critter paragon: Letters with Pooh for iPhone and iPad review

Letters with Pooh is an educational app for the iPhone and iPad by Disney to help kids identify and write letters of the alphabet. Your kids will join Winnie Pooh on his quest for honey by tracing letters, collecting letter balloons, finding missing letters, and more. Letters with Pooh is very interactive and even lets you personalize the experience by allowing you to record all the leters of the alphabet in your voice.

Letters with Pooh begins with a quick little backstory about how Winnie the Pooh has a rumbly in his tummy and that instead of focusing on his busy day ahead, he will first let his rumbly tummy lead the way. Each chapter will progress through Pooh's story, making the whole experience more interesting for young learners.

The first chapter teaches about the basics of tracing and has you trace simple shapes like lines and circles in a way that directly helps Winnie the Pooh during the story.

In the second chapter, Pooh needs balloons to reach a beehive for honey. To help him, you must trace letters -- each letter you trace gives Pooh another balloon. Letters with Pooh does not require you to get the tracing job perfect in order to progress which is great for early learners who will probably struggle with staying in the lines. At the end of each letter tracing, a word that starts with that letter will be said and a picture associated with that word will be displayed. You then have the option to record your own voice saying the name of the letter.

As you progress through the letters, the game will periodically check in with Winnie the Pooh to see if he needs more balloons. Each time, Pooh says he needs to get a little bit higher and is floating off the ground with a growing handful of balloons that slowly brings him higher off the ground with more balloons. Once you've successfully traced all the letters, Winnie the Pooh will get high enough to reach the honey.

In the last chapter of Letters with Pooh, Winnie the Pooh must help Tigger find the letters that have fallen out of his book, Piglet with his paint-by-letters picture, and Owl with catching letters.

As you progress through the game, you'll hear the narrator congratulate you on earning more stickers that can be used in the Stickers section of Letters with Pooh. The section is all about having fun and includes stickers for characters and letters.

The good

Practice tracing and writing upper- and lowercase letters to help Pooh find honey
Record all the letters of the alphabet in your own voice
Play fun, character-driven activities that reinforce letter identification
Create your own Winnie the Pooh scenes with interactive stickers
Guided skill instruction for up to four players
Comprehensive parents' section with content leveling and progress monitoring
Whimsical Winnie the Pooh artwork
Professional narration, music and charming sound effects
Universal for iPhone and ipad

The bad

If you trace letters in the "wrong" direction, it doesn't really work right
Must lift your finger to start the next part of the letter tracing. For example, to trace the letter W, all four sections of the letter are different and if you don't lift your finger between each section, your tracing will not be registered
iPhone version doesn't support the iPhone 5's larger display, yet

The conclusion

Letters with Pooh is an excellent alphabet learning app for iPhone and iPad. Disney did a great job with its design by making it interactive, fun, and by including the voices of the characters from Winnie the Pooh. If you have a child who's learning his/her alphabet and loves Winnie the Pooh, you can't go wrong with Letters with Pooh.