Montessori Crosswords for Kids App Reviews

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Fabulous App. We are planning to homeschool this year and I've been pretty worried about getting my 4 year old over the phonics hurdle as it takes time and patience, things I don't always have available with 2 other young children at home. This app is making a huge difference for her and our 6 year old loves it too. I had some questions and got help immediately from the company. It's a truly great app.

Excellent Application. Montessori Crosswords

Montessori. Awesome keeps them quiet and learning in the car!

Great addition to Montessori Home School. Great addition to Montessori Home School

Good learning app. This app is a very good app for children to learn to spell. A positive aspect of this app is that when the letters are touched, children are able to hear the sounds of the letters. Since I am an educator myself, the only drawback I see is that some of the vowels are not pronounced correctly for all sounds in words (such as stating short vowels when a long vowel is needed or allowing a child to hear sounds of letters that are slient within the word). Even with that drawback, it's worth the money.

Wonderful app!. This is a great app. As a special education teacher working with multiple grade levels, I appreciate any app that came be adapted to work with students at different ability levels. I especially like using it with students who are struggling with writing CVC words. My students will work on this app without asking to stop. The developer continues to make free updates that only add to the value of this app. The developer is also very responsive to suggestions.

i love it. bruh

Best app for spelling. This is a great app that really teaches spelling and not just letter-matching. And the recent huge update made it even better - with options for focusing on certain letter sounds, cursive letters, and single word consonant blends - just what I was hoping for to take my toddler to the next level in spelling. In the prior version, the jump from level 1 to level 2 was too big for a very young child. The only other improvement I would like to see would be the option for the letters to be displayed as a QWERTY keyboard to teach beginning typing. Thanks for a great update!

Amazing!. Exceeded my expectations! Awesome graphics, easily used. I bought it for my 3 yr old grandson & have enjoyed playing with it myself...well worth the price...I don't usually write reviews, but these developers did an amazing job...buy the bundle that contains this app. All three items are perfect!

Excellent! One suggestion..... This app is awesome - both my kids (7 and 5) enjoy it and ask to play it all the time! The only comment I have would be: the short "e" sounds almost exactly like the short "i", when played individually. I have noticed my kids mess up "i" and "e" several times because they sound so alike. However, when short "e" is used in a word, it sounds correct. (Example: "pen" sounds correct, but when they click the box where "e" should go, it sounds like "i").......

Just started. Trying the app for the first time and seems to work really well. Will update as we use it throughout the summer for practice during summer vacation.

K. Great

Beginning Readers. Absolutely excellent. Recommended to me by a school district curriculum director.

Wonderful app. Kids love it and they are learning!

Literally the best app ever for early readers.. I have used this app continually for 12 years with early readers.

Playful App for Learning Words!. I love this App, especially the peaceful sound reinforcement as you select the correct letters of the alphabet and the beautiful graphics and sound effects you see and hear when you assemble a complete word or crossword combination. The photo hints are not always obvious but guessing the word is part of the fun. If you don't have the right word you'll know it as soon as you try the first letter -- if guessing gets too frustrating you can click on the question mark for an answer. Perhaps a future update could support an audio hint as one of the above commenters suggested.

Great Speech Therapy Tool Too!!. Awesome app, my favorite therapy app for developing both phonemic awareness and the essential foundation of phonological awareness (how/where sounds occur in words, the fundamental skill for reading). Another plus is that the voice and effects are not 'babyish', so my older students love this too. Best app I know of for spelling and phonological awareness development, for both regular and special ed students, and for home use as well. I recommend this to everyone!

Best app. I always tell families if they only buy one app, this is the one to buy.

Encourages interested Toddler. My son is almost 4 and he can recognize and sound out most letters. I have been looking for an app that would help me teach him how to put sounds together to spell/read words. This app fits the bill perfectly with a pleasant and uncluttered backdrop and different stages for different levels. My son worked on it tonight and enjoyed it along with my interaction and encouragement. A good buy.... Update...we are still playing and learning with this app and appreciated the good developer support. Works perfectly every time!

Montessori crossword. The best app ever to teach you child or student phonics, reading and spelling. Make sure you use the different settings. This app has so many different ways to use. Love the setting that only the letters displayed in the word are visible for beginners, force spelling from left to right and even able to practice specific sounds. Set the interaction time after completion on about 15 sec and your child will continuing practicing. Deactivate showing solutions when your child needs to listen to the sounds so he won’t only visually copy the word. This app is more than worth the few dollars and I would like to give it more than 10 stars!!!

Awesome!. Great learning tool for early readers. You can tailor it to meet the needs of your child, and change it as they master each section. Love it and the kids do too!

