How to Choose the Right Apps for Your Preschooler

If you let your preschooler occasionally use your tablet or phone (and there is a good chance you do), then you already know about the approximately kabillion apps specifically targeting the three-to-five set. Some are intended to be educational, others geared toward unlocking your prodigy’s inner artiste or engineer, and a few simply strive for harmless fun. Of course, with such overwhelming selection comes a dilemma: how do you know which apps are right for your kids?

Whether you’re with iOS or Android, the quality of preschooler apps ranges dramatically. Good apps have beautiful design and intuitive navigation, while possibly helping foster basic math or literacy skills, hand-eye co-ordination, or even a sense of escapism for little ones. Bad apps, on the other hand, can be confusing, scary, prone to crashes, or full of distracting ads or security breaches.

Knowing which to download can begin with word of mouth from other parents or a visit to a trusted review site. (For example, non-profit Common Sense Media maintains a series of lists.) When available, screenshots or videos are particularly helpful for figuring out whether an app is appropriate for your child. There are also user reviews and comments within app stores, but it’s always important to use your own judgement.

A lot of the time, the best way to know for sure is to download the free demo. If there isn’t one, swallow the expense and take it for a test run yourself. Most apps are about the cost of a coffee—a small price to pay for your sanity during a long car ride.

Knowing which [apps] to download can begin with word of mouth from other parents or a visit to a trusted review site.

“We read reviews online to see what others thought,” says Alex, a Toronto-area mother of a three-year-old. “We find the apps that are consistently recommended also tend to be the ones that end up being better than most.”

Alex has purchased apps based on books her daughter likes, and also seeks out specific companies and designers that have consistently been high quality in terms of play value and education. There have also been some downloads she’s regretted.

“There’s a lot of dreck out there. We stay away from any apps with ads and in-app purchases. It’s too easy for my daughter to press the wrong thing, and be taken out of the game where she’s being asked to buy stuff or be taken to inappropriate sites.”

Rosemary, a mother of three from Vancouver, agrees.

“I don’t trust the App Store, generally, and I don’t have time to sort through it, so the apps I do have came through trusted media recommendations,” she says. “Specifically, there was an Atlantic article on what this stuff is doing to our kids’ brains—both good and bad.”

As parents are looking more into the appropriateness of apps for their kids, a growing number of companies are taking notice, trying to distinguish themselves by meeting certain criteria. Some have specific development principles listed on their websites, even mentioning the inclusion of child-literacy experts on their games’ creative teams to get the attention of parents who value this sort of thing.

After all, apps for wee ones have become big business. The vast majority of best-selling paid ‘education’ apps in iTunes specifically target preschoolers or elementary school-aged children, according to a recent report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a research group exploring the link between literacy and digital media.

Some of these apps promoted as ‘educational’ involve tracing letters or word recognition, others involve simple math like counting, comparisons, or basic arithmetic. There are also many adaptations of your kid’s favourite story—though some parents (ahem) are still hesitant when it comes to sharing an ebook before bed.

Aside from some on-screen finger-painting, our daughter’s first apps were simple sorting games. She had to drag or swipe similar colors, shapes, or objects to wherever they belonged. Once the job was completed, a hot-air balloon would cut across the screen, congratulating her. She loved its straight-forward goals, the clear task that needed to be properly handled.

We found less success with freeform games—apps where there weren’t specific missions to accomplish, but rather carte-blanche opportunity to create recipes in a kitchen, style hair, play music, or fly around a forest with no rules. It turns out our kid needs a little structure in her app-playing, while others are just the opposite.

What kind of apps does your preschooler enjoy? How do you decide whether to download something?