Talking Alphabet for Mac

Talking Alphabet for Mac can help your child learn the alphabet in a fun way. Unfortunately, its reliance on the keyboard or mouse for most of its features means children will likely have a more passive experience, with parents operating the program. Still, it can be an entertaining app. For your child or for you? Hmm.

Talking Alphabet comes with a small and rather basic interface with no fullscreen option, making it not too attractive for little boys or girls. You have to click on a letter from the application menu or alternatively to type it on a keyboard, and the letter is spoken aloud in a clear voice. Although vibrantly colorful, the letters on the screen are poorly rendered, graphically, so there's little hope that your child will like them. The good news is that you can play the traditional alphabet song if you want. There are a couple of other things you can do with this app, including displaying the letters in lower case, bringing up a separate numbers screen, viewing pictures depicting items beginning with each letter, and even playing a basketball game -- an exercise of questionable educational value.

If you're looking for a basic tool to supplement your child's alphabet lessons, Talking Alphabet will do. But this app is probably going to turn out to be more fun for you than for your child, because you do all the clicking and typing. For children used to iPhones and iPads, Talking Alphabet probably won't be too appealing.