Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2010 > August > 31 > Entry
Stories before bed on the iPad
On a Saturday morning in April, I stood in line at a Best Buy in San Marcos to buy an Apple iPad. We planned to use it as a replacement for my wife’s aging, slow laptop and for me to test out apps and games for my work as a tech reporter.
After I came home and set up the device, it wasn’t long before our daughter Lilly, who just turned 3, grabbed the tablet and wouldn’t let go. I may have stacked the deck in favor of gadget-love-at-first-sight; the Netflix app I’d just downloaded was streaming the movie “The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.”
Since then, the three of us have all gotten good use from the first of what I think will be a big wave of touch-screen, tablet-sized computers many of us will use at home. But one surprising place the new technology has been a big hit in my family in bed, for story time.
Lilly loves her board books, whether it’s “Goodnight Moon,” her box of Disney Princess books or pretty much anything by Eric Carle. But one way of breaking the routine a bit once or twice a week has been to try out some of the interactive books available on the iPad.
There are literally thousands of apps aimed at kids in Apple’s App Store, but I’ve found their quality and prices to vary wildly. Sometimes, a free or 99-cent app makes you feel like you got exactly what you paid for.
The better ones we’ve found that Lilly responded to best offer not only stories with text read aloud and gorgeous, full-color images, games and some form of interactivity.
The “Wheels on the Bus HD” app, for instance, is a bargain at $1.99. It features a series of scenes on a school bus and a song that can be played in different languages and with different instruments. You can also record your own version of “The Wheels on the Bus” and play it over the colorful story pages. Each page has animations that can be activated by touch. For instance, the raindrops on the bus windshield can be cleared by moving the wipers.
It’s brilliantly designed, but also very short. Even with all the language options, it’s a quick experience that didn’t last us more than 15 minutes.
Along the same lines is “Yertle the Turtle” by Dr. Seuss ($3.99). Expertly narrated, the book can read to you with automatic page turning or kept quiet if you want to read the pages yourself.
One great feature is that practically every object in the book can be pressed and a word associated with it pops up and is spoken aloud. Click on the sky and “CLOUD” or “SKY” are spoken with the word growing and floating toward you. It’s a great tool for kids learning to read, but we found Lilly wasn’t particularly enthralled by the story of the turtle king.
The most labor-intensive of the apps we tried for iPad was also the most rewarding. “A Story Before Bed” isn’t a book so much as a platform for creating your own personalized bookshelf. In order to use it, you’ll need to put the iPad aside and log on to the company’s Web site. Using a webcam, you can record yourself reading one of more than 150 books. Once the video is recorded, you can access it from the Web site, the iPad and some smart phones.
It took us about 15 minutes to record a copy of “Cinderella.” Lilly lay on the bed next to me as I read to my laptop screen. It took a few more minutes to download the book to the iPad, but once it was there, we were thrilled. The video of Lilly and I reading together appeared in a small window. Pages of the book turned along with our reading. Lilly’s favorite feature? The ability to get rid of Daddy by simply pressing a finger on the small video window.
Not only do we have a digital copy of “Cinderella” to browse, but we also have a great video of Lilly and I reading together to view later. It seems like a great idea for parents, military personnel or grandparents who don’t get a chance to read to the kids regularly. The app is free but each book recording costs about $6.99 to record or $29.99 for a year of unlimited recording. A copy of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” is available to try out for free.
By far Lilly’s favorite of the bunch was Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog Read-Along” app, one of several iPad digital books the company publishes based on movies including the “Toy Story” series.
“Princess and the Frog” includes a storybook version of the movie including film clips, songs with lyrics, games, painting and puzzles. You can record your own read-along audio. At $8.99, it’s pricier than many iPad apps, but also packs a lot of entertainment into one package. Lilly quickly got hooked on the jigsaw puzzles; three are included with the app and they can be set to Easy, Normal or Hard difficulties.
We’re not ready to get rid of Lilly’s paper books and go completely digital for story time. But we do recognize that by the time she’s in middle and high school, she’ll probably be doing more reading on phone, tablet or computer screens than she will be via printed textbooks. It doesn’t hurt for her to be exposed to more interactive ways of reading and to develop a love and enthusiasm for words, music and art, no matter the format.
(This piece will run as a Raising Austin column in Saturday’s American-Statesman.)
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Baby-daddy, Gadgets, Movies & DVDs
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By Meredith
September 3, 2010 9:49 AM | Link to this
As an iPad owner and parent of a 4 year old, we also enjoy reading stories this way. I do have a complaint about discovery though. How do you find the best experiences without having to wade through loads of junk? Even in the online bookstore, the category is a broad "children and teens." Anyone have a better way of searching for great digital experiences for preschoolers?
By Jodi
September 3, 2010 6:44 AM | Link to this
This is totally RAD. And, Miss Lilly is adorable! As a non-parent, I find it interesting the way technology is changing/enhancing parenting and growing up! Thanks for sharing, Omar.
By Wally El-Hitamy
September 3, 2010 6:32 AM | Link to this
I just saw your post this morning. I have a 3.5 year old who also loves our iPad. Thanks for the recommendations on apps.