APP Assignment #1: Apps to support reluctant readers
By Helen MacPhee and Sandy Alexander
For this particular assignment, we have looked mostly at applications we would consider using in our own classrooms based on the varied needs of our students. Many of the apps focus on phonological awareness; learning letter-sound correspondence, sight word recognition and the order or blending of letter sounds. Other applications support students with written tasks by increasing engagement of the students who also tend to be reluctant writers. Many of the apps listed below support a variety of learners in developing their understanding of beginning and ending consonants. We have found students who are having difficulty reading also have considerable difficulty learning vowel sounds. Exposure to vowel sounds and their appropriate use in many different contexts is important so students get enough practice to consolidate the information. There are visual and auditory components to most of the apps and many have a tactile quality that allows hands on learners to become easily engaged in learning tasks.
1. Rhyming Bee
This is a FREE app that is designed to help students learn basic rhyming sounds. The student hears and sees a word carried by the bee above the flower pots. The student then selects the correct flower pot containing a rhyming picture (on the pot) as well as rhyming words (on the petals) to match the initial rhyme word by placing the original rhyme word on the flower. There are five petals on each flower to provide repeated rhyming practice. If a mistake is made, the flower will not accept the word. The student is then allowed to re-select the other flower to achieve success. This app has a whistle to indicate the correct answer (the whistle males often use to get a female’s attention). We found this whistle sound to be somewhat socially inacceptable therefore we might not recommend this app for this reason. This particular app would be suitable for most students who are working at grade level (Grades P-3) as they learn rhyming sounds or as they are developing their understanding of basic word families and spelling. The concepts in this app would also be suitable for older students who are struggling with phonological awareness or who have had limited experience with oral language skills. Using this application for older students would certainly serve as a remedial measure to support students’ development within phonological awareness. This application would also be fairly suitable for students with fine motor challenges as the drag and drop feature may be easier than the manipulation of manual writing tools. For the most part, we liked the activities in this app as practice in developing rhyming awareness. As a free application it seems to be a bit more comprehensive than some of the other free apps. in that it provides auditory feedback.
2. Spelling bug: Free 
This is a FREE app that supports students’ learning of basic sight words and high frequency words they encounter in their exposure to everyday, written text. A picture is displayed and the word is said for the user. The user is required to move the letters provided below the image to the correct block to create a word that corresponds to the image. As letters are dragged to the correct box as they appear in the word, the word slides into the letter box. If you drag the letter to the incorrect letter box, the letter will not be accepted. This would be a good app for students who are having difficulty learning how to read or write sight words particularly in the lower elementary grades as students work within early literacy curriculum outcomes. As well, it may be useful for older students who still struggle with consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words. It would also support students with limited mobility issues in allowing them to practice a drag and drop motion for moving an item to a target location. For example, students with autism or ADD/ADHD could benefit from this app particularly if they are struggling with literacy skills. The drop and drag feature would be supportive if they struggle with fine motor and the visuals are very simple so as not to distract the learner from the learning task. The exposure to both visual and auditory information, as they first see and hear the word, is helpful. However, auditory input is only provided when the word is said prior to the student moving the letters. For students who are attempting to learn the corresponding letter sounds this app does not provide enough auditory input to allow students to make the important connection between letter symbol and sound. This app would serve as a remedial support for students struggling with simple three-letter, CVC combination words or to develop fine motor challenges.
3. Out & About
This application is designed to help the reader engage in sight word or high frequency word practice. Within each of the ten chapters, students are shown ten words individually. The student is required to read the word. By tapping or touching the word, the word is then read aloud for students. By reading this word aloud, the application either serves to reinforce the student’s correct response by verifying what the student has read independently or allow the student to hear the word if they were unable to decode the letters shown on their own. This app is good for lower elementary students whose goal is to achieve repeated experience with words they commonly see in everyday text. It is helpful for these students as they can work independently yet still receive feedback for words they either did not read accurately or for words they were unable to decode independently. For older students who continue to have difficulty with basic reading strategies, this app allows them to focus on a simple word, with limited distraction, to use explicitly taught reading strategies such as decoding using beginning and ending consonants or to practice middle (often vowel sounds or combinations). This app is very basic therefore easy to use, requiring students to only need to use a swipe action or tapping action to read a word or move on to the next word in the chapter. The app includes a parent information section which is helpful for parents who use this app at home. It clearly and easily describes how to use the app, tells who are the creators of the app and their purpose for creating the app. The app also contains another feature useful for teachers and families titled “Activities”. It gives some great suggestions for ways to use the app along with other games or activities that support the purpose of the app. There are eight different suggestions for activities including tactile activities, matching tasks, word finds, sentence building activities, fridge magnets and story hunts that can be done with an adult or with another student. This is a great feature in allowing teachers or caregivers to infuse a variety of learning opportunities into the child’s everyday routine…a great compliment to screen time activities. The basic, user-friendly nature of this application makes it ideal for younger elementary students but can also be used with older students remedially to support their efficient and accurate recognition of high frequency words or students with some range of mobility or fine motor challenges. Again this app would be beneficial for students with cognitive challenges that make reading a more difficult task. The clear articulation of word reading and the clear visual display with limited distractions make this an ideal app for students who are challenged by an ability to attend to tasks; however, because it is not as flashy as some of the other free apps, students may become bored more easily with the app.