Great for home & school. I bought this app when it first came out, the option to show the word the kids are trying to build is very helpful for young kids just learning, and the hiding option is perfect for the older children. The kids adore the fireworks that happen when they accomplish something. The variety of word games helps to keep the children's attention. I was very impressed when my school started including it as part of their technological education time.

Awesome App. A fun app where I get to play with the letters and animation 😀👍

I need not say more!. This app is so much fun. I play it with my 3 year old and my 5 year old loves the harder challenges. I think that the movable alphabet is great and works will with the movable alphabet at montessori school. I'm a Montessori teacher and it's a great tool to have at home when the kids don't want to anything but play on the ipad. At least they are engaged and working toward furthering their fun in education.

A must have for your 3 to 6 year old!. I absolutely love this app! Whether you are a parent trying to find an educational app to give your child a "head start" or a teacher looking for a phonemic awareness/phonics activity for your students, this is the perfect app for you! The letter sounds are very clear and the voice choices are not annoying. The settings allow you to choose upper or lower case letters, abc order or qwerty order, and varied fonts. Customer service is also wonderful and is open to any suggestions! This was definitely worth paying for!

Excellent app!. My dyslexic students love this and I can tailor the app to their needs. Dr. Fletcher

Brilliant. I recently enrolled my four year old daughter at a Montessori pre-primary school. I then bought this app which she tried and loved, as it allowed her to practice what she had started to learn at school. The app is also designed to be fun and rewarding for kids. Within a week I received an email from the head mistress telling me that my daughter had started to read. A lot of that achievement can be credited to the help she got from practicing with this app. I give this app a full five stars!

Cool app. Great for learning how to spell. I love the part at the end where the balls fly around. Really fun. I love this app. I discovered this at school, and now I play it at home.

Nanna momma. Love it. For 5 yr old she does it and loves to play with the finger paint . Thanks

Great game. Great game with a focus on phonics. Having a little trouble getting the sound feature to work which suddenly stopped working.

FANTASTIC APP FOR THE PRICE!. This is a GREAT app! It is high quality and engaging and my 1st graders LOVE it! I do wish is that it would let me reset the words after awhile, but there seem to be endless variations.. Also, some of the pictures are a bit blurry, so it would be helpful if a student could tap the picture and hear the word. Lastly, when you tap the vowels, it should say both the short and long vowel. All in all, one of the BEST apps I have downloaded for Ks and 1s. Definitely worth the money! I hope this company will make more apps soon!

Superb app with great support. My 4-year-old daughter loves this app! Of all the apps I've purchased for her (and I've purchased quite a few of these educational apps), this is her #1 favorite and it's the one I feel she learns the most from. If you ever want to showcase your iPad as being a great learning tool for kids, this is your app. If you want your child to have fun learning and get immediate feedback in the form of visual and interactive beautiful rewards, this is your app. The support offered by the author is also top-notch.

Needs to be updated!!. This was such a great app until the update. I am not even able to open the app until it is updated by the developer. Please fix this ASAP!

Best literacy app in my opinion. As an experienced, National Board Certified Teacher I have high standards for what I think is a good app, especially when it comes to paid ones. This app is a must have for families and teachers of 3-8 year olds. It allows students to practice spelling at their level, whether CVC words, CVCe, etc. I especially love the hint feature that allows children to successfully complete more challenging words. I use this app in my kindergarten class during reading groups. It is very useful for Making Words lessons, by using the moveable alphabet. The most recent update has only made the app more perfect for school and home use, allowing you to choose a spelling pattern to focus on. My 3 yr old likes to play with it, building words using the hints and repeating the letter sounds. My 7 year old practices his spelling with it too. There are few apps I would pay for to put on all of my classroom iPads, but this is certainly one of them.

Great! As a teacher.... So glad to be able to use this with my little ones in class! They really connect to the pace of it. I know the pictures that go along with it are a consideration, but could I make my own word lists someday? Definitely loving it though. Cheers!

Fantastic app!. This is my favorite educational kids app. Both my kids love playing it at different levels. They also love the screen play between words. This is a fantastic way to both teach your child to sound out and spell three letter phonetic words as well those as more complicated. Highly recommend it in conjunction with Word Wizard. Think about it no more. Just download! There was a glitch in an earlier version and they were really on top of both their customer service and fixing the issue. Thank you!

Goo. App is good, interaction is fine.

Emma. it helps me learn how to spell

Well built, overstimulating. The app is lovely, well built and has a good depth of content. The “interactions” after the word completion is completely unnecessary and over stimulating. I’ve tried the setting to skip completely and not having any luck turning if off. If I could turn this off, I’d continue using this app. But with that on i don’t want my little people on this app.

