False Promises: The Reality of Educational Reading Apps
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I've tried all the top reading apps, including ABC Mouse, Duolingo ABC, HOMER, Hooked on Phonics, Khan Academy Kids, and Reading Raven.
Some are better than others, but in general they’re all just low-quality games masquerading as education. They’re full of jigsaw puzzles, sticker books, drawing games, and tons of videos designed to turn kids into passive consumers of cheap edutainment.
That’s because these apps aren’t in the business of selling education. Their business is selling “babysitting without guilt”. And the longer they can keep kids glued to their screens, the more effectively they deliver on that promise.
Some of these apps are surprisingly explicit: they're selling babysitting.
HOMER lists this testimonial in their App Store description: “‘HOMER keeps both of my boys entertained for as long as I need. I don’t feel bad letting them play because they are learning!!’ - Arnulfo S.”
It’s no surprise that most of these apps look like videos that you’d find on YouTube, just repackaged with a little extra interactivity in order to justify their monthly subscription cost.
Unfortunately, many parents who don’t know any better fall for this deceptive marketing, falsely believing that these edutainment apps will teach their children to read. They think they’re buying an education but what they’re getting is all-you-can-eat low-quality minigames.
Parents shouldn’t have to become literacy experts to tell whether educational software is legitimate or not.
Here are some red flags to look out for to tell when an app is junk food pretending to be health food
Red flag #1: Full of games and videos
There are two main skills involved in learning to read:
memorizing letter/sound pairs
to blend those sounds together into words
If kids are doing puzzles, videos, and drawing, then they’re being not being taught, they’re being entertained.
Red flag #2: Passive consumption
Learning to read is a skill that requires practice and effort, just like anything else.
No one believes that your kid can learn to swim by watching videos, but companies want you to believe that your kid can learn to read by watching videos.
Red flag #3: Teaching letter names
Teaching reading requires kids to learn letter sounds, not letter names. Teaching letter names is actually harmful for learning to read, because now kids have to remember not to use those names. We don’t pronounce cat “seeayytee”.
Red flag #4: Teaching capital letters
Look at what you’re reading right now. 95% of the letters are lowercase.
If you want kids to learn to read, start with letters that they’re actually going to see! Capital letters are edge cases that kids don’t need to worry about until later.
Red flag #5: Not teaching blending
The core skill of reading is taking blending individual letter sounds smoothly into a word with no pauses between them
It’s a difficult skill, and so most reading apps don’t even teach it. They just say “here’s a word, it has these sounds in it.”
Red flag #6: No failure
Digital babysitters succeed by keeping kids glued to screens. Things like “thinking” or “failure” reduce engagement, so they must be eliminated. Kids can always progress, learning nothing, tapping blindly in order to get to the next game or video.
