We’ve been reviewed by The Educational App Store! Review below shared from their website. You can read the original review HERE: https://www.educationalappstore.com/app/we-can-books

By Spencer Riley

Learning Rating 4*

• Android, iPad, iPhone
• Free
• age 5+

About We Can Books

“We Can Books” app is a good resource to create leveled books for beginning readers and special needs learners. It allows user’s to easily make a customized book with either pictures from the user’s device or pictures on the app. This is a great way to increase comprehension of sight words across 3 different levels and would be a useful supplement to any reading program or curriculum. 

We Can Books Review

“We Can Books” teaches kids to read through the power of phonics and association. This app supports early literacy by making it easy to create custom books for new readers. Parents, teachers, and caregivers can add their own pictures or choose from images on the app for each page of the book and chose corresponding words.

Device compatibility includes iPhone and iPod Touch iOS 15.5 and above as well as Android 7 (Nougat) and above. The ages of typical users is 4+ years old. There is no subscription fee. Users can start creating a book right away and pay to order the book which costs $49.95 plus $6.99 for shipping and handling. It typically takes up to 10 days for shipping. The books are beautiful, hard covered books. There are 3 levels of books available, each with a different level of words.

What is the “We Can Books” app?

This app is very user friendly and takes just a few moments to set up an account before you can start creating your own phonics book. The most distinctive features of this app include ease of use and customization. It can take just minutes to create your own book! It teaches basic reading through picture-word association. Combining pictures that are familiar to the reader with sight words tap into the universal power of association.

What we love about the “We Can Books” app.

This app has a very streamlined and easy to understand format, making it a breeze to navigate its features. It took me about 15 minutes to create a book using pictures online and about 45 minutes to make a custom book and pictures from my phone’s photo album. It has a simple and clean interface with limited visual “noise”. There are short video tutorials demonstrating how to create your book step by step.  The user can even download pictures to match chosen text per page.

What age is it appropriate for?

“We Can Books” is suitable for children ages 2-11, older special needs readers because of its age friendly customization features, and English language learners. The app is perfect for new readers who benefit from associating new words with familiar pictures, in particular Pre-School aged children.

How will students benefit?

 “We Can Books” engages children by giving them creative control in making their own book. Kids who enjoy creating and learning with their peers or with a parent/caregiver/teacher will like this app. There is no pressure to finish creating a book in one sitting. Users can save their book and come back to it any time to continue creating it. New skills that will be unlocked are mainly phonetic reading and word comprehension.

These skills would be a support in generalizing sight word reading skills by offering a way to teach sight words in different environments shown on the page. This could be teaching the sight words with pictures of the home environment, the school environment, the public domain, etc.

How will parents benefit?

 “We Can Books” gives users the rare opportunity to create a custom phonics book and possibility of replacing other costly phonics programs. Most children can improve their reading skills when given reading materials that are linked to their prior knowledge.

Learning by association is one of the fastest methods in learning. By pairing kids’ prior knowledge with picture association and phonics, their understanding of basic words will give them the building blocks needed for reading. Parents and kids can create books together and have them printed to read together or by the child independently.

How will teachers benefit? 

 “We Can Books” can save valuable time for teachers by giving them a tool to quickly make a custom book for reading groups or individualized to a learner. This would be most beneficial to special needs learners who require highly individualized materials and also to English language learners. These books can be easily used as pre, formative, and post-assessments but most of all in small groups. 

It’s easy to create a book for pre-readers and beginner readers.  Books are created or offered on three different “volumes”.  Volume 1 focuses on short vowels. Volume 2 focuses on double vowels, vowel combinations, and consonant blends. 

Volume 3 focuses on long vowels, more vowel combinations, and consonant blends. There are nice personalization features such as adding child’s name, picture and a dedication page. It’s a fast way to create a sight word book with clear visual supports.  It teaches nouns, verbs and adjectives, including sight words but does not explicitly state grade levels. This app makes it fast and convenient to make a book that is not only personalized for the reader but individualized for the level of generalization targeted.

How much does “We Can Books” app cost? 

There is no subscription fee. However, printed books cost $49.95 plus $6.99 shipping. Shipping time typically takes around 10 business days. Users can create a profile for free and create books from the series of 3 and then decide to print. Users will still have access to their digital book/s on the app but cannot download them. Having a book in print can be very beneficial to the child as a break from screen time.

Is “We Can Books” app safe to use?

“We Can Books” has a privacy policy of using visitor/user information to improve the app. User information is not shared. This app is ad free and does not ask for location data or permission for other tracking.

What can “We Can Books” improve on?

Something this app could improve on is to include features that allow users to create simple complete sentences using short vowel words. By expanding the book series to allow for students to construct simple sentences and pair them with familiar picture, this would support not only literacy but writing skills.

Overall Rating 

As an educator and parent, I really enjoyed this app. It was very easy to navigate and made creating books fun! I would recommend “We Can Books” to any parent or teacher who is looking to support early literacy, for any student who needs phonics instruction, and for anyone who requires direct instruction to generalize their comprehension of words, (such as special needs learners and non-native English learners). Overall, I give this app 4 out of 5 stars.

Thanks, Educational App Store! We appreciate the 4 stars. And while we understand your desire to be able to create simple sentences using the short vowel words inside our app, that is intentionally outside the scope of our books, which are deliberately designed for readers who are just beginning to make the connection between letters and sounds. We are so glad you enjoyed the app, and recommend it to both parents and teachers!