4.
Spell Phonics 1, Simplex spelling sight words APP. $4.99
Unlike most of the other apps we have chosen, this app costs $4.99. For the most part this was a good app. It covers consonant sounds, long and short vowels, blends, etc. It would be useful for Grade One and up or would be useful for students who have difficulty sounding out letters/knowing symbol-sound correspondence. It does not have a lot of auditory output, but uses a clear voice to let you know when a response is correct. The word is said then used in a sentence. The student has to choose the letters from the Qwerty keyboard, allowing students to develop their efficient use of keyboarding skills. In this app, we liked that the vowels were colored red so they look different from the consonants. This allows students to begin learning the distinction between the two types of letters. We also like that students were required to use the correct sequence of letters as they were placed in the boxes, thus encouraging correct directionality. When a mistake is made, students can get a hint by pressing the hint button. Students can also press on the speech bubble if they require the repeated auditory support. When the student presses on the hint button the word is sounded out for him/her. These features are helpful in allowing students to develop independence as well as allowing them to monitor their own executive function as they work through the app. This app can be used remedially for elementary students at a variety of grade levels. It is helpful for students who have difficulty recognizing letter-sound correspondence as well as students who have difficulty with auditory processing as the letter sounds are presented sequentially and aloud, allowing students to hear the segmentation and blending of letter sounds.
There is a tutorial describing how to play, there are buttons under the word buttons that you can press on to help sound out the words. This app could be used with young P-3 students or older students who need practice developing sound symbol knowledge.
5. Spell-a Word.
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This is app, by RJ Cooper & Associates, was free when we first found it. However, upon revisiting the iTunes store it indicated the app costs $4.99. This app is not as easy to navigate as some of the other apps we looked at. The basic premise of the app is to spell a variety of words as they are presented. While the app allows for various voices as output many of them were rather annoying and would likely not be very appealing for students. Overall, we were not particularly in favour of this as an app to support students who struggle with reading. There were many features within this app that might easily confuse or frustrate students. For example, if a student types in the letters of the word too quickly the response timeframe of the app does not keep up with the speed of the child’s typing. This often results in students actually typing in the accurate spelling sequence but they are then told their response is not correct via auditory feedback. This can become very misleading for a child and further complicate their understanding of the complex nature of word reading. As well, students may become very frustrated by this inaccuracy and apparent lag in app response time. The visuals in this app are much more dated than in many of the newer and free apps. Though the visuals are not particularly distracting making it a good app for students who struggle to attend, this app not as appealing for students who have extensive experience with more appealing applications. Another concern we had with this app is the random nature of difficulty within each of the activities. There is little effort to incorporate words of similar complexity level within each category, thus making some words too easy for some students, while making others very difficult within the same task. This is inconsistent with the notion of scaffolding of tasks for students and may cause students to become unmotivated. If used with students, it would best suit students in the middle to late years of elementary as a remedial support for efficiency and accuracy with word reading or for students with diagnoses such as autism. However, we found many other apps that would likely be more valuable and appealing in nature.
