We are a family of readers. Always have been, always will be. And like many of you we have just recently made the venture into the world of e-readers, tablets and iPods to get our daily dose of stories.
Admittedly, the kids are a bit more into this ‘new age’ of reading more than I, but at the same time, anything that excites them about reading is a BONUS to me.
Oceanhouse Media: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins Celebrates its 75th year.
Record Your Child Reading a Dr. Seuss Classic
We recently used an iPod to try out an app from Oceanhouse Media to read the classic Dr. Seuss story: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I had never read this story to my children and only vaguely remember it from my own childhood, but I do know as a family we enjoy anything Dr. Seuss serves up. The attention grabbing red hat amidst the sea of black and white illustrations and non-rhyming text may be a new part of Seuss your kids have not before discovered.
Using This Learning App
This app is not only for reading, but it helps your new reader learn as well. Oceanhouse takes this classic book and turns it into an interactive event. The action of reading is made more fun and interactive in a few ways. Music and sound effects enhance the reading.
In addition to reading the story, you can have the story read to you. The words are highlighted as the voice tells the story. My two girls, ages 8 and 11, loved listening to the character voices as the story carried on.
You have the option to tap on the illustrations of the book to have the words dance across the page. This is a great tool to enhance vocabulary and increase site word understanding.
My girls thought the best option was the voice recording option. We took turns reading the story aloud and then playing it back. This really helps with fluency and intonation. Everyone gets a kick hearing themselves and trying out character voices. The app will store the vocal interpretation of the text from several people and then you can play it back.
The Story Details
Bartholomew Cubbins in case you do not remember is the story of a boy who has an issue with hats that keep sprouting atop his head and the King who is not at all happy with this as all hats are to be removed when addressing the king. A cast of characters joins in trying to remove the hats, and Bartholomew never loses his head……or his hats!
The story does have a few dark spots including an executioner and an ill-behaved child, however nothing truly frightening happens.
Requirements and specifics:
Oceanhouse has made this app available for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad versions iOS 5.0 or later.
This app is intended for kids aged 4 and up.
The size of the app is 44.5 MB
The app costs $3.99
Other Seuss stories are available.
Disclosure: Ocean House gave me a code to download this app for free so I could review it. My reviews are my own opinions.
