The Chronic Consumer

There aren’t that many iPad apps that I would actually pay for, but I’d heard that they have a few terrific interactive children’s books available, including The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. I checked out the app, saw that it was only $3.99 and that it had excellent reviews, and decided to purchase it for my son. I was not disappointed!

This book plays beautifully on the full iPad screen. There are three different settings (Read to Me, Read It Myself, and Auto Play) to take you through the entire book. In Read to Me mode, the narrator reads for you, highlighting each group of words as they’re being spoken to make it easier to follow along. You swipe across the screen to “turn” the page when necessary. Read It Myself mode should be self-explanatory. In Auto Play mode, the narration and page turns are fully automated.

In addition to the three reading modes, each page is interactive, which means you can touch various parts of the picture and have the narrator say what the object is (e.g. “ball”, “fish”, “Thing 1″, etc.).

This kind of interactive book is a wonderful way to help kids learn to read. My son, who was unable to read this book on his own before, can already read half of it by himself after spending just a couple days practicing with the app. Moreover, the colors come through beautifully on the iPad, and make this app definitely worth the $3.99. Highly recommended!