6. Shake-a-Phrase
Shake-a-Phrase ($1.99) seems to be a good app for the development of language and reading through the making of silly sentences and stories. It is a language app for creative writing prompts, vocabulary, and parts of speech practice recommended for ages 8 and up, making it an ideal app to be used in elementary as part of the regular curriculum when considering universal design for student learning. It may also be very useful for older students in junior high and high school, as well as English as a Second Language (EAL) students needing further language development. Students will enjoy this app with the way sentences can be put together to create funny compositions; therefore engaging many of our reluctant readers. This app fits well within the UDL model and its principles as a suitable app for most students in classrooms from Grade Three and up while serving both remedial and compensatory needs in higher grade levels. The app contains a variety of activities that will appeal to students’ ongoing motivation. By having a variety of tasks to select from, students can have repeated exposure to similar concepts while still perceiving each activity as a novel experience. For example:
SHAKE IT: Creates a new random sentence every time you shake - great for discovering new words. If you don’t know what a word means just tap it and the definition will be given. This is great for allowing students to work independently while continuing to monitor their own, ongoing progress and growth needs. This is ideal for students who require increased vocabulary development or to increase their comprehension with semantic and pragmatics.
STORY STARTER: Shake up the beginning of a story and let your imagination take over. This is great for students who have difficulty generating ideas or for developing their creativity and organization skills related to the planning and writing process.
QUIZ ME: Test your skills with adjectives, verbs, nouns, prepositions and conjunctions. Tap on the right words to get points and gain levels. Through the selection of words and story starters students across a range of writing abilities can work on their development of the reading and writing processes.
7.
$0.99
In this application, which costs only $0.99, students are introduced to the vowel sounds and are given practice selecting the correct vowel to place between two consonants to match the picture. The activity would be a useful task as part of an un-adapted lower elementary program (late Primary through Grade 2) with explicit instruction or with adult support when introducing students to the concept of vowels. When working independently, the student receives feedback when s/he prints the letters with their fingers to make words. There are two parts to this application. The first part, called ‘Practice’, requires the child to use the picture to help fill in the missing vowel in a three-letter, consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words such as sun, within ‘r’ controlled words, or within words containing two-letter blends at the beginning and end of the word. The second part of the app is the ‘Play’ component of the application where the child is required to select a vowel from the menu of vowels at the top of the page. After choosing a crayon to color, the child is asked to trace, using the touch of a finger, the consonants s/he wishes to use to create a word. There are three spaces for the word and a white space below where you can continue and draw a picture. We liked this app because of its ability to be used with students at a variety of age and ability levels thus making it both a remedial and compensatory app to support individual and scaffolded student learning. For the earliest of learners they are able to trace or draw the letters and picture with their finger which makes it more engaging than just selecting letters. It is good for practicing letter formation and exposes students to more than just letter selection from a keyboard. By tapping the rounded arrow at the lower left of the screen, one can see directions for how the page is used (a suggestion for any adult who is working with the child). The layout is simple and not too busy with good contrast between the colors of letters and the white background. This app provides good for students who may have difficulty with visual and auditory information or for students with difficulty sustaining attention to task for extended periods of time. The app is well work the low cost for use with students of a variety of ages and cognitive and physical needs.
8. Sentence builder
Sentence Builder is available from the Mobile Education Store for a cost of $5.99. This application helps students learn how to build grammatically correct sentences and develop greater word recognition. There are lots of opportunities to choose connector words from words on a roller to match what is in the picture. The app reads the sentence when the student finishes the sentence. Students can change words, colours and prepositions in a variety of scaffolded ways within three levels of play. For example, in level 1, the subject and adjective are fixed. The student chooses the modifier and the verb. Each student has their own stats page so both the student and teacher can monitor progress over time. After the correct answer is chosen the correct sentence is played for further reinforcement. By scaffolding the levels, the app allows for a range of learners with a range of abilities to experience increasing levels of difficulty. Because the stats page allows students and teachers to monitor progress, the application allows students to better develop executive function skills such as attention and self-monitoring. This scaffolding also allows for both remedial and compensatory implications depending on the age and individual needs or challenges of the student. This would be a great app for grade level classroom instruction in the upper elementary and junior high grades as well as to support students in junior high who struggle with the embedded literacy concepts.
