Looking For British English Alphabet Game App

[SteveD]

For our 3-year old granddaughter, we are looking for an app in the form of little games to download to a smartphone to help her learn the letters of the alphabet. It must be British English, not American - so "zed", not "zee".

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and recommendations.

[dannyk13]

Steve, I would be careful as when she starts school she may find that the school's method of teaching the alphabet may be totally different.My great granddaughter's way of learning the alphabet, which she was taught at school is totally different to the way I learnt.

[calmck]

Why an app. There are lovely alphabet books available, some include activities, and books will start her on the journey of reading. Books also allow more parental interaction and socialisation.

[Tilly2]

You could sing the alphabet song with her.

[SteveD]

Thank you for your answers. However, maybe I should give some background information.

We live in Belgium and, together with our granddaughter's parents , are bringing her up to be bilingual in French and English, working on the one parent, one language basis. With her father and outside the home, she is exposed to French and this is her dominant language. With her mother and when she visits us, we speak only English.

We have a little app for number games which she enjoys and is clearly learning from it so we were looking for something similar for letters but with a British English voice. All her books here are in English and she likes having them read to her. She likes songs such as Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and, recently, has started singing that spontaneously alone.

The idea is definitely not to use a smartphone app as a substitute for books or personal interaction, just as a fun addition.

[Samuraisan]

My granchildren, as were my children, are in the same situation but with Spanish. Spanish is their mother tongue, although I have always, and will always speak to them in English and I can say they are bilingual. We read to them in English and use English learning books. Not really on a regular basis. The gc have apps. on their iPads which they thoroughly enjoy and a lot of them are American, but I can't say I have detected any amercanisms or accent in their English. Don't worry too much, you are giving her a huge gift making her bilingual.

[dannyk13]

Maybe this is what you are looking for:-
https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/letter-sounds-app/

[calda49]

Please think very carefully before you do this. As a teacher of 30 plus years, I think you are confusing the names of the letters(zed),with the phonetic sounds alphabet(zee). The latter is very, very important when a child is learning to read.Most reading in english schools is taught using phonics. You would be helping her more, if you taught her the sounds rather than the names. As an example how do you get the "cat" using the naming alphabet, it doesn't work. If you look at the alphabet posters that are sold for young children you will find that they use the phonetic sounds, it is not an Americanism. Using your example try it with zebra.

[SteveD]

Thanks, Calda49. I was not really looking for an app to teach her to read as she will be learning to read in French first - French, of course, being even less phonetic than English. English will come later when she is about 5 1/2 as she will be going to a school where they do immersion English from that age. At this stage, we're just looking for an entertaining games/puzzles app such as the Bimi Boo ones but British rather than American.

I was using zed/zee as an easy way to determine whether an app is American or British; however, they all seem to be American with its associated pronunciation.

[bednobs]

try alphablocks

[SteveD]

Alphablocks seems to be what we are looking for. It does give the letter sounds rather than their names.