Home >> 3-Apples >> Oh Say Can You Say?

Oh Say Can You Say?

Posted by Jennifer

App Name: Oh Say Can You Say?

Mom’s Rating: 3/5

Kids Rating: 3/5

Average Rating: 3/5

Recommended Grades/Ages: Toddler, Preschool, Kindergarten, Grades 1 – 3

Skills Developed: Rhyming, alliteration

Available On/Price: Universal – iPod/iPhone/iPad $3.99

Reviewed on: iPod and iPad

App Description:

Oceanhouse Media has released another book-app from Dr. Seuss’ classic children’s writings. Oh Say Can you Say? a book of tongue twisters incorporating Seuss’ trademark zany illustrations and love for rhyme and alliteration brings together twenty-or-so tongue twisting vignettes in the interactive digital storybook format that Oceanhouse Media is becoming so well known for.

There are three reading options included in this interactive book app: read to me, read it myself, and auto play.

The read to me format is great for any children who aren’t yet independent readers. A narrator reads the text and each word changes color as it is read. The illustrations are interactive in that when touched the narrator says a related word. When the word is included in the text it changes color and a bold word pops up and moves onto the screen. When the word isn’t included in the text it simply appears over the item tapped. Children can tap any word to hear it read again, or tap and hold a paragraph to hear it read in full and swiping turns pages.

The read it myself option is a silent, interactive format allowing children to read the text themselves. Children still have the option of tapping a word or tapping and holding to hear the text read in single words or in paragraphs. The illustrations are interactive as in the read it to me option.

In auto-play the book does everything on it’s own, reading the text, flipping pages etc. the interactivity is not high in this option because there isn’t a lot of time between page flips to tap the pictures of text or to have single words or paragraphs repeated, the book just keeps on flipping.

Delicate sound effects and background music go along with the book in all three options and can be turned on or off in the settings.

What We Liked:

I love Oceanhouse Media titles. Their books are so well designed, they zoom in on or zoom out on certain parts of the illustration, emerging readers who get stuck on tricky words can get help by tapping on them, and pre-readers can interact with the story as they have it read to them. I love having the text change color as it is read to help children learn left to right reading progression and to identify spoken words with written text from a young age – this is a vital pre-reading skill.

Rhyming and alliteration are also fun language skills, rhyming being one of the key pre-reading phonological awareness skills (yes, language play produces readers!) My eight-year-old thought that the book was very funny especially when she tried to say the tongue twisters out loud.

What We Didn’t Like:

Although our family adores many of Dr. Seuss’ titles (just check our bookshelf!) I’m afraid that our first encounter with Oh Say Can You Say? left us a bit disappointed. It was difficult for my smaller children (and even myself) to remain engaged with the book because all of the vignettes were disconnected from each other and seemed sort of pointless to them. There wasn’t enough of a theme to pull the book together for us. They lost interest fairly early into the book because there just wasn’t enough story to grip them.

Overall:

Even though we weren’t overly impressed by this story of Dr. Seuss, we were impressed with the design of this digital storybook. If you’re looking for a great Seuss definitely try out some of Oceanhouse Media’s more well-known Seuss titles – The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Mr. Brown Can Moo etc. We’ve purchased those titles to our digital library and have been very pleased with them.

Buy the Universal – iPhone/iPod/iPad version on iTunes now – $3.99!