As of today, a search for “phonics for teens and adults” on the App Store returns our decodable book app . For a second, we weren’t sure it would happen…
Announcing a new resource for teachers and tutors of phonics for teens and adults
Today we released the first decodable book app in the Teen and Adult Phonics (TAP) series for iPad, entitled Bad, on the App Store. It’s the story of a teenage boy, Tom, and his mother adjusting to life in a new home in a rough London neighbourhood.
This “Decodable book app” is not just a book
We did have to point out to the folks at Apple all the important ways in which this app differs from a regular eBook. If we may quote our own appeal:
This app is designed to deliver a dignified, confidence-building book-like experience to a very specific and under-served group of learners, [particularly] teens and adults with severe dyslexia, ASD and ADHD. The functionality of the app supports this experience and is simply not available in [conventional eBooks]. For that matter, most of these features are not available in ANY phonics app currently available on the App Store.
In some ways, it’s good that this app gives the impression of being a regular eBook because we didn’t want older readers to have the impression they were being handed yet another levelled reader or, worse still, a “baby book”.
Designed for a positive reading experience
Like every app in the series, Bad features:
- fully decodable text to support teaching systematic and cumulative phonics (it is at level 2 in the TAP phonics progression)
- a story based on mature themes appealing to older learners
- settings that make it well adapted the needs of teens and adults with dyslexia, ASD and ADHD as well as the broader community of older emergent readers
We really hope this app finds the audience for whom it is intended and would love to hear from teachers and tutors who use it in their work with adult and teen emergent readers.
Update: It’s October 2018 and more and more people are find their way to the TAP Library. We’re even getting great feedback from teachers, parents and grandparents like this review from a woman who found our decodable books for older students to share with her adult grandson.