Use the right apps and websites to give your child the benefit of playing while learning

Following an open letter to the Daily Telegraph on 11 Sept 2013,  David Whitebread from the Faculty of Education writes on a  discussion post on the University of Cambridge’s research discussion board.  He offers arguments for why children might benefit from more play-based development before formal education begins.  This is well worth a brief read (though ignore the comments which unfortunately get immature and irrelevant).

I believe that many of the better apps and educational websites achieve a good balance of helping children learn and reinforcing what they have already been taught, with unstructured play.  Furthermore some of the excellent gamification aspects that many of these sites/apps offer succeed in keeping children coming back for more in a way that more traditional teaching methods will rarely achieve.  Weekly certificates in Mathletics for example mean that Mathletes have a compelling reason to return each week, while 'points' that let you change your avatar or 'pay' to play special sub-games are common. Similarly, completing the mission or learning more about the story is effective in Mystery Maths Museum.

If you are reading the posts on this site I presume you are already well aware of the opportunities apps and websites offer; but if not I strongly encourage you to pick one or more of the tools we comment on below, or list in our “Best of” pages and test it out with your child.  

How you will engage your child depends on their age and attitude, and your usual way of using technology at home - where the child is a regular iPad user it can be enough for the simpler apps to simply add it to the device and wait as they discover it themselves.  A web based tool such as Reading Eggs or Mathseeds will require you to start your child off at the computer, especially if they are not used to a mouse, but in many cases they will rapidly be asking to ‘play’ rather than being told they must.

(Remember the recommendation that young children get used to using tablets and computers in areas of the house where there are others around so you have less of a struggle in their tweens/early teens when you ask them not to go online in their rooms.)