Mrs. D's Corner
"iPad Apps for Guided Reading {Smashing Strategies}"
By Stephanie D.
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This week I am reviewing “Mrs. D’s Corner,” a blog written by an elementary Life Skills teacher named Stephanie. I really enjoyed looking around on her website because it has some awesome tips and tricks for special education teachers. The blogs are short reads with many pictures and examples. I also like that she links everything, and I can save things on Pinterest straight from her blog post that I am reading. Although I read many blog posts on her website, I really liked a particular post about apps to help with reading.
“iPad Apps for Guided Reading {Smashing Strategies}” shares five great apps that help with sounds, reading, and spelling. Rhyme to Read is a free app that helps students to read by means of rhyming words, sight words, use of word families, and using short vowels. This app includes twenty books that the child progresses through as they learn new word families. The different word families are also color coded to help students see the similarities of words in the same word families. “Disney Storytime” is the next iPad app shared in the blog post. This app is free, but has some in-app purchases available. Mrs. D says she likes this app because her students like it and know the stories. This is an app where the student can choose to read the story or have the story read to him or her. If the student chooses to listen to the story, the app highlights the words, which helps students learn to follow along. “Bob’s Books” is a set of great apps for beginning readers. It emphasized sight words, letter sounds, and spelling. There are multiple apps of Bob Books ranging from $4-$5. Within the app, the pictures are black and white until the student completes the activity on the page, then the page becomes full of color. The fourth app Mrs. D shares on her blog is “PhotoTouch Sight Words”. This app is free, and it’s all about sight words. Students will be shown several words and must choose the sight word it tells them to. As the child accomplishes finding and selecting the sight words, it becomes more difficult by displaying more word options for the child to choose from. The last app discussed in the blog post is called “PhotoTouch ABC.” This ABC Alphabet Phonics app is great for students just learning the letters of the alphabet. This app combines audio and written words. The really neat thing about this app is that you can record your voice, so the child can hear your voice instead of the voice that is already on the app. Your voice can also be recorded in a different language. Additionally, you can add your own pictures, so children can recognize pictures of their favorite or frequently used things. The difficulty of the activity can be adjusted by adding more pictures or letters to choose from when looking for the answer. Likewise to being able to add images, you can also delete any items you don't want displayed during the activity. I can see how beneficial these apps could be in an early elementary classroom. These apps can allow students to work more independently since they all include audio as well as words. These all seem engaging and a way to keep students focused and motivated to learn letters, sounds, and words. Depending what grade I will teach, these are definitely some apps I’ll keep in mind for future use! |