Fantastic. This app is really great! It follows the best teaching practices for helping young children learn the sounds and functions of the letters. It is like a talking alphabet that says the sounds of the letters instead of the names of the letters. Each letter says its sound when tapped. Each picture can be tapped to hear what it is, too. Fortunately, This app uses lowercase letters which are 20 times more common than uppercase letters in written print. This app is a very helpful and supportive tool for emerging readers. It can help your child become a better reader and a better speller.

"Fun & Games". Not the sleekest app on the block--I had higher expectations for a Montessori application. It is more geared towards fun and games than for use as a learning platform. The reward (a cascading, colorful shape) doesn't hold any educational value, and unless it goes out the window, it definitely needs to time-out. 3x3, simple crosswords would be nice, too. + The app does get a thumbs up for playing letter sounds when solving the puzzle, and gets kudos for updating with cursive letters. However, as of this version, I would pass on this app, price considered.

OMG. It is to easy.

Fantastic - best reading tool for my daughter yet!. My 4-year-old daughter LOVES this game... It took some coaching at first for her to figure out how to do it, but she now sets herself up and plays at all three levels, working the sounds out as she makes the words. It has been hard for me to reliably find good apps for my girl, who is only 4 but knows her alphabet backwards and forwards (so the zillions of ABC apps out there are kind of useless), but can't yet quite read big words, and is still learning many aspects of word sounding. this app does the best job I've found so far at bridging that gap and making it fun at the same time. My one complaint is that some of the images that represent the words are unclear or ambiguous (the one for "kid" could just as easily be "boy", for example, and others are hard to identify for a small person), but it is otherwise brilliant. The "play" screens are just enough reward and just varied enough to keep her interested, and there are lots of words at all three levels. I'd love to see many more words added, and for the younger set it would be nice to have a "speak this word aloud" option for each one, since the images are not always clear. That would help bridge that age gap even further. On the whole I would easily buy this again, and I hope to see many more like it in the future. Thanks!

Fun. Day.. Good. Game.

Great app with superb build quality!. As an ESL educator, I've tried many other apps that tries to teach words to children. But this one simply blows them out of water. With this app, I can teach vocabulary and phonics at the same time. And the details of the app are simply amazing. I love how the sound of the letters change for different words. Especially when I try this in crossword mode, it just seems "magical", for lack of a better word. It's designed for children, but it doesn't skim on details like a lot of poorly made "education apps" do. I've been using this app for months now and found very, very few bugs while using this app, which is actually saying a lot about the robust quality of this app. I would strongly recommend this app to others looking to teach vocabulary and phonics to children.

Pronunciation of L perhaps incorrect. One thing that frustrates me about the app is it’s pronunciation of the phoneme /l/. I wonder if that could be changed in an update?

Volume doesn't work often. Great concept and learning app but volume doesn't work daily. Help?

Perfect for Reading Development. My kids have been in Montessori since the time they were 2.5 and this app does such a great job at modeling the way that reading and phonics is taught using the Montessori method. Both of my boys have had fun playing with this app already - especially since their favorite works in school have always involved the movable alphabet. Also think that the graphics turned out really well.

Very interesting. My grandchildren love this app! It’s visually pleasing while learning. Look forward to seeing other programs.

Montessori Crosswords for Kids. My 5-year old granddaughter loves it.

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Only for Americans. If your not American forget it, the vowel sounds are hard to distinguish, the o and a sounds are identical. Good idea, poor execution, really need to redo the voice or at least have a choice of accents. Do not recommend this which is a real shame as it could be fantastic.

Disappointed.. My 3 year old absolutely loved this game, but I had to remove it as it would freeze up on her every single time she played it. It is a shame as it is a great concept.

Montessori Crosswords - great. This app is fantastic value and should be of use to my child probably for a couple of years at least. It has several levels of complexity in the games and I like the moveable alphabet which lets them create whatever word they want.

Montesorri crosswords. This is a great application and my sun of 7 years loves it. I like the different levels of difficulty in the application.

Bad letter sounds. Unless you're American this game will not be very good. The voice has a bad American accent and pronounces some letters very poorly making it pretty hard for my child to find the correct letters. E.g 'star' it makes the a sound like an o and impossible to choose.

Rich. I wish I could give this app and 10 star rating. I use this one daily as a reward for end of session with the children I work with. The interactive screen designs are wonderful and always get a response from the kids. The letters are in lower case and I like that a lot. Many app developers make the mistake of using capitals but you guys got it right!!! Super for CVC words.... That's the part I mostly use although I have also used the other settings. I always work on this with the children repeating the word or sounds as needed. Wonderful app and wonderful therapy tool Thank you!!!

Awesome. It’s good for Learning your words. Saskia age 7😆💘📱

Great for early spelling. Thank you so much for including the ability to force left to right spelling - such an important step and seems to be skipped by many early literacy app!! Great app!

