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There’s no shortage of iPhone apps available to keep kids occupied while you wait for your bloomin’ onion to be served. There’s also no shortage of apps available to explain why you shouldn’t be eating a bloomin’ onion. In this review, though, we’ll focus on the kids, and take a look at a couple of Scholastic apps that can teach them a few things while they’re entertained: WordGirl Word Hunt and Clifford’s BE BIG with Words.

WordGirl Word Hunt

Category: Education
Seller: Scholastic, Inc.
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch
File Size: 38.6MB
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Price: $1.99
Age Rating: 4+

What I dig about WordGirl is that she believes bad vocabulary is a crime, and she’s dedicated her life to fighting it. This game shouldn’t be aimed at just children, there should be a version for adults, as well. Of course, don’t tell most adults that. Want to lose your friends quickly? Occasionally correct their grammar or let them know they’re using “comprise” incorrectly. See how quickly you quit getting invited to parties.

So, WordGirl saves only the children, as I guess she does on PBS. I’ve never seen the show, despite having kids the appropriate age. If the show is like the game, then WordGirl flies around to “crime” areas to help people come up with the right word for that situation. It’s a fun little premise that translates into a fun little game.

Each vocabulary lesson is accompanied by a story that helps kids determine the right word based on context. Get it wrong, and the player is gently urged in the correct direction. Get it right, and it’s on to the action sequence; by tilting your iPhone or iPod touch, you control WordGirl as she flies through the air, punching words and avoiding obstacles.

There are 40 rounds of this, teaching kids the definitions of over 100 words. I’m not sure of the actual educational value, as there’s little here to reinforce memorization of the definitions. But fans of the show will likely be entertained by the familiar characters, and kids in the 4- to 8-year-old target range will likely be into it for a few words at a time.

Clifford’s BE BIG with Words

Category: Education
Seller: Scholastic, Inc.
Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0 or later
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch
File Size: 32.0MB
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Price: $1.99
Age Rating: 4+

Now Clifford, I am familiar with. As a child, I read books about him when he just happened to be a really big red dog with no hidden agenda. These days he’s a cartoon who teaches kids how to share and behave and respect and all those other lessons that are completely lost on real-life children. Not that Scholastic should be faulted for trying, of course.

In this game, though, Clifford just wants to teach kids to spell and read. The premise is that Jetta wants to paint stuff, but has hit a creative wall. It’s up to you and the other characters from the show to give her ideas by spelling words. The kicker, though, is that you don’t have to know how to spell to do this. You simply select a letter from Jetta’s paint palette, and it’s written to the canvas.

The letters on the palette then change accordingly, so that each option for the next letter will still spell a word. Each word is only three letters, and the player can’t do anything wrong here. Rather, he or she will learn each letter by its sound, and see how those sounds come together to create the word.

Once the three letters are chosen, Jetta completes a painting representing that word. Some of these are a bit of a stretch, as with the image below.

If I show that image to my kids, they’re not getting “boo” out of it. But I imagine there’s a shortage of three-letter words that can be easily represented on the iPhone. Scholastic managed to come up with 315. I couldn’t do that…even with WordGirl’s help.

Although I preferred the design and the lessons of WordGirl Word Hunt over Clifford’s BE BIG with Words, my kids play the latter more often. Perhaps that’s because of their familiarity with Clifford, or perhaps it’s because of the simple gameplay and constant postitive reinforcement. Regardless, if you have children who are at the age where they’re just starting to identify letters and words, this is a great app to assist them with language development.