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I am looking for software, which allow my three year old to tap a letter and it will present the letter and say it. I speak an obscure language so I need to record the letters myself. Does this exist?

The reason for asking trial made in Sweden where they found that children should start to learn by writing, not reading.

If this does not exist, would you be willing to sponsor the development? I would then hire someone to make such software.

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  • What language? You could probably find a university willing to put this into a grant proposal, and have a graduate student do the programming.
    – Bill Clark
    May 24, 2011 at 17:42
  • @Bill Clark Norwegian. It would be more effort to get them to do it for free. We are talking about something like 500$ to get it developed.
    – David
    May 24, 2011 at 17:49
  • @David, it wouldn't be free -- the NSF (the National Science Foundation in the US) routinely funds this kind of project. The only issue would be timing.. which might be a show-stopper here. Presumably you want the software while your child is still young. :) You might try contacting the Linguistic Data Consortium (ldc.upenn.edu) and asking them, since they develop grant-funded educational tools and also might know programmers willing to do freelance work.
    – Bill Clark
    May 24, 2011 at 18:01
  • @Bill Clark I routinely get such software developed, so it is just a matter of getting financing fast (if it does not already exist). So, in order to get this up and running fast, I would be looking for private financing.
    – David
    May 24, 2011 at 18:04
  • I have to say I suspect learning to write the letters will be more efficient than learning to type them. But I could be wrong. :-)
    – Lennart Regebro
    May 25, 2011 at 5:06

2 Answers 2

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Check out http://babysmash.com

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  • What a nice idea. Now, how to convince my wife that it's actually a good idea to encourage my toddler to bash on her keyboard...? :-)
    – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    May 25, 2011 at 14:38
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    @david - ouch. i thought you were asking for software which will say a letter when your kid taps it. that's exactly what babysmash does...
    – Robert Levy
    May 25, 2011 at 16:43
  • I am sorry, the shapes on the screenshot seemed like it was something completely different than what I asked for. Smashing also did not seem like what I am trying to get my kid to do. They also have planned to support that people can record themselves.
    – David
    May 29, 2011 at 23:27
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We use starfall http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/play.htm?f This link goes to a free area where you can teach them letters with ease. Our son is three and knows his abc's as well as being able to point out each of the letters by name.

We try and mix it up however, playing letter puzzles and number puzzles as well. This helps huge and allows you to do something with them at the same time.

Finally, flash cards with an image on one side and the word on the flip side are precious.

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  • Yup, Starfall was what came to mind when I read the question title. Doesn't help for Norwegian though :)
    – Benjol
    May 29, 2011 at 20:24

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