iStoryBooks
With this original but not exceptional tool, you could teach vocabulary, some reading comprehension skills, elements of storytelling, and some Spanish. Nonfiction titles offer science and social studies concepts. However, many of you will be left hungering for higher-quality literature and cutting-edge art, and the occasional misspelling and editing errors will have you cringing.
Continue readingIn this collection of nonfiction, biography, and folk tales, narrator Maya Ray reads to preschool and elementary-age kids stories about transportation, dinosaurs, important people, and sea animals. Stories are also in full-page, read-to-me format.
At the myLibrary main menu, kids tap the cover of their desired title. After it downloads, stories advance automatically in Movie Mode or are read clearly in Read to Me mode. On Android devices, the back button navigates from stories to myLibrary; on iOS devices, you tap the screen and use the Library arrow. A plus sign is supposed to give adults access to new titles. Among the 25 free titles are "A to Z Fruits and Vegetables," "Three Little Pigs," "El Zorro Azul," a West African (Gambian) tale called "The Fish Snatcher," "The Amazing Life of Helen Keller," "Sea Animals," and "Things That Go."
Unfortunately, for many stories the reading level is too high for the targeted ages. Some titles have nearly 40 words per page at a seventh-grade level per Flesch-Kincaid scores. Download times can be lengthy, and iStoryBooks has a few small bugs. The in-app purchase of additional titles (a $.99/month subscription) is protected by a multidigit addition password, but some precocious first-graders could figure it out. During our review, the option to purchase additional titles (by tapping the plus sign) didn't work on iOS devices.
Modern photos fill the screen with crisp colors, and cartoon quality is comparatively good. The printed text matches the narration, so readers can try to follow along; however, there are no highlighted words or other interactive features, so kids can't participate with the text in any way. There's also no pause button, which would really be nice, especially since mode changes and library deletions can only be made within titles.
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Fremont, United States
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