Lingokids-English Class for Kids & Toddlers

App Info

Price: Free
AppStore User Rating:

Overview

Lingokids offers English lessons for young children on three levels (individual words, phrases and sentences) that cover over 3,000 words within the paid subscription version. Lessons are grouped by word function and by parts of speech and are conducted using simple interactive games.
Features include:

• 5 free lessons to sample the program
• Supplemental activities available with purchase of subscription
• Adaptive technology creates a unique learning experience for each child
• No prior knowledge of English necessary
• Offline play and multiple student accounts available with subscription

Quality

Lingokids is a high quality app that will encourage young children to play with English words, phrases and sentences. It includes an array of different types of interactions, colorful animations, and engaging sound effects. Developers also included some simple suggestions to help parents make the most of the learning experience with their children.

Education

This app provides a wealth of leveling options to guide young players into the right activities. When the app first begins, users have the opportunity to choose the child’s age and level of experience with English. It would be nice if there were a way to access this screen later in case a parent wanted to change the level, but I could not find a way of doing so.
There are five lessons available in the free sample version of this app, with a total of twenty lessons currently available with the subscription. In addition, subscribers can see records of their child’s performance, download supplemental activities, and activate offline play for times when an internet connection is unavailable.
Each lesson presents a set of related words (such as items for personal care or foods). The words are read out loud, but the corresponding pictures are not highlighted. This seems to be a missed teaching opportunity, and could cause a good deal of frustration for beginning students as they attempt to play the games. The games present pictures of the words in context (personal care tools are in the bathroom, for example), and the narrator asks the student to interact with them in some fashion. In the clothing lesson, children are instructed to choose specific articles of clothing from the set and then hang them to dry or iron them.
Parents and teachers should be aware that the app focuses primarily on receptive language. Children who use it will not become proficient speakers of English, though they may well improve their ability to understand basic sentences in the language.

Entertainment

Young children are likely to enjoy the activities in this app. They are very relatable, and will seem very familiar to kids. The characters are funny and the animations and sound effects are engaging. The artwork is simple and bright, and will appeal even to young toddlers. There is a nice variety of types of interactions, but all are quite intuitive and developers have embedded clues such as pictoral directions and shaking items that should be touched.

Value

This app is free on the App Store, and is intended as a sample for the complete program. There are five lessons available for free, and a total of 20 lessons currently. The app indicates that an additional five lessons are “coming soon.” However, in order to see any of the additional features, such as the supplemental activities, the offline play feature, the record keeping, and so forth, users must sign up for the one month free trial. The app indicates that additional months will be billed at $4.99 per month, but during the sign up process, users discover that they are expected to pay $54 automatically at the end of the free period for a one year subscription. It was very unclear to me if there was a monthly payment option available, and the information within the app did not seem to match that provided in the description in the App Store, which indicates that the monthly fee is $9.99. This is quite confusing, so be sure you understand the terms of the subscription and cancellation policy before you commit.

Child Friendliness

There are a number of links that are visible to children, but that should be in a “parents only area,” such as upgrading to a paid subscription, supplementary activities, reports, and so forth. The links all seem to be protected with an effective parent gate, but it would be better if they were not visible to children at all.

• NO 3rd party ads
• YES in-app purchase (protected, but visible)
• YES social media (protected, but visible)