Today is International Literacy Day. The annual observance recognizes the importance of literacy in the lives of children and adults and encourages people to focus their attention on the classroom, schools and the literacy issues in their community.
According to www.dosomething.org:
- 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70% of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level.
- 1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read.
- Kids who don’t read proficiently by 4th grade are 4 times likelier to drop out of school.
The key message behind International Literacy Day is that building a literacy habit takes just a little time each day.
Below is a list of free apps compiled by AT&T that can help you turn every day into a literacy day.
Ukloo – This early reader app is a fun seek-and-find literacy game for ages four and up. It encourages kids to look up word clues, search the play screen and discover surprises along the way. Fun animations reward young readers who go on this app’s treasure hunt. There’s also a picture helper to look up works when kids get stuck.
PlayTales Gold! Kids’ Books – This app provides families and teachers with a great source of unlimited interactive storybooks and activities for kids ages 1 -12. The app incorporates learning and fun into stories which are designed to help children learn new vocabulary, spelling, numbers and word pronunciation. PlayTales provides a variety of different stories, coloring activities and games featuring classic fairytales.
Free Books – For older readers, Free Books by Classicly unlocks a world of public domain content, allowing the user to download from a collection of more than 23,000 classic books for free.
Mad Libs – Who didn’t love Mad Libs as a kid? With this digital version of the game, children can use their device camera to add their own photo or image to a story; use voice recognition to enter their funny words; share their stories with friends via social media channels; and more.
iBooks – This app allows you to download and read books from the iBookstore, which features everything from contemporary bestsellers to classics. Although this is a free app, some of the books available for download require a fee. The app is particularly great for children because it offers a read-aloud feature in which a narrator reads the book to you. For some books, the screen highlights words as you read along.
Kids Learn to Read Lite – This app for preschoolers is educational and fun. It teaches children to blend sounds into words, read simple words and form simple words.
