ABCmouse Review

ABCmouse

• 850+ Interactive Lessons
• 500k+ Parent Ratings

• 850+ Interactive Lessons
• 500k+ Parent Ratings

Our Score

9.5

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See our full review process

Pros

• Educational leader with millions of users and thousands of activities
• Clear learning path ensures balanced learning
• Interactive lessons are perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners
• Lots of printables make offline learning seamless
• Lessons span a wide breadth of subjects
• Strong engagement system keeps kids motivated

Cons

• Lack of corrective feedback may result in kids guessing and not learning from their mistakes
• The storybooks may be too young for advanced readers
• Parents have to stay on top of the progress tracker
• The navigation can be a little confusing a times

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Table Of Contents

• ABCMouse Summary
• How ABCmouse works
• Pricing
• What subjects does the curriculum cover?
• Lesson breakdown
• Do kids enjoy using ABCmouse?
• Learning activities
• Progress tracking and parent controls
• Pros and cons
• ABCmouse vs other free and paid apps
• Device support, safety, and privacy
• Final verdict

As this is a pretty lengthy review that covers a number of topics, you’ll find a helpful jump-to table of contents above for your convenience.

ABCmouse Summary

• ABCmouse is great for homeschool families seeking support in a range of subjects. It’s also excellent for any budget-conscious parents comparing free phonics games vs paid programs.

• We also recommend ABCmouse for parents or caregivers of children ages 2-8 wanting to support their children’s development. The wide range of subjects, structured learning path, clear progress tracker, printables, and strong engagement system make ABCmouse a great tool for pre-schoolers through second graders.

• With a kidSAFE certification and 500k+ parent ratings, families consider ABCmouse trustworthy and safe for kids.

• Cons include a lack of advanced reading options, a need for parental oversight in order to maintain a regular learning routine, and absence of corrective feedback.

How ABCmouse Works

ABCmouse is a comprehensive early learning app that gives kids ages 2-8 practice in reading, phonics, language arts, math, science, social studies, music, and art. Kids learn by traveling along a guided step-by-step learning path with 10 levels and 850+ gamified lessons. With over 10 million downloads and 70,000 teachers using ABCmouse in their classroom, it’s definitely one of the more popular choices out there for learning enrichment.

I used ABCmouse years back with my two kids, who loved it. Looking back, I could tell it gave them a real advantage in kindergarten – they both already knew their letters and basic numbers when other kids were just starting out. For this review, I signed up for a new membership and tested the program myself over the last few months to see what’s changed for parents of today. When setting up an account, you enter in your children’s names, genders, and ages, then select the learning level that best fits their ability (10 levels, from toddler to second grade). From there, you customize your child’s learning experience by selecting their cartoon teacher and picking or building an avatar, which made the app feel personal from the very beginning. The app then launches you straight into your child’s learning portal, where you start exploring features.

I was impressed by the wide variety of fun activities including games, songs, stories, drawings, and puzzles. As both a teacher and a mom, I know how important it is to keep kids’ attention, so I really liked the interactive environments for kids to explore, such as a zoo, aquarium, and farm. To further motivate learning, ABCmouse lets kids earn and redeem tickets for prizes, like a race car bed to go in their virtual bedroom.

Rather than being limited to the learning path, kids can also jump into activities like puzzles, movies, storybooks, and songs at will. By combining structured lessons with free play, ABCmouse gives kids a sense of choice while keeping them moving forward to reach their assigned learning goals.

Pricing

The ABCmouse cost depends on which subscription option you choose. You can start with the ABCmouse free trial, which lets you test out the app for 30 days with no money down, after which you’ll be automatically enrolled in the monthly plan for about $15 per month. If you want a more affordable option, you can pay about $30 upfront for a six-month plan or $45 upfront for the annual plan, although neither of these plans comes with a free trial. These are standard US prices that are subject to change, so check the live ABCmouse website for the most up-to-date pricing for your region.

All plans come with a bonus subscription to an extra ABCmouse 2 app with further learning activities. 