Great app. I need to be able to change the vowel letters to a red colour and the consonants blue. Can this be an option? Use the app every day with my grade ones. Thanks.

Montessori Crosswords. Fantastic app for beginner readers with lots of options as they develop their ability. Easy to navigate and use. The programmed sparkle display between each word is fantastic as a break and reward between words. It also draws kids to want to complete the next word to find out what the next pattern sparkles will be. Love this app! My child is 6yrs, will be able to use this app for at least the next couple of years as her reading ability improves. Thanks!

Excellent educational app. This little app does great job of reviewing simple CVC words and blends in a challenging manner. It works well with infants children in the Kinder to Y2 range. The approach of putting the words into a crossword is interesting and can serve to introduce the concept to younger children. Feedback for correct answers works well and error support is also well done. More titles from this developer would be worth seeing!

Frustrating!!. Unfortunately, I can not play this game with my grand children because it crashes as soon as it is about to open! What a waste of money. Maybe someone can come up with a ways tio fix this problem?

Easy. To easy please add harder words

Fantastic. This really is a wonderful App. Previously our now-4 year-old used it as she built her understanding of phonics; now our 2 1/2 year old is surprising us with his knowledge of letters, sounds, words, amazing. It encourages them beautifully, is stable, clear & rewarding, and really worth having. Great app!

Its works. One of the best app for kids Learns super quick

Fantastic Learning Resource and great fun!. We purchased this for our three (now four year old) daughter and it is excellent. Not only will she pick it up without being asked, among many other apps we have also purchased for reading/spelling etc, it is the only one she chooses. She loves the reward of the stars, snow, sparkles etc that come up when she gets it right and practices forming letters with them - basically she has fun learning with this. Now we have bought the new app "Word Wizard" we are able to take it the next step and teach a little sentence construction. We are mainly creating "silly" sentences to make the process fun - but literally within two days of having the app she can write, on her own, "is a" in a sentence. That was really surprising to me. The app reads back to her what she has written with pretty good/clear enunciation and helps her understand word order in reading. I don't generally write recommendations/reviews etc - but I have been really impressed by both the apps by these guys. Well done and thanks! And I am so glad the NY Times reviewed it or I would never have found it among all the thousands of things in the app stores. Highly recommended.

Montessori Crosswords. Had a look at the video preview on A4cwsn after several people mentioned it. A great app that I will use both with my special needs students and my kids at home. Well done, 5 stars!

Fantastic!. Best learning tool for pre school/prep children. Makes learning so much easier and fun!

No sound in my mini iPad. It has no sound in my mini iPad unless i use headphones. Headphones kept falling from my daughter's ears… but has sound in my hubby's iPad 2.

Brilliant. My son has a severe disability and cannot speak; however the design of this app gives him the ability to show us how clever he really is. The design is intuitive so he can concentrate on the game and not how to play the game. We've had no issues with crashes and I find having the ability to choose the sounds we are going to concentrate on wonderful. My suggestions for improvement or more flexibility are: greater spacing between the letters of alphabet for children who have trouble targeting, and more multisyllabic words ( perhaps you have those in another app you could direct me to). Thanks for this app it's great.

Great!. I would thoroughly recommend this app- my daughter aged five is enjoying this method of phonics a lot, she squeals with delight as she gets a word correct, because the shapes burst accross the screen which I liken to applause!

Fabulous. Hi I use this app at my work and I use it at home with my son who is dyslexic, it is great. The parental section is easy to use and useful.

Brilliant. Level 1 gives you 3 letter words that follow the sounding out rules. Touch the picture to hear the word (eg cat), touch the first box to hear the sound that goes first (c sound) and then touch the alphabet letters below to hear their sounds. When you find the letter that sounds the same you can drag it and place it in the box. After each puzzle is a reward screen where they can make sparkles move around- fun but not so much fun they don't want to move on to the next puzzle. The screen is really clean and nice to engage with. My 4 year old made some great progress with early reading in a couple of sessions, particularly with starting on the left and learning to differentiate the vowel sounds, particularly as he doesn't like writing yet but is happy to drag letters around to form a word. The harder levels (multiple and longer words per crossword) got my 7 year old spelling for fun. They have a lot of customization so you can focus on introducing one new letter combination sound rule (like ow and ou words etc). On those levels both boxes flash and the combined sound is made eg the word cow has 2 sounds - c and ow, so instead of saying o when you touch the 2nd box it says ow and both the 2nd and 3rd boxes for that word flash together. When you touch o in the alphabet underneath it makes the w flash as well and says the ow sound so they get some help putting the words together. A really clear way to help kids start sounding out words and letter combinations.

