for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

TeachMe: 2nd Grade for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

TeachMe: 3rd Grade for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

The Teach Me series of app for the iPad and iPhone for toddler, kindergarten and first grade are well worth the current sales price of $0.99 each for these incredibly well designed learning apps. Each of these apps are well designed for use with multiple children in a family or a classroom situation for up to 30 children since separate player profiles can be created. Four are included with the initial app purchase. The app is designed to test your child’s skill level across a variety of subjects and will increase difficulty depending on their mastery level. You can easily see where they are in the program on the summary page. There are control features that can be set to customize the app for your use to focus of specific subjects or specific questions within a subject. This is very helpful if you have an asynchronous learner.

Unlike many learning apps out there, this app will avoid repeating skills that they already mastered and uses a coin reward system for correct answers. The coins can be banked and redeemed in the store to sticker rewards. The app does a great job of motivating the student to continue to play since that is the only way to earn coins and also teaches the value of deferred gratification by holding off spending you coins immediately as there are rewards of different values available in the store. You can even create your own reward system within the app.

The Toddler app covers basic pre-K concepts of numbers (up to 20), upper and lower case letters, shapes, colors and letter sounds. The Kindergarten app covers Dolch Sight words (pre-K and K), basic addition (up to 10), basic subtraction (10 and down), beginning letter sound recognition in words. The First Grade level covers: Dolch Sight words (1st grade), addition (up to 20), subtraction (20 and down), and spelling.

You should note that the first grade level requires the learner to write their answers. This is a fine motor skill that some advanced learners may have some difficulty with since there is a certain level of accuracy required for the app to recognize the letter or number being written. However, the app will allow the user to ask for the correct answer to be shown so that it can be traced. That being said, M has been using the Teach Me: First Grade app since he has turned 3 with some initial struggles as he was unused to staying within the guide lines of the handwriting “paper.” However, he has really liked learning with this app since he enjoys writing, and it offers him enough challenge while keeping him interested and engaged longer than a workbook can. I was very pleased when the First Grade level was offered since he no longer being challenged by the Kindergarten app.

Highly recommended for toddlers through first grade. Well worth the paid app price. We have been using these apps for well over a year as part of our homeschooling. This is a great resource for gifted learners as well.

L@WS

Updated: Teach Me 2nd Grade is still worth the buy. Teach Me 3rd grade is not recommended currently as a good (must) buy as they continue to use the same UI and reward system which gets a bit tired and young for a 3rd grader. Also, the scope of the skills covered does not match well with general standards for 3rd grade. I would judge it more like halfway between 2nd and 3rd grade. However, if you are using the app for a younger gifted accelerated learner, then it is still a useful app. There are other apps that are more “mature” for the average 3rd grader.