You can cancel at any point through your account settings. Instead of receiving a refund, you’ll have continued access to your ABCmouse plan until the final day of your current subscription period.

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Lesson Breakdown

The ABCmouse learning path is split into 10 ability levels, with 850+ lessons combining animations, games, books, songs, puzzles, art, and printable worksheets. Each step on the path introduces a different activity type. As I previewed the second-grade curriculum, a child can do a quick matching activity on sentence types before reading a superhero storybook covering parts of speech. 

ABCmouse also functions as an effective toddler enrichment program or kindergarten reading app, with voice-led instructions that help younger children to navigate the site independently. The bite-sized sessions keeps kids from getting bored, and progression markers provided a sense of accomplishment as he moved through the material.

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Do Kids Enjoy Using ABCmouse?

Short answer: yes! From both my past experience with my kids and my recent testing, children are drawn to the bright colors, cute cartoons, and soft music that make ABCmouse feel positive and inviting. I liked that the app threw in a lot of fun extras, like customizable personal avatars and a pet hamster and fish.

Kids earn tickets for every lesson they complete, plus extra rewards along the learning path. The virtual store then lets kids cash in their tickets for prizes, like tunnels for their hamster. 

Beyond the structured learning path, kids can visit themed spaces including a zoo, an aquarium, and a farm for animal-themed reading, puzzles, and art activities.

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Learning Activities

Here’s a quick rundown of the more than 10,000 learning exercises kids do inside the app:

• Watch animated lessons. Characters like Prospector Paul and King Grammar teach quick video lessons on topics including letters and grammar rules.

• Games. You name it, there’s a game for it: the alphabet, phonics, new words, numbers, shapes, planets – kids are constantly learning through interactive and addicting games.

• Books. A highlighter feature helps kids follow along with the text as a narrator reads one of the 450+ stories and nonfiction books that reinforce the lessons.

• Songs. The educational songs are often a child’s favorite features – and thankfully, I didn’t find them annoying!

• Puzzles. Kids can complete all kinds of age-appropriate puzzles over topics they just covered, including jigsaws, cutouts, problem solving, and phonics puzzles.
• Art. I have to admit – even I found the art activities relaxing. The coloring, paint-by-numbers, and traceables help kids develop creativity and de-stress. 

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Progress Tracking And Parental Controls

That brings me to one of the most important settings within ABCmouse: the parent settings and controls. The graphs in the progress tracker showed how much kids were engaging in each subject. I could also see each lesson they worked through, and I found the suggested home activities pretty doable (like a counting game that only took a few minutes to play). 

My one issue with the parent dashboard is that the text is a little too small and hard to read on the website version of ABCmouse, but I will say that it loaded much better on my phone.

Here are a few tips for monitoring your child’s learning:

• Set daily goals to ensure your kids are making good progress
• Use ABCmouse offline printables for off-screen learning 
• Pair songs with reading time for a cross-curricular learning experience

Homeschool And Classroom Use

If you’re looking for a homeschool reading curriculum, ABCmouse offers extensive language arts resources that break down phonics in a way kids can understand. I know what it’s like to try to drag kids through boring drills and worksheets, so I’m a fan of the fun ABCmouse games and activities that provide really good phonics practice – without the constant battles. One additional feature Spanish-speaking homeschool families will love is ABCmouse Spanish. With the click of a button, you can switch the entire learning experience to Spanish, which is great for parents wanting immersive language exposure for their kids.

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Pros And Cons

Here are a few of my favorite aspects of ABCmouse:

1. Lessons span a wide breadth of subjects. Many educational apps are limited to reading and math, whereas ABCmouse also adds in music, art, science, and social studies.

2. The clear learning path ensures balanced learning. I didn’t worry about kids getting stuck on one topic or activity; I knew the learning path would keep them bouncing between subjects.

3. The interactive lessons are perfect for preschoolers and kindergarteners. From preschool math games to cartoon characters, ABCmouse is an easy win for small children.