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Very pleased. Worth every penny!! My four year old is learning to read and spell in one app. Loved that he tries to sound out the words and than spells it!

Great but some sound errors. This is a fantastic game to play with my students. We play as a group by projecting the iPad to the tv. Unfortunately the L and I are spoken incorrectly which makes it confusing. The L sounds like and N and the I sounds like a U. If this were to be fixed it would be perfect. Thanks!

Happy son = Happier mother. My son loves this app! What more can I say except thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Great app. My daughter has been using it since 5 years old. It has really helped her on spelling. She loves the beautiful rewards.

Fabulous apps to introduce spelling to your kids. I think this app is well done and deserve a greater attention from homeschooling families. Not only it will help you child to discover the sound of each letters but it will introduce spelling while making crosswords. My son, Dominic – age 7, has tested this app with me sitting next to him. Dominic is a bright child but he struggles a little with his reading. So I was curious to see how well he would do. He started with the first level in the app which introduce simple word with 3 sounds. He quickly found this too easy for him and decided voluntarily to go to a harder level. So he went to the 2nd level which introduce 2 words with consonant blend. He had some difficulties with some of the words but he excelled nevertheless. I found that it was nice to have the sound of the letter being pronounced when he selected the letter before dragging it into the crossword. Each time the child gets the crossword, an animation happens and you can interact with it. The child can also have the word be repeated simply by clicking on the image. Finally, the word’s spelling is hiding on the side so that if the child has trouble with it, he/she could discover how to spell it properly. Dominic said that he liked this app which sort of surprised me because he had problems with his reading ability. But recently, I realize that he is getting more comfortable in reading and I see some improvements. I think he loves the fact that he can interact with the animation when he completes a crossword. For him it is some sort of reward. Personally, I think that the rewards are always the same (even though the colours change) and I would like to see different types of rewards. Nevertheless, this app is fabulous and I highly recommend it to help you child to discover the spelling world (as well as the fun of doing crosswords…)!

Great for my 4 and 8 year old. I am very pleased that such strong educational content is coming out for the iPad. Both my kids really enjoy this application

Love this app!. Perfect learning tool for my preschooler!

My favorite. this is an excellent app for working on sound sequencing, blending and identification of initial, medial and final sounds. Reinforcers are loved by elementary kids and adults alike and is varied. worth the purchase. Thank you.

Useful. Great app, my 5 year old loves it. Some of the sounds are unclear, for example, 'n' and 'm' are too similar. Otherwise, very useful.

Montessori Crosswors. My four year old grand-daughter is loving this app, It is her favorite game to date and teaches while having fun.

Montessori spelling. My two kids really like this ap. My 6 year old likes to use it to practice spelling and it makes her feel grown up because I do the crossword and she does this game.

Excellent! 2.5 year old starting to read. My 2.5 year old girl has just started to sound out and read simple words. This app has contributed to her current success. Excellent program. We are looking forward to more from this company.

Montessori Crosswords. At last someone has devised a way to take advantage of the benefits of the Montessori method online! I am working with an adult who has lost some of her language skills due to a stroke and she loves this app, as do I. It makes teaching the alphabet, phonics, and beginning words a delight. Thank you! A grateful school psychologist (retired)

Not for self learning. A nice app but fundamentally broken in many ways. Most obviously, the app is not navigable by a child that cannot read fluently. Instead, the parent needs to manage the app at all times. This is fine but it limits children who may want to explore the app or switch between apps and come back to a new activity. This app assumes that the parent is there every step of the way. The instruction screens are always there and there are lots of sub-menus you need to read. It would be much better if a parent could configure a reading level and then let the child play and join in when necessary or fun. Instead the app becomes a teaching prop -- there's nothing wrong with that but there is so much more that the app could do. Just be aware.

Great support. Educational and fun! Thanks for fixing the sizing bug so quickly. It is nice to see a company that cares about good customer support.

Excellent!. I've had this app for almost two years and my child still uses it. It has definitely helped in developing her reading skills.

