10 Mobile Apps That Can Actually Help Improve Your Child’s Grades

Useful Mobile Apps for Children

Technology has been residing in the educational sector for quite some time now and if you’re a parent, you can actually use it to your child’s benefit. Not all mobile apps are a source of distraction and some of them can actually work to improve your child’s grades. When used correctly, even mobile phones can help students to study, follow an effective schedule and maintain the required academic discipline. You can surely hand over a phone or a tablet to your child, but make sure they have the following apps installed.

1. YouTube Kids

YouTube continues to be one of the best resources to learn about topics as students respond to videos more than textual information. Depending on your child’s level, you can give your child access to the standard app or download YouTube Kids where students can stream educational videos on almost any subject. The safe search option gives you parental control and YouTube also maintains a strict policy about the searches performed. Be it reading about astronomy or learning a new instrument, YouTube is still the best app to have at hand.

2. Khan Academy

Spend an afternoon brushing up on statistics. Discover how the Krebs cycle works. Learn about the fundamentals of music notation. Or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, learn how fire-stick farming changed the landscape of Australia. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, homeschooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology—Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available for learners completely free of charge. Your child will find learning using the Khan Academy app fun and useful.

3. Duolingo

Your child can extend his/her knowledge and practice a new language on the go with the Duolingo app. It has lessons on a variety of languages including French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Italian and even English. The download is completely free and sports a variety of lessons for all levels. Students learning a foreign language can combine the school materials with this app and learn about the right pronunciations and spellings when the teacher is not immediately available.

4. Amazon Kindle

Let’s face it, reading is good. There is no doubt that strong reading skills help just about everybody. Amazon Kindle is about as stable of an eReader platform as you can get on mobile. It also includes a ton of books that are both kid and adult friendly. They also have a ton of books that are in the public domain and are free to download. Perfect for a the budding reader who’s just learning how to do it. Pick it up, get your kids some books, and give them so good reading skills. It’s definitely one of the really good learning apps for kids. Those who aren’t fans of Kindle can also check out Google Play Books or Nook.

5. Dictionary.com

This paid app is an investment worth considering as it can work wonders in improving your child’s vocabulary. The cost is lesser than an actual dictionary and gives you access to over two million English words and their definitions along with thesaurus features, antonyms, synonyms, origin, history and much more. Your child’s phone can also have a widget on the home screen where Dictionary.com displays their “Word of the Day” from where students can continuously learn without actually indulging in reading. The free version comes with ads but the paid one has no such distractions.

6. Dragon Box

We believe in starting mathematics from an early age and Dragon Box provides the perfect platform to facilitate that. Children will hardly respond to just numbers but if mathematics is mixed with educational games and fun videos, they will pick up the concepts of algebra and geometry faster. With the Dragon Box app, you can help your child to make math fun and improve the overall learning experience. It is simple to use, gives the student’s access to 5 learning apps and makes the overall subject easier to understand. Dragon Box can be your answer to activity-based learning.

7. Google Classroom

Google Classroom is another virtual classroom environment. Like Edmodo and ClassDojo, it lets parents, kids, and teachers interact with one another. Students can interact with other students, upload files, turn in assignments, and more. It connects to Google’s Classroom web platform. Thus, it has the kind of quality you’d expect from Google. It’s definitely one of the best learning apps for kids. However, it is a large scale kind of thing. Your whole school will probably have to sign up for it in order to use it. Teachers, talk to your administrators to see what they think.

8. TED-Ed

TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. TED-Ed supports learning — from producing a growing library of original animated videos, to providing an international platform for teachers to create their own interactive lessons, to helping curious students around the globe bring TED to their schools and gain presentation literacy skills, to celebrating innovative leadership within TED-Ed’s global network of over 250,000 teachers. TED-Ed has grown from an idea worth spreading into an award-winning education platform that serves millions of teachers and students around the world every week.

9. Evernote

One of the best apps around to take notes, mark important points and bookmark resources across all platforms. Evernote can be used by students to compose their essays, prepare soft copies of their class notes, perform research for projects, build a checklist, create reminders and so on. This free app is available across all devices with the necessary sync and students can access their materials from anywhere. Your child can use it as a notebook, daily journal, subject planner and much more. Evernote really makes organising easier and definitely the bags lighter.

10. Nigerian Scholars UTME 

This paid app is a Computer Based Testing (CBT) and learning application that enables students sitting for their JAMB Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) practice JAMB past questions and ensure they are ready for their JAMB exam. Your child can gain mastery of any topic by practicing questions from any topic of interest. He or she can also use the school finder to make a smarter decision on what tertiary institution or course to enroll for. 

Education has changed a lot over the last couple of decades. Institutional based education is still present. However, there is more focus than ever on learning at home, continuing one’s education, and using the Internet for the glorious information tool that it is. Childhood is particularly important for learning. We know that every child is different. However, we hope that these learning apps will be useful for your children.