A really engaging and positive app for the emergent reader. There are 4 different literacy games that practice a lot of different skills. The emphasis is on phonemes and phonological awareness. It does have some games that also practice rhyming,reading, writing and comprehension. The child gets a lot of positive verbal feedback and get sticker rewards. The child (person) would need to be able to attend to the screen and have the motor contorl of being able to touch and drag pictures on the screen to play the games. The app allows the person to actively engage in games that is just like the activities shown on a TV program with the same title.
2.
This app allows a parent and SLP to support a child that needs to practice individual phonmenes that they are having difficulty with in their oral language. The app shows a deck of cards with each phoneme and you scroll through the deck and select the one needed. It then says the sound and shows how the mouth should be formed to create that sound.
3.
This app would allow a person to become more relaxed to do a more academic task. The app could also allow the person to be more attentive to the other task at hand. The app could be offered with another task or be offered in a first then situation, depending on the needs of the person.
4.
This app has 3 different modes to use it. Essentially the app displays either a timer with 60 minutes or a clock face dispalyed and it shows a red section shows the person using it can see time elapse. The app makes time more meaningful and possibly less anxiety provoking for a person working in a specific time frame. Also when the time is up it can do more than ring. This could be a great app to help with the executive skills needed to do a reading task.
5.
This app has a lite version and full version (2.99). Even the lite version gives parents / adults lots of good information about children or emergent readers how the aquire phonics skills. There are more options of games in the full version. The user gets more chance to play words games and write letters and learn first words.
6.
This app supports the emergent reader too. The app teaches the user many common words. I don't like the fact that most of them are nouns or verbs and would not typically be part of a first 100 high frequency word list. Also the letters names are said and not the sounds. I do like it mostly because there are 4 ways to play and it is not negative when you get something wrong.
7.
I like this app for beginning readers. It teaches many early words in ways that appeal to the users different senses. It would also appeal to different types of learners. I like that it encourages them to repeat things in some of the activities and that it has an activitiy that uses word families. It has good visuals. I like that the voice is of a child and could be more appealing to the user.
8.
This app does cost 24.99 though I would think it would be a great app for SLP's. It "targets auditory and reading comprehension of single words." " It has 3 user freiendly modes" and "it is a valuable tool to treat attention and other cognitive deficits". I didn't actually purchase this one but I am interested in what it could do specially for those with oral langauge or comprehension or vocabulary needs. It even tracks progress that could be forwarded to you SLP. That's cool.
9.
This app looks really great. I can see how it could be used classwide not just for supporting those with disbailities. Some classes at my school do a month to month year book and for some this is a painful process. I think pictello would definitely be a more engeging way to create the same end product. I think it could be very powerful in creating more meaningful social stories. The story could be played over & over. I also could be used for my nonverbal autistic student since he could tell his story or create stories about himself. I really like this one. (1 I hope to get in the fall).
10.
11.
This app is kind of fun for emergent readers. It reads a line of text and visually prompts the reader to spell words that are in the text. The part I like best is that it says the sounds and not the letter name. Once the child has spell the word, the object gets colored and comes to life. The game becomes harder because more choices of letters are included and the user has to figure out not only the correct sequence but the correct letter sounds to use. The lite version is pretty limited but it's a good trial. You can purchase other levels for 1.99 each for the user to gain more early reading skills.
12.
This app looks fun. It could be used by someone wanting to make illustartions for a book. It could be used by playing word guessing games where the user selects a color then prints a word. They could even practice spelling words, more fun than on paper. A really fun feature is the option to share with someone else. That is, if 2 people have devices and are on wifi they could see what each other is drawing because the collabrated picture shows on both devices. Neat! The only tricky part is needing gross and fine motor control and being able to use 2 fingers to get back & forth the screens.
13.
I think this is a powerful app. It's recognition of voices is really good. You have the ability to change something it didn't understand. You also have the ability to email, twitter and other social networks your message you just recorded. I am curious how this could support someone with reading difficulties. For example, if a user dictated somehting and the device didn't hear something correctly, the user might not notice there are errors in what got typed compared to what they wanted to say. Too bad it didn't have a playback feature. The user has to be a good reader to make sure the correct words were typed. Probably this app could be paired with a text to speech app that remedy this problem.
14.
This app is good for someone wanting to build their spelling (word building) and vocabulary skills. The app is addictive because you want to improve your score from 1 game to the next. You can change some of the settings so there are 2 dictionaries (student & teacher) and there can be 3 different time settings. The user has to be able to click and drag letters. They also have to have a good understanding of spelling rules to have a better chance of creating words.Some of the words I've never heard of. The 1 thing I did not like was that the words were never said. Addictive and increases attention to task.
15.
This app has over 30,000 book classics that can to read to the user. The app reinforcers the skills of decoding, fluency and comprehension in the reading process for the user. The feature I liked the best is that you can scan a text (a book at say your "just right" level or one you wrote) by using kurzweil or stanza and then save it in vbookz so that you could then select "your" book from the book shelf and have it read to you. That's neat! This would be a good app for someone that has other interests though not the reading skills i.e an illiterate adult. or someone that would like to hear a good book while on a long drive.
16.
Another addictive gaming app. The user has to select like colored squares that are touching edges and double tap them to have them removed. You earn points. You have to earn a certain amount of points within a time frame to move on to the next level. The app would be good for someone that is good at matching, is quick with their fine motor skills and finds these games engaging. It could be used as a relaxer for some users or possibly increase ones attention to task.
17.
I had high hopes for this app. You can select a grade level passage to read. The device times you and tells you # of words per minute you read and in the information spot it refers you to their web site to learn more about the reading process. There is a full version for 1.99. It allows you to track up to a whole class of students. There are many stories that are non fiction and fictional. The biggest disappointment was that the grade K level passage was much harder than we would expect a "typical" primary student to read. If the passages were at an appropriate reading level then this could be a great app to track fluency of readers I think.
18.
This is kind of a neat app. It gives the user a short assessment in a specific reading skill (it describes what that skill means). It give a guide line where a "good reader in grade x" should be. It tells you how to administer the test and gives suggestions as to how to improve this skill. The app is not engaging. The user has to read all of the text and there is no prompt or suggestion in a particular order. It does has good information about what the reading skills are and good activity ideas though really quite general or common. It would be a good place for a parent to get started in supporting their child.
19.
This app is nice in that it reads childrens books aloud. You could even get books in different languages. The text is not highlighted. The pictures are appealing, they do move and they user can interact with them once the reading is finished on the page. The user can can tap on an item have have it do something. This app looks similar to vbookz, I thought. Only the first few books are free and then you need to purchse others to add to your bookshelf.
20.
This app is a game that taps into different areas of the brain. You have to complete usually 5 questions in each of the areas and then the app tells you how much of your brain you used today. It tests logic, math, memory, visual and focus. I've tried it 5 different times and now it doesn't seem to want to let me play. I seem to be prompted to but the full version. It says the full version has more games and ways to focus or train in a specific area. This app requires you to have you neural networks working well in order to be successfull at this game!
Each of the 20 apps that I selected could used to support the user, whoever that might be, in 1 or more of the following areas during the reading process: the neural processing systems,decoding or comprehension (refer to the reading task analysis, assignment 1 in the pages section).
Besides these apps there are some really informative pod casts worth listening to in regards the reading process. I especially thoughts the following ones worthy to listen to:
**itunes U - Series Fluency: The Bridge Between Word Recognition and Comprehension
** Teacher Created Materials - Episodes 1-5
** Meet the Experts (Reading Rockets)
