Community reviews for LetterSchool

Of the 30 or so language arts and math apps on my three classroom iPads, LetterSchool is hands down the most popular. Students practice the correct formation of upper and lower case letters (D'Nealian, Handwriting Without Tears, and Zaner-Bloser styles) as well as numbers one through ten. Visually, it is a top notch app, with engaging graphics, effects, music, and intuitive user interface that delight children again and again (especially the letters made with fuses that "explode"!). Each letter has three stars to earn, each allowing the students more independent practice. Some phonics are incorporated into each letter, but this app should be viewed primarily as an opportunity to practice forming letters not practice letter sounds. Overall, I feel LetterSchool is a well made app and recommend it for all pre-K and K classrooms. It is of most value when students are in the process of learning the alphabet, but over time it can become more of a simple game than a learning tool. My advice is to put it "away" for awhile (i.e. move to a closed folder) to be revisited on special occasions.

This is an app my special needs students choose to use ALL the time. I like how it focuses on the correct formation and fades support allowing students to form the letters independently. I like that is reinforces letter sounds. I do not love the "play buttons" that are pressed to have the animation form the letters. My students tend to press them and watch the animation rather than trace with the animation. if you just touch the "play button" and drag to trace the animation is not activated.

This app is good for teaching letter formation, but also nice for letter name awareness, and , to a lesser extent, letter sound awareness. When I first used it, the animations seemed too slow; I thought students would bore quickly. I've discovered though that most kids who are still in the process of learning letters, it's lovely. It is very much for this narrow purpose however -- primarily letter formation, with letter name/sound knowledge introduced as well.