Talking Shapes app for iPhone and iPad

Letters are really “talking shapes” that stand for speech sounds. Children discover that the words they say can be turned into words they draw and see!

Noted neuropsychologist, Dr. Jeannine Herron, has applied the most recent research on how young brains learn, to create these wonderfully interactive stories about how two sisters invented the alphabet “long, long ago”. While constructing and drawing letters and words with Talking Shapes, children learn to make spoken words visible, developing essential reading skills as they play. Letters are embedded in pictures that help children remember both the sound and shape of each letter.
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Talking Shapes has seven books introducing 40 speech sounds (phonemes) in English and the letters that stand for those sounds. Each book adds six new phonemes to the list and includes games that help children sound-out and build three-letter words. A reading game helps them decode the words they have spelled. For PreK to K.

Talking Shapes books are packaged in three apps . App One contains three books:
The Fat Cat, The Silly Hen and The Dancing Pig. These books, together, teach 17 letters and 18 phonemes. At the end of The Dancing Pig, children should be able to independently sound-out, spell and read at least 30 words. Apps Two and Three are in development and will be released when completed.

Talking Shapes has been developed, in part, with a research grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). “Jeannine is one of the few scientists who can translate complex research findings into effective instructional solutions for kids,” says G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D., former Chief of the Child Development Branch within the NICHD. Independent research has shown significant improvement in preschoolers’ skills after using Talking Shapes.

Benefits:

Children acquire the necessary tools for efficient reading and writing. The alphabet makes more sense to children if they understand from the very beginning that words they say are made of different sounds and that they can construct words by assembling or drawing the letters that stand for those sounds.
Children learn that spoken words are made of individual sounds (phoneme awareness).
Children learn that letters stand for those sounds (phonics).
Children learn how to draw those letters.
Children learn how to sound-out and write 3-letter words.

About Talking Fingers and Dr. Jeannine Herron:

Jeannine Herron is a research neuropsychologist who became interested in reading-related research in 1965 when she was co-founder and program director of the first Head-Start program in the nation—the Child Development Group of Mississippi, serving 5,000 children. She received her PhD. from Tulane Medical School and went on to do extensive neuroscience research in brain organization and dyslexia at the University of California San Francisco.

For the past 25 years, Dr. Herron and her company, Talking Fingers, have designed, developed and researched early reading and spelling software, Read, Write & Type (for grades K-2) and Wordy Qwerty (for grades 2-4), with three grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Voice-over help in nine languages makes Read, Write & Type an easily accessed online product for learning English literacy. Another grant from NICHD funded a collaboration on a product called SmartCycle, licensed to Fisher-Price, which became their "Toy of the Year" in 2008.

Children’s Privacy

Talking Fingers is very concerned about childrens privacy. Our apps do not include any third-party advertising nor do they collect any personal information.

See our privacy policy for more details.