9. The Cat In The Hat, 
This Dr. Seuss inspired application by Oceanhouse Media is available for $3.99. How could anyone not enjoy this classic - young or old? This is an interactive storybook app where students develop their reading skills with sight word practice, but more impressively, with rhyme. This is a good application for early elementary whether the child is yet able to reader or not. Just listening to the story encouraged children to develop a love of reading and the fun associated with the rhythm encourages students to develop their understanding of rhyme which is a fundamental component as children learn to read and write. This rhyme helps students to develop their awareness of word sounds as well as word patterns commonly found in a variety of word families. A child can record his or her own voice and listen to it play back, play with a variety of sound effects which develop auditory discrimination, and develop picture/word association as the words zoom up and are spoken when pictures are touched. When individual words are tapped they are highlighted and read aloud which affords students the ability to develop their vocabulary without the ongoing one-on-one support needed with a traditional paper copy of the book. This is a great app for supporting our reluctant readers as they interact with text in a way that is meaningful and motivation. The repetition is paramount for students who require repeated exposure to texts including students with attention deficits, receptive language difficulties or difficulty with working memory capacity. This app is a great new spin on an old classic.
10.
Rainbow Sentences, also available from the Mobile Education Store costs $7.99 and is recommended for children in ages between 3 and 6 or 6 and 10 depending on the components the child is accessing. This app received very strong reviews especially for language development which is great for teachers in reaching students across a variety of ages, abilities and challenges. According to the many reviews in iTunes: “Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences by using color coded visual cues. The ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘why’ parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students will learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, and improve their understanding of how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students have the opportunity to record their sentences in their own voice to improve their receptive and expressive language skills.” This app would be useful in remediation for students who need support with language development as well as reading. Due to its range of ages, this application can serves to support younger students as they learn the intricate and complex aspects of language development (syntax, semantics, pragmatics) while also supporting older learners who may have limited experience in their earlier years with oral language development.
11. 
L’Escapadou presents: Montessori Crosswords $2.99, quite reasonable
For just $2.99, L’Escapadou: Montessouri Crosswords is a very nice app. It opens up with the peaceful sound of birds. The audio is pleasant throughout all the games which have a calming effect…a great feature in contrast to the sometimes over-stimulating audio found in some applications. This would, hence, be great for students who have auditory sensitivities like students with autism. The app has an easy to manage screen with six choices. To make words, a word is said and paired with a picture. There are three spaces (or more depending on the word complexity) for the letters to be dragged and dropped into the letter boxes. When the letters are dragged from the alphabet at the bottom of the page and dropped into their correct spots the word is sounded out one letter at a time as the letter pops into its sequential place in the word. The words go from consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words to words with beginning and ending blends, to r controlled words, to two syllable words etc. If students are not sure of the sound they can hear it just by touching the letter. This was one of our favorite of all the apps we searched. It would be useful to students at a variety of reading levels. It’s easy to manipulate, with help available, so it is a great application for supporting students with hand-eye coordination. The drag and drop feature allows students to move letters to a target with relative ease and increased motor control. Because the drag and drop feature will not allow a letter to be placed incorrectly (an x is shown and the letter goes back to the alphabet) it allows for students to monitor their own success and also provides students with the opportunity to retry the activity until they have success. The vowels are blue while the consonants are red which is helpful to students so long as they do not have any visual impairment. As you drag and drop the letters there is auditory feedback in the form of the letter sound rather than the letter name which has a greater impact in allowing students to connect sound-letter correspondence. The app is recommended for ages 3 and up which makes it a great learning tool to develop literacy skills from an early age which we know is a huge asset in literacy learning. As well, because of the varied levels of complexity and the seIf-correcting and errorless learning features of this app, it is useful in first time, independently learning by students in lower elementary grades as well as having remedial benefits for students in older elementary grades as they work to develop their understanding of sounds sequentially. It helps students who need support with segmenting and blending and would also be a helpful took in supporting English as a Second Language (EAL) as they develop a basic understanding of English vocabulary.
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I Speak Word from Word Wizard is available for $2.99.
This app comes highly recommended for learning letter-sound correspondence
and it has text to speech capability so it could be used for remediation as well as compensatory strategies to support reading and writing across a variety of ages/grades and abilities. The vowels on the moveable tiles are a different color than the consonants allowing students to discriminate easily.
Students can add their own word lists which makes this application useful for a variety of learners at a number of word complexity levels.
It can also be used in order to support many different features of words such as beginning, middle and ending letter sounds, vowel sounds, and word families or rhyming word practice.
Letter size can be changed depending on the needs of the user as well.
This is a great feature that allows text to be enlarged or reduced as necessary to accommodate the needs of visually impaired learners.
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13. Play Sight Words, eFlash app. 
