An alphabet game for preschoolers that starts with their own name

What your child learns: from a shape to a name

Letter knowledge grows in small steps. Pointing to a letter when someone says its name is easier than naming the letter yourself. So pointing is a good first step, and naming comes later.

The game follows those steps. In Meet the letters, your child taps a letter and hears its name and a word, like B for ball. In Find the letter, they hear a name and tap the right letter out of three. Pointing comes before naming, so this is where confidence starts.

Trace the letter adds the hand. Your child follows each capital line by line from a green dot, in the usual writing order. Children often learn the letters of their own name first, so My name lets them drag those letters into place, one by one.

Every letter also comes with a word and a picture, from apple to zebra. That gives you something to talk about: "B for ball. What else starts like ball?"

Why we made this game

It started with a question small children ask all day long: "What letter is that?" They ask it about cereal boxes, street signs and birthday cards.

Grown-ups answer it as often as they can, but not always right away. We wanted a place where the answer is always there, spoken out loud, with no reading needed.

We also wanted the most important word in the middle: the child's own name. A grown-up types the name once in Options and can even record it. From then on, the voice cheers for your child by name.

Capital letters felt like the right place to begin. Every name starts with one. And a study of preschoolers found that children who knew a capital letter were far more likely to know its small letter too. Small letters can follow in their own time.

What children love about it

The friendly pencil on the start screen is the first favorite. Tap it, and it hops, spins or waves, then tells a short fact about letters.

In the quiz, every right answer adds a petal. At the end, the pencil draws a flower with one petal for each right answer. A bigger flower is a good reason to play again.

Many children also love finishing their name. The voice cheers, and a strip below shows which letters of the alphabet belong to the name.

• The Show me button, which draws the letter first so your child can watch
• Memory with letters and pictures, in three levels: 4, 6 or 8 pairs
• Fun facts, like reading with fingers in braille

How to play it together

Sit beside your child for the first few minutes and let them choose the screen. Ask, "Which letter do you want to meet?" rather than steering.

After Find the letter, keep the game going in the room: "Show me a B on this box." After tracing, write the same capital in sand, flour or on a steamy window.

Keep it short and end on a success. If your child forgets a letter they knew yesterday, simply say it and let them repeat it. That is normal at this age.

If your child taps the wrong letter in Find the letter, the game names the letter they tapped and lets them try again. You do not need to fix anything. Just sit close and cheer.