Helping your kids build good reading habits is essential for their mental health and development. And with so many free and paid reading apps for kids, you can easily monitor their progress and guide them better.
According to Raising Children, reading and sharing stories can help your child get to know sounds, words, and language and develop early literacy skills. Additionally, it can spark your child’s imagination, stimulate curiosity and make them learn to value books and stories.
A lot of this article will expose the best free reading apps for kids you can find today. The other part will try to convince you to dump the odd way of reading printed books and adopt these amazing applications.
Table of contents
- Why You Should Adopt Reading Apps?
- 12 Best Free Reading Apps For Kids in 2023
- 1. Libby Book App
- 2. Starfall Learn to Read app – for the Kindle Fire
- 3. Word Domino Free
- 4. Khan Academy Kids
- 5. Kid Mode: Play + Learn: Multiple Reading Skills
- 6. Unite for Literacy
- 7. ABC Letter Tracing: Alphabet
- 8. Sight Words List: Vocabulary
- 9. ICDL Books for Children: Free Books
- 10. A to Z: Mrs. Owl’s Learning Tree
- 11. Colorpad A–Z
- 12. Preschool All Words 3 Lite
- Conclusion
- Recommendations
Why You Should Adopt Reading Apps?
Studies reveal that reading for pleasure makes a big difference in children’s educational performance. Similarly, evidence agrees that children who read for fun daily perform better in reading tests than those who do not.
In fact, the study argues that they develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge, and a better understanding of other cultures. So, it seems reading for pleasure is more likely to determine whether a child does well at school than their social or economic background.
This is the core goal of reading apps; to ensure children ensure their reading and never feel pressured to study because of tests and other assessments.
12 Best Free Reading Apps For Kids in 2023
When it comes to free reading apps for kids. You can never run out of options. So, it would be best to find those distinctively unique for certain characteristics. The research has already been done, so you no longer need to search. Hence, the apps include:
1. Libby Book App
Libby is one of the free reading apps for kids that offer you a wide range of books and learning systems for your child. As a parent, you can also use this application, as it has some books to help you as well.
Using this application, you can read your books or manually use the voice recording tool. You can set the playing speed at 1.5x, 3x, and 4x, working with the speed that best soothes your understanding.
On the application, you can take notes, download the books to your device or even send them to Kindle. You can download Libby on the Google Play and iOS stores immediately.
2. Starfall Learn to Read app – for the Kindle Fire
Starfall started off as a free public service school where children learn to read. They’ve forever maintained a firm grip on phonemic awareness, systematic sequential phonics, and common sight words in cognizance with audiovisual interactivity.
The methods of this institution have been adopted by many parents, as the choice of an efficient learning platform for your child starts is yours. However, their form of education is homeschooling and special education, which is why their application is one of the best.
Starfall is simply a website with untimed, multisensory interactive games that allow children to see, hear, and touch as they learn.
3. Word Domino Free
Word Domino is a fun word game that has its head designer as a specialist. Although it’s a game for kids, the entire family can get involved as well.
This game helps kids improve their vocabulary, as it also challenges adults to improve their cerebral strength. In the game, you build words with proposed syllables, as each word belongs to a specific category.
You can find this application on the Google Play Store or the Apple Store. It is truly one of the best free learning apps for kids on the internet.
4. Khan Academy Kids
Khan Academy Kids inspires a lifetime of learning and discovery with a free, fun educational program for children ages two to eight.
It is a learning environment wherein you get access to over 1,000 books and a weekly planner for you to use for your child’s learning process. You can also use the new tools, printables, and YouTube videos to gain a better understanding.
Khan Academy Kids ensure you never see an ad as they use joyful and engaging characters to help the assimilation process of your child.
5. Kid Mode: Play + Learn: Multiple Reading Skills
Many parents desire to give their smartphones to their kids to keep them engaged whenever they’re in the grocery store, checkout line, or driving. However, there’s a lingering worry that kids will tap on something inappropriate or mess up the phone.
KID MODE: KIDS GAMES + VIDEOS helps protect your kid and your phone through many filter and lock options, as well as kid-friendly game, video, storybook, and art options. This way, your child can stay focused and engaged in learning with your device.
The app is the mobile companion for the Zoodles kid browser. You can set the different access levels to help customize games, videos, and access to your phone’s other apps. It is indeed one of the best free learning apps for kids you can find.
6. Unite for Literacy
Unite for Literacy have a desire to create an environment where all children have access to an abundance of books that celebrate their languages and cultures and cultivate a lifelong love of reading.
To help develop this vision, they have developed the platform, publishing tools, and systems-based strategies that support the public and private sector partners to change the literacy landscape of their communities and optimize the future for all their young children.
The core projects of this company are to create home libraries and support families to develop a daily habit of reading, both of which are key factors in growing lifelong readers.
7. ABC Letter Tracing: Alphabet
This is a fun, free, and simple educational app to help your toddler learn phonics and trace letters of the alphabet.
This letter tracing application is easy to use. It has a series of tracing games to help kids recognize letter shapes, associate them with phonic sounds, and put their alphabet knowledge to use in fun matching exercises.
ABC Kids is not only a kid-friendly educational app, but it was designed with adult participation in mind. The interface keeps toddlers focused on alphabet reading and writing, tucking menu commands away from moving fingers.
8. Sight Words List: Vocabulary
Sight words are vital in students’ reading development. The Dolch word list comprises 220 words and 95 nouns of high-frequency words. Hence, it forms a great resource tool and environment for students just learning to read.
These Dolch List orders word in alphabetical order and grouped by grade level. This app features flash cards containing the 220 common words and 95 nouns.
Additionally, you get an activity to spell the words and create your own review list from the Dolch word list. Hence, it remains one of the best free reading apps for kids.
9. ICDL Books for Children: Free Books
The ICDL e-book is the ICDL Arabia approved courseware in an ebook format which allows you to access approved course ware material through your Android devices for more convenient reading of the learning material.
To use this application, you will get a username and login details. Although this app is only available on the Google Play Store, it is one of the best free reading apps.
10. A to Z: Mrs. Owl’s Learning Tree
Mrs. Owl’s Learning Tree is a learning environment that takes you through the complete alphabet with beautiful pictures, illustrations, and great sound effects. The system knows all the correct phonetic letter sounds, so she can help you with those, too, if you need help.
Mrs. Owl’s Learning Tree – A to Z is suitable for preschoolers learning their first words and is the perfect introduction to the alphabet. This way, your child can start learning and understanding the basics of spelling as soon as they can.
11. Colorpad A–Z
It’s possible to get a coloring book with the Colorpad A-Z app. Colorpad A-Z is a simple coloring book for all Android devices.
You can walk through all 26 pages, color each drawing for each letter of the alphabet, and listen to each letter’s audio pronunciation as you flip through the pages.
12. Preschool All Words 3 Lite
Preschool All Words 3 Lite is an educational app for babies, toddlers, and preschool kids. In this free reading app for kids, you can find over 400 words that have nice illustrations you can use.
This platform builds on the first two apps in this series, which help your child learn unfamiliar words. In the third installment, your child can quiz themselves on the words and spellings they’ve learned from when they started their process.
This app will keep your kids entertained while helping them learn how to match words with objects, building on what they learned in Preschool All Words 1 and 2 Lite.
Conclusion
When your kids use these free learning apps early, you will discover their understanding and ability to grasp the knowledge increases. This way, their minds get sharper and can hold up more information in less time.
All the apps we have reviewed above are all efficient and can help your child learn faster.
Recommendations