Good Stuff!. What We Liked: I really like that Montessori Crosswords has both pre-selected levels of difficulty that increase, as well as detailed lists of words that you can use to really focus in on phonograms you’re currently teaching or any trouble sounds that need extra reinforcement. Montessori Crosswords also keeps vowel teams together in the empty white squares, helping children to understand how two vowels or two consonants come together to form single sounds. When those empty spaces are tapped both of them highlight in white together to show their connection as a single sound unit (I love this). The letters also change in the phonics alphabet beneath the crossword to make the sound their combination of letters makes. There still aren’t many apps that do phonics well in the App Store, and Montessori Crosswords is really one of the best. It is filled with options (love that it includes cursive letters) and is easy to ramp up and down in difficulty. My eight-year-old also really enjoys Montessori Crosswords, she loves the animated reward screen (my five-year-old is harder to engage with literacy-oriented apps). The phonics enabled moveable alphabet can even be used to teach simple blending, segmenting and early reading skills for kindergarteners (short consonant and vowel sounds only). I like to tap each letter in a row to show how the individual letters make single sounds that then combine to form a word. You can even overlap the letters slightly to simulate true cursive joins. What We Didn’t Like: The phonics sound for ‘q’ sounds more like ‘k’ than it does like ‘kw’ which is how we teach it. When in crossword mode, the letters in the intersecting squares don’t always make the sound you expect them to. For example if the words pencil and cup align on the ‘c’, it makes the sound ‘ssss’ instead of ‘cccc’, the letter in the alphabet also makes the ‘sss’ sound, so while it lines up for pencil, it doesn’t line up well for cup. There are also a few cases where letters aren’t making quite the right sound – the ‘i’ in pencil says ‘uh’ for example. The cursive alphabet is European style letter formation as opposed to North American. Overall: Montessori Crosswords is one of my most often recommended apps to parents teaching with phonics. The flexible lists and many options of this app make it a great choice for both beginning and emerging readers and spellers. This is a good one, if you are teaching with phonics you should definitely check it out! I received a promo code.

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Nicely done. Good graphics and my daughter really likes it. As a 4 year old, I think it helps her start to understand how alphabets become words. The combination of graphics that are simple and too loud helps hold her attention. The only thing I noticed that was rather ironic was that for an app that is designed to promote spelling, "pearl" was spelled "perl" on one of the crosswords.

Terrific upgrades. This app was good before,but with the upgrades it has soared above my expectations. Thanks for listening to change suggestions to make it so much better. Can't wait to have my special needs son try it with these changes.

We Love This App. My daughter and I love this application, the transitions between puzzles is just so mystical for her that she's eager to move on to see what's next. My only wish would be to change the way it provides "hints" as any kid with a good visual memory will see the whole word; so instead of just displaying the word maybe dim those letters that wouldn't be correct or twinkle a selection of possible "next" letters so that they still need to give the word some thought. But even as it, it's one of the few apps I've ever awarded five stars for, it truly is that great. Thank you!

Excellent!. This app is such a great learning tool. My 5 year old uses the simple words with 3 sounds cross-words and is learning how to spell and sound out simple words with this app. The app also offers many levels, so it will continue to be useful as she learns. I would also highly recommend Word Wizzard. Another fantastic app from this developer that is literally teaching my daughter how to spell and read.

Sound does not work on iPad but does on iPhone. Neat app if you have sound. However, iPad sound has never worked for me but iPhone does have sound and it's great - so conflicted about rating it. It's 4 stars if its fully functioning. How hard could it be to fix? A bit shocking that so many reviews say this yet still not fixed.

Cool app!. Our daughter attends Montessori school. She enjoys this app especially the crossword format of it. The app seems to reinforce what she's doing in school with the hands-on activity that this app is based on. Thanks for doing a great job on it. The level of challenge is just right for her.

Perfect. Incredible. Well designed with superb functionality. My dyslexic daughter loves this app because there is no way to fail. Eventually she will get the combination correct without the need for a loud buzz or red lettering. Her confidence has increased significantly. Bravo! I can't thank the developers enough.

Truly Excellent Phonics App. This is a gorgeous, helpful app for kids learning phonics. Even the sound track (of birds tweeting) is nice and non-irritating. This is one of those apps which really shows how useful software can be. It's so much more than digital flashcards. The child's connection to each phonic sound is strengthened each time he taps a letter and hears its sound.

Great Concept... Needs updates. I love the concept and would love to use it in my kindergarten classroom, but the letter sounds are incorrect for certain letter and blends. I would not want to teach my students the incorrect sounds. For instance, the letter l makes a sound similar to /m/ and -ng makes the sound /ow/. I do love the concept and would love to rate this higher if these can be addressed. Thanks.

Great app!. This has been wonderful for my son who has previously shown little interest in letters and sounds. He asks to play this game, where with other reading readiness activities, we have had a battle. I feel like this app has helped us turn a corner. Thanks.

Mikey likes it.. My 5 year old likes it. Reading, writing (with our help) and now doing more spelling on her own, with help from this app. I appreciate that they keep improving with free updates. A winner in my book.

Absolute Must. I use this app ever night for 20 - 30 minutes with my four year old. He loves it, he learning how to read, spell, and pronunciate with this app. He didn't start talking until he was three and half, this app has helped him come so far in a short time. All kids and parents should this app everyday. Thank You!

