Education App of the Week – My Reading Town

Last week our team reviewed My Reading Town, the phonics and reading game available on Google Play (and soon for iOS). This cute and useful reading game impressed us and we believe it will be of great help for early readers. For that reason we decided to make it our Education App of the Week. Read more about why below.

My Reading Town is a phonics learning app designed to help young children develop the skills needed to begin reading independently. It is primarily aimed at early readers, including preschool and primary-school children, and uses a systematic approach based on the sounds found in spoken English.

My Reading Town is currently available for Android, with an iOS version expected to be published soon.

Instead of concentrating only on alphabet names, the app introduces children to the 44 phonemes of the English language. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another. Children learn how these sounds connect with letters and letter combinations before using them to recognise and build words. This makes the app relevant to families looking for phonics for kids, kindergarten phonics activities or additional reading practice at home.

Learning takes place inside a colourful virtual town. The main school building contains structured lessons and short word- and letter-based activities. Other locations focus on specific reading skills. The Speed Sounds building supports faster recognition of letter sounds, while separate areas introduce high-frequency words and tricky or “red” words that cannot always be decoded using basic phonics rules.

One of the more distinctive features is interactive voice recognition. Children are asked to say sounds and words aloud, allowing the app to check their responses during lessons. When a sound needs more attention, it can be reinforced in later activities. This adds a spoken element that is sometimes missing from reading apps for kids, although voice recognition is likely to work best in a reasonably quiet environment.

Progress is also connected to the town itself. After mastering phonemes, children can add new buildings and interact with sound-related animations. Points earned from lessons can be spent on furniture and garden items for a virtual house. These rewards provide a clear sense of progress without replacing the underlying reading content.

The visual style is deliberately simple and calm. Bright colours, friendly family characters and light animation create an inviting environment, but the screens generally avoid the rapid effects used in some children’s entertainment.

My Reading Town offers a seven-day free trial before moving to a monthly subscription. It may be most useful for families seeking a structured phonics learning app that combines guided lessons, pronunciation practice and gentle rewards in one connected setting.