What

Learn With Homer is a learning and literacy app for children from around three to six, and includes stories, drawing, voice recordings, songs and exercises.  It’s available for free on iOS, but has some great in-app purchases.

What the developers say

“Learn with Homer is a groundbreaking early learning app for children aged 3–6, handcrafted by top literacy experts. Homer includes a complete phonics program, a library of beautifully illustrated stories, hundreds of science field trips, and exciting art and recording tools. With our free Parent tools, you can monitor your child’s progress in the app and share their delightful creations with family and friends.”

My experience

This apps constantly makes the “best of” educational apps, plus it’s been recommended by many publications and review platforms. As soon as I downloaded it and showed it to my toddler, he was hooked, and even without the extra in-app purchases, he had plenty to keep him fixated, speaking, drawing, listening, and chatting with the app. The app has beautiful graphics, is very easy to navigate for non-reading kids. For older kids, there are phonics lessons, but with so much great content and stuff to do, younger kids won’t be short of learning or fun.

The app teaches kids to sound letters that appear on the screen using spoken guidance and animations, all done in a fun way. Each learning section also has games, stories, a drawing sections, and a record part, where kids need to answer a question relating to the story.

Learn With Homer is superb, and a brilliant tool for learning, reading and entertainment.

The fab

Huge amount of content, stories and things to do and learn

Parents can monitor progress and work with kids

No “competitions” or ratings (something I appreciate on a learning app – each child is basically pitted against himself, and constantly encouraged)

The good

No ads!

Easy navigation

The downer

Each in-app purchase is $1.99, though since they offer so much, this might not be a negative for most.