Simply the Best. Montessori Crossword is the app I use most often when helping out in my daughter's kindergarten class. Through an amazing array of settings, the specific sound or letter combination can be the focus of the words presented. There is a wide range of levels making this useful from the earliest age with the movable alphabet to mid-grade school. Phonetics are fantastic, very clear and concise. The kids really love the reward interaction after completing a word, I really love that it has a time limit setting. :) Excellent in every way!

Great App. My three-year-old can operate this app by herself. She is definitely learning phonics and reading quickly by using it. It is very intuitive and effective. Thank you for a great app. My daughter loves to do "school work" like her brothers "by herself" and it has been hard to find something that works. This app is perfect.

It's all good, EXCEPT sound. Short n sweet: my little 5-year daughter has been getting much out of using the app on our iPad but I was at a coffee house and did not have my iPad with me so I downloaded it to my iPhone so she could practice, but the sound is disabled. I checked settings inside the app and in the settings area on my iPhone but nothing seems to toggle sound. I am on a 3Gs running 4.3.5. Help?

Great pre-reading App. Great graphics, user friendly, fun. My almost 3 year old loves the stage 1 simple words and we have lots of room for growth. Unlike some of the other apps that he has quickly mastered, this is challenging and very educational!

Good App. This app is quite good! The letter sounds are accurate and the animations are fun to play with, but maybe some levels that are harder/easier so you can get older and still play this game. It has fun, simple and quick crosswords although I think when you hit 100 words you should get a cool animation our a 'Great job, you've hit 100 words!' Overall, this app is great for learning, and can be used in school! :)

Excellent!. Even better now with cursive letters. My kindergartener loves solving the word puzzles and is proud that he can also do crosswords like his mother. Likes using the moveable alphabet at school more too. Excellent learning tool!

Good concept. The one flaw with this app is that sometimes the illustrations are not clear. Never mind for a young toddler, even I couldn't figure out the "hug" illustration. Of course, there's the help button. But, once the kid figures out that's an answer button, the challenge is all gone. Instead, the help button should trigger an audio hint such as pronouncing the word both normally (big) and it's phonetic components (buh-ig) to force the user to think.

Great app for preschoolers. My 3.5 year old twins love this app and it helps reinforce the phonics concepts I had started with them Would have liked more options for kids just learning to read

Very nice app. This developer has carefully put together various crossword puzzles with very engaging positive feedback animation for correct solutions to the puzzles. Our 1st grader is very engaged as she plays this and it will compliment our home education needs. Thank you so much for working so hard on putting this app together!

Great but...... Great game for learning words but I think it needs to be more challenging for older kids. I also love the way you can draw at the end and play with those blocks. I even like it so much that I'm playing it when I'm 9 years old! ADDICTIVE SO MUCH!

Great App. Montessori Crosswords is one of the best language learning apps we have found. It is always highly recommended. My nephews love this app.. There is a lot more to this app than just the crosswords great detail has been spent perfecting every part of the game and making it both fun and educational.

A must-have app for kids!. Montessori Crosswords is a beautifully designed app that helps kids with reading and spelling. Kids easily learn the sounds that letters make and how to put them together to make words. The new update adds tons of new features that make it even better!

Great app. Thanks for the updates. This app is great for my struggling reader. I also use the star play for my toddler. Really, even if you're not doing Montessori this is a very useful, beautiful, and well-designed app. Well worth it. Keep ip the good work!

Fantastic. My two-year-old is learning almost every single letter and the sound of each from this app and he absolutely loves it. Cannot recommend this one enough.

Really nice app. This is a really well executed app! It's a nice focus on simple phonemic awareness skills with my students "earning" time with the animations. Love the new feature of time-limited animations and the ability to turn the hint off. The ability to focus on specific sounds make it easy to use in small groups and for student's with special needs.

Love the phonics!. A great app for reinforcing phonics! The recent updates are really nice - turning off the clue (my son was cheating!), the ability to focus on just one sound and the option to work on words in a crossword format or a single word format. This was one of the very first apps I bought, over a year ago, and my kids still love it.

Excellent App. As a special Ed teacher, I consider this to be a very useful App. While it doesn't implicitly teach phonic rules, it reduces frustration by altering the sounds of the vowel symbols to fit the vowel sounds used in each word. This would need to be explained to students who have learned to spell phonetically and might be confused by the changing vowel sounds. Learn by doing.

Excellent. My 3 year old likes this app. She has improved every day that she has used it. I appreciate that different letter sounds are presented as well as letter blends and silent letters.

MontessoriMom. We love this app, but, the kids are spelling phonetically based on what they hear and sometimes it sounds like someone is speaking with an English accent. Even when the individual sounds are pronounced we find this to be true. Still, excellent app!

