A Library App
Speakaboos had a library of over 200 books. Featuring a main menu that looks like a pop-up book, the app lets kids find books by exploring 10 categories, including princesses, vehicles, music, monsters, sports, bugs and more.
What It Offers
This service varies its delivery of the books. Some read without highlighted words but with full animation; others read with highlighting and animation; and a few offer the full interactive experience with animation, word highlighting plus repeats and hotspots where touching makes things happen or causes characters to talk.
Compared to Reading Rainbow App
Just as
Reading Rainbow has LeVar Burton to help curate its books,
Speakaboos has Dr. Alice Wilder, the producer of Blues Clues and the co-creator of SuperWHY! The quality of these books fluctuates, but the fairytales are carefully sanitized and there are even some cute songs, including a hilarious one with live actors singing about the differences between a pirate and a parrot.
Why choose this book service?
There is no limit to the number of books that you can download for reading offline. This service costs $4.99 for a month; so it is about half of the cost of Reading Rainbow. The overall book quality isn’t as consistent as that on Reading Rainbow; but most have highlighted words, and the ones with interactivity are very well done. There is no parental report yet, but one is in the works.
All tech products are judged on a five star scale by looking at the following factors: fun, education, ease of use, value, and technical.
