by Keith Meacham, Director of Partnerships, Homer
With hundreds of new learning games for kids turning up every day online and in the App Store, finding the right app can feel like a full-time job.
When it comes to games that teach pre-school and Kindergarten reading skills, that job feels pretty important. Parents want to understand what their kids are learning, and they want to know there’s real value in a game before they consider paying for it.
Fortunately for parents who really care about quality, a handful of developers of reading games for kids have taken the risk of putting their programs up for real evaluation—not just by parents and kids, but by real researchers.
Learn with Homer, a popular, award-winning reading app for kids ages 3 to 8, seems to be leading the pack. Not only are its reading games in use by more than 1 million kids worldwide, but some of the heaviest hitters in the education research field have validated the effectiveness of the program. In a recent blind, randomized study conducted by former US Assistant Secretary of Education, Dr. Susan B. Neuman, Learn with Homer proved to nearly double the early reading skills most associated with future academic and career success.