Great game. We love Montessori and this game is a great example of why it's such a wonderful teaching method. The only negative imo and why I didn't give it five stars is that some of the words seem to be "region specific". e.g. The use of "pram" instead of "stroller" or "carriage". Most American children won't know that word. At least MY kids won't. I just think they should use words that are recognizable to all children.

Great teaching app. My 2.5 yr old son and I were waiting in the school office for his older sister, and the principle walked by and was so impressed with his ability to spell words with the app, she said "We're going to sign him up for kindergarten now!" He absolutely loves this app.

It's nice!. The 4 yr old enjoys the feeling of accomplishment while using this app. She opens it often, not as regularly as Word World perhaps, but she does enjoy it and I like the educational benefits.

Great app!. My young son loves this app as do I. He is a little young for some parts, but I like that he will be able to progress in difficulty as he develops. I particularly like the effects when you finish correctly spelling a word. It is unique and eye-catching and always makes my toddler giggle! Thank you for a great app!

A kid favorite!. This is a fantastic "game" both my 3 and 6 year old are able to use! The younger one always wants to do what the older one does. In this case, he can! And he has easier words or extra help, but he's still learning too.

Absolutely brilliant!. I can't say enough about how much my daughter loves this app ... And has clearly learned from it. This is, by far, the best phonics app we've found to date. Different levels of varying difficulty, clear and instant feedback, a pleasing interface ... It's all here. I recommend this app in the strongest-possible way.

Great App!. My pre-schooler is attending montessori school and with continue in the grades to come. This app gives us a great way to practice phonics in the home in a fun and interesting way. I love how it gives her brain a rest in between with beautiful graphics. She thinks it's a game! Would recommend to anyone!

Fantastic app!. I bought this app for my 4 year old to help her make the leap to reading. Imagine my surprise when my 2 year old started spelling simple words almost immediately! This app is a work of genius ....from the simple concept, ease of use and beautiful reward graphics when your child completes a word. Best of all, my kids love it! The only downside is I now need to buy another iPad!

Exactly what was needed. My 3.5 year old just made the leap to reading simple sentences and sounding out words, after a looooong time knowing all the letter sounds but not being able to blend them yet. I'm confident that this app was one of the keys that helped her make that leap.

Works very well. After downloading this app to 1st gen iPad; the sound (although settings showed sound activated) still doesn't work. I was contacted almost immediately by the company, followed troubleshooting instruction(s) and everything was resolved. Customer service was very good!

Great Early Reading Tool. As a primary school teacher and a father of an emerging reader, I find this to be one of the best reading apps available. I can't believe the junky apps flooding the market today which are clearly written not by educators but probably put out just to make a buck. Montessori Crosswords is a perfectly written app which is organically pleasing to the eye, paced well for learning, and chalked full of helpful cues.

Retired school librarian. Love this app. Names the picture. Colorful easy to move letters. Can choose caps or small letters. When puzzle is completed correctly a flurry of stars appear. Three levels of difficulty. Great for beginning readers. Fun!

Reward phase super annoying. Do the puzzle, in less than 10 seconds, and then kid can play with rewards phase for . . . Ever? Until mom comes over and moves onto next word? Should auto stop and go to next word in under 10 seconds! Also be aware that game is euro-centric. Seriously, "pram" is one of the words. My 4 yo American kid was frustrated because all the words he knows for a stroller don't work. Sure, he should expand his horizons and learn new words, but I doubt pram will ever be one he needs.

Wow!. My son has started to show interest in reading and I found this app. I am so happy I did. It has made learning fun for my son. As a mother, I cannot ask for a better way to keep him busy in a very productive way. Thank you! It's exactly how learning should be: FUN!

Great app!. This app is one of my favorite "learning games" for my son. I love that you have now added sound to the words, this helps a lot when we are unsure of what the picture is representing. My son enjoys the mini rewards in between words. Thanks for making learning fun!

X. Absolutely fantastic! Full, rich game; multi-level; excellent and creative rewards for the child after each success; allows for independent use. Highly recommended from this reading teacher.

WONDERFUL. Motivates my 7 year old to spell words for long periods of time! When your iPad has games on it and they choose to spell over those, it is a winner. My 5 year old is autistic and has been loving this app, too. The reward is really cool for them and very motivating. Totally worth the price!

Great app. My son started using this app when he was 2 yrs old, and now he can read well at 4 yrs old. Coincidence? I think not! I attribute his incredibly advanced reading skill to this app and others like it

Yay for a cursive alphabet. I love this app! And so does my daughter. The flying stars, hearts, sparkles are a great reward for completing a level, but she is having so much fun spelling now she almost wants to skip the reward. Tank you for adding the cursive. And I look forward to the American "p". Keep up the awesome work!