4. Lots of printables make offline learning seamless. I considered the printable worksheets for kids a great ready-made resource that kept me from searching the internet for further learning activities.

5. Kids’ progress is visible via graphs and charts. It was nice to see progress at a glance without having to review individual lessons.

6. The strong engagement system keeps kids motivated. In-game prizes, rewards, and games make kids actually want to complete lessons.

I also had a few criticisms:

1. The lack of corrective feedback may result in kids guessing and not learning from their mistakes. I felt like ABCmouse missed out on a huge learning opportunity by skipping straight to the next activity instead of pausing to walk kids through concepts they struggle with.

2. The storybooks may be too easy for advanced readers. I wish they had more advanced reading material in the curriculum to accommodate bookworms.

3. The navigation can be a little confusing. I love how many activities kids can explore within ABCmouse, but the app didn’t do a great job organizing all of those learning experiences. Sometimes, it’s hard to find your way around, especially for younger users.

4. Parents have to stay on top of the progress tracker to ensure continued learning. I had to regularly log in to track the learnings – an automated progress report email would be helpful.

ABCmouse vs Other Free And Paid Apps

If you’re looking for the best phonics apps for kids, keep in mind that free phonics games tend to be limited. Free reading apps generally focus on one targeted phonics skill, like connecting letters to sounds, and only offer one game that kids will quickly tire of. I’d think of these programs as good supplemental activities if your child is struggling with one particular phonetics skill and needs a little reinforcement. Parents looking for long-term phonics support are better off choosing a paid resource with a structured learning path and more activities.

Here’s how ABCmouse compares to other popular kids’ learning apps:

ABCmouse vs Reading Eggs:
ABCmouse is better for parents wanting holistic educational support covering reading, math, science, art, and music, since Reading Eggs only focuses on reading. ABCmouse is also a little more age specific, as it targets kids ages 2-8 and offers a separate learning path for each age. Reading Eggs spans a wider range: it’s marketed as being effective for kids ages 2-13, and it only offers three broad learning levels for preschoolers, young children, and older kids.

Read our Reading Eggs review here

ABCmouse vs Hooked on Phonics:
If your child is struggling to read, Hooked on Phonics might be the best fit, as their multi-sensory learning activities and interactive videos and games focus exclusively on phonics and reading skills. While Hooked on Phonics does provide additional programs covering spelling and math, ABCmouse is more comprehensive in also covering science, social studies, music, and art, so I’d lean towards ABCmouse if you’re looking for general enrichment.

Read our Hooked On Phonics review here

Device support, safety, and privacy

With both app and web access, you don’t need to worry about ABCmouse device compatibility. The functionality and usability are generally pretty good on any device.

Since I’m a pretty protective parent, child safety is one of the most important factors for me when considering any educational program. It means a lot to me that ABCmouse is kidSAFE certified, and that it’s been used by over 45 million families. You don’t have to worry about any third-party ads bringing in unknown content for your kids to view, either. Still, I err on the side of caution, so I recommend always supervising your kids’ sessions off and on. I’m also big on limiting screen time, so you can set a daily usage time limit for each child. To me, 30 minutes feels like the perfect balance between making sure kids get enough learning in and preventing them from spending too much time online.

Final verdict – Should You Choose ABCmouse?

At the end of the day, is ABCmouse worth it? My answer is a clear yes. ABCmouse isn’t perfect; I’d love it if they improved their navigation and added corrective feedback into the learning activities. If you only want a few reinforcement games for a specific phonics skill, or if you have an advanced reader who thinks storybooks are boring, you might want to look elsewhere. But with a wide range of subjects, a huge variety of interactive learning activities, tickets and prizes for motivation, printables, and great parent control settings and safety features, ABCmouse is easily one of the best educational apps for children out there.

ABCmouse is best for parents of kids ages 2-8 wanting to push their kids’ growth, homeschool families wanting structured educational support, and anyone wanting more guidance than free educational apps provide.