Bob Books #2 presents a child with a phrase and illustration, such as "Pog and Pip had big cars." Parts of the illustration vibrate and must be clicked and spelled. For example, when the rabbit character Pog is clicked, the illustration changes to one of Pog by himself and his name must then be spelled by dragging and dropping the letters into the appropriate spots. As each word is complete, that part of the picture becomes colorized and when all the words are finished, the entire picture goes color and a small animation is displayed.
The app has 12 different scenes and four different levels of difficulty.
The Good: I like the basic idea. The change from outline to full-color drawing is nice. When each sentence is complete, it is read by the narrator and highlighted when read.
Not There: More than 12 different scenes. All four levels use the same scenes and sentences, which gets redundant quickly and eliminates the idea that the child is accomplishing something when they complete each level. I also wish there was a setting to give the child a longer period of time to match the words with the items in the picture without the vibrations (or to turn off the vibrations altogether.) As it is, there is no time for a parent to ask "Can you read this word?" before the on-screen movement starts giving the answers away.
Bottom Line: Testing Bob Books 2 with Lily, the vibrate-to-click process started to give me a headache after a while and it didn't interest her for too long. It's an OK app at decent price ($3.99 iPad, $1.99 iPhone), but I can't especially recommend it.

Comments