On the 31st July 2019, the contest to identify educational apps that would be the best for young children has been kick-started by the UK government.
The goal of this competition is to encourage and support disadvantaged parents and guardians to improve their children’s English language skills right from the start at home.
This comes as an initiative to offer better starting points to the disadvantaged children that currently lag four months behind in their entire attainment at age 5. The trend protrudes even more as time goes and at the age of 11, these children are left 19 months behind their peers in their overall development.
UK Children and Families Minister Kemi Badenoch stated that the competition “reaffirms an ambition set last year to halve the proportion of children leaving Reception without the early literacy, language and communications skills they need by 2028.”
In the long run, the latency often makes a significant difference to the affected children, most of them from families located in the 12 pilot areas in Britain identified for this competition.
It remains to be seen whether this best early learning apps approach will really make a difference for these children. But it can be surely determined that certain quality criteria should be met by the selected apps in order to provide effective English language learning to these young children.
What the best learning apps for young children should offer?
The best early learning apps the government picks should all offer the following:
1. Interactive learning. This not only captivates the children’s attention better, but it also engages them fully in the learning process. After all, they’ll be prompted to respond using the language more often than they would if they were merely reading in that language.
2. Fun and easy learning. Early learning apps should feature intuitive and easy to learn approaches. If they are designed with images and features appealing for children, the fun games will keep them involved to learn more.
3. Organized approached. Most of these apps come with various difficulty levels from beginner to advanced level. The logically organized themes to enable good progress will count to help the children learn English comfortably, but effectively.
4. Age-appropriate app content. The app lessons should cover educational content relevant to the child at a targeted age. This should be comprehendible without much adult support and should be conveyed in a language the child can easily understand.
The families taking part in this project will be provided with free access to the high-quality apps chosen plus additional advice, video tips and books with the aim to assist in early learning as well as dealing with the challenges some parents encounter in enhancing early language learning at home.
Education Secretary Damian Hinds also intends to improve the digital skills of parents and children highlighting that “[…] when it comes to children and technology – that’s where a manual can be helpful. Not all screen time is created equal: on one side there are the pressures that come with social media and the time spent looking at a screen, which is a key worry for parents – but on the other, the power of technology and the internet can open up a whole new world when embraced properly.”
How do early learning apps meet quality learning criteria?
Below are some early learning app reviews to give an idea of which standards they should deliver to allow children to develop sufficient English language and literacy skills before entering Reception.
Little Chatterbox for Kids (3+)
As stated earlier, learning apps for kids should be fun, and so is the little chatterbox with animated videos and children actually saying the words that are being taught.
However, it focuses solely on introducing isolated vocabulary words, which aren’t in context. The handful of games don’t offer much progression and the learning experience is rather passive, as the players mainly watch and listen to new words repetitively.
Peg and Pog (3+)
This is a highly recommended language learning game. It comes with plenty of fun and giggles. It is designed to introduce the kids to learn English vocabulary. It has no third-party ads or in-app purchases, just perfect for the children.
It has beautiful graphics, rich sound effects, fun music, and an easy-to-use interface. It doesn’t have a set of strict rules as the developers want to encourage the children’s imagination through “immersive play adventures”. However, when learning a language what matters is being prompted to use and apply it and not to just watch and listen. Again, this app is missing the interactive factor.
Interaction is key for language learning
As discussed, children and adults don’t learn a language by just passively being immersed in it. They need to actively use and apply it in spoken interactions.
The early learning apps we’ve looked at here didn’t really fulfil this important learning criteria. They should therefore not be selected by the UK government as a winner in the competition for the best early learning app.
So, look out for the results and share your professional opinion as making children learn with the right apps is what should be the goal, not just any.
