Duck Duck Moose Reading
What parents need to know
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Duck Duck Moose Reading is a colorful, visually busy (and rather noisy, unless you turn off the background music) early reading app that focuses on very basic reading skills, such as letter recognition and letter sounds. Nine activities focus on letter sounds and letter recognition within words. There's no doubt that there's solid learning to be had here. But everything on this app seems to move quickly, and there's a lot going on visually for an app for pre-readers, so if your kid is easily distracted or needs extra time in reading practice, this may not be the best choice.
What kids can learn
Language & Reading
- following directions
- letter or word recognition
Thinking & Reasoning
- part-whole relationships
Engagement, Approach, Support
The nine activities can be visually and intellectually engaging, as long as kids aren't distracted by the fast-moving pace and noisy sounds (which can be muted).
Exercises gradually increase in difficulty by level. Kids will learn by playing the nine Common Core-aligned activities and, when completing each one, will collect reward animals to include in a little zoo on the app.
Verbal instructions provided. Reports are provided for parents or teachers to track which skills each kid is working on; percent completed; and consonants, short vowels, and long vowels mastered.
What's it about?
Up to three kids can have accounts on DUCK DUCK MOOSE READING, and others can play as guests. When your kid taps on his or her account, the game at the level where they stopped during their last play session will appear. It could be matching letter sounds by having a giraffe eat the letters of the sound that the app asks kids to find, or feeding a dolphin all the words that begin with the sound of the letter T. When kids finish a level, they earn an animal for their zoo page.
Is it any good?
Duck Duck Moose Reading was created using Common Core standards and includes exercises that gradually increase in difficulty by level, as well as a parent page for tracking kids' progress. While Duck Duck Moose Reading is a fine app for basic letter recognition and letter sound practice for pre-readers and early readers, it could be greatly improved by calming everything down a bit, in both visuals and sounds (especially nixing the distracting background music by turning it off). This app is not the best choice for kids who are easily distracted or who need a little extra time or visual space to think about answers.
Families can talk about...
Talk about letters and letter sounds in everyday life. Transfer some of the word and letter find and match games from the app to real-world situations like the grocery store.
Visit the Duck Duck Moose blog and print out the workbook related to the Duck Duck Moose Reading app.