This is another free app that is recommended by the manufacturer for Grade 1 or 2 students who typically are functioning at cognitive or developmentally appropriate age levels for these grades. You can turn the music on or off which is a great feature, for example for autistic students or other students who might experience auditory sensitivities and the music is appealing not only to younger but older students alike. The graphics in this app, although mostly designed for younger children, may also appeal to older students using the app in a remedial manner, as the pictures show skate boards and other items of interest to an older audience. This is helpful in reducing avoidance of tasks by older students because the work is too ‘babyish’ for them. This app would support students in P-3 learning as it would provide a greater scaffolding for students who require further challenge in the primary grades or can be used remedially for students in older grades based on the changing complexity of the words.
14. Dragon Dictation.
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This is a free app that could be used as a compensatory method of allowing older elementary students to record their thoughts and ideas from speech into text by recording their words. We downloaded the free version but had difficulty getting it to recognize our words and convert them into written text. The manufacturers claim it can easily be accessed using the build in microphone in an iPad, however, it might be more effective in capturing the inconsistencies in clarity of speech if a headset complete with microphone were used to eliminate and indiscriminate voice that could not be accurately converted to written text. An alternative to this free version is to buy Dragon Naturally Speaking; however there is significant cost with this version of the app. As we explored the features outlined by the manufacturer, we liked that it had commonly used verbal commands like “new line”, “caps on” that could be easily used by students to create the necessary punctuation effects or editing features requires when creating published work. This would be a helpful feature for older students as they work through the writing process to develop their writing or as a compensatory tool for ensuring students are motivated to revise and edit their work on repeated attempts. However, students would already have to have a fairly good understanding of the writing process in order to do this. This application, like so many other commercially available apps, is a great tool for students with range of motion or mobility issues. However, it is limited to use by students who already have a well-developed ability to articulate their thoughts and ideas as well as for students whose speech is very clear. Otherwise, this app meets with challenges in translating incomprehensible voice sounds into written text.
15.
Tracing letters. 
This free app, by Little Writer, is a good app for students who are learning the mechanics of writing. It is also a good application for students who have fine motor control challenges. The student, supported by arrows indicating direction, traces over the letters which helps develop directionality and appropriate letter formation. This application can be used for primary students who are just developing their ability to print or it may be used by older students to remediate difficulty in directionality of print or in forming letters appropriately. The large size of the letters on the screen supports students who find fine motor tasks challenging. As the child uses touch to trace each letter, the app provides visual feedback to the user by recording the lines as they are created. In comparison to the traditional felt letters or tracing activities that use sand and other tactile surfaces to facilitate repeated tracing practice, this applications immediate feedback ensures students are able to self-monitor their success with sequential letter formation.
16.
Letter Writing Oceans. ![]()
This is another app that helps students write letters while developing fine motor skills. The letters float below the ocean’s surface. When the student taps on a letter, prompts or guides for the letter strokes appear. A little fish will swim to the beginning of where the letter should start so a child would put their finger there. Then they follow the stroke directions and write the letter on the screen. The fish will follow the finger as long as they are writing correctly. This app would be good for students who are just learning to print or for remedial work with students who need extra practice forming letters.
17. Educreations,
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FREE!
This is a free interactive whiteboard application that not only has great potential as remedial and compensatory tool for students, but it’s interactive nature and ability for information, presentations or lessons to be shared using email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. make it a great application for teachers to share professional communication and plans to support a variety of learners. We really liked this application; so much so that we have created a short example using the app for you to view. In this sample, you can witness first hand some of the very exciting capabilities of this application. One of the great things about this app is that it can be used by anyone who has use of their fingers, nose, toes or tongue. Touch by any of these sources will allow the individual to create or navigate a lesson that can be saved and shared…great for students with slightly or moderately limited range of motion or manual dexterity. As a teaching aid, it can be used to present concepts to almost any age group. With its ‘redo’ and ‘undo’ features, the user can demonstrate and record a concept or problem in almost any subject and can move forward and backward through the demonstration to support both gifted students requiring more challenging work or students who require more remedial revisits to concepts as they have been shown. It can be used by teachers to implement a lesson or by students to draw and share their thinking using different colors or text features to share their prior knowledge, understanding of problem solving tasks, etc. By selecting a color and trace with their fingers, students can create drawings to express their ideas. With developing ability to record text, students can use this drawing feature to print or write directly onto the screen or use the text feature to type text directly onto the screen. This variety of ways to record text appeals to the very diverse needs of students across ages, abilities and disabilities. The user can insert pictures or documents from a variety of sources including Dropbox. These images can be rotated and resