iLounge

By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge (Google+)
Published: Tuesday, December 13, 2011
News Category: Apps + Games

Boreaal Publishers has released LetterSchool, a new educational app for iOS devices that helps to teach writing skills, counting and phonics to young children. Using a custom-built OpenGL-based 3D game engine, LetterSchool provides advanced visual effects and animations to take a new approach toward handwriting instruction, encouraging children in their writing skills with a wide range of games. Children engage in writing with sparkling candy, squealing tires, cuddly animals and more, capturing the child’s attention to keep them coming back to the application and practicing while learning letters and numbers at their own pace. Designed for children from ages 4 to 6, LetterSchool combines different learning approaches as children practice each letter or number in four steps: memorizing the letter’s shape and sound, tapping the dots to form the letter’s shape, tracing the letter on-screen and finally writing the letter from memory. Once the player has completed all of the numbers and letters in the first level, they are taken to a second, more challenging level and are ultimately presented with a final free-form writing game to put their acquired skills to the test. LetterSchool is a universal app requiring iOS 4.2 or later and is available from the App Store for $3. A free, Lite version is also available with a limited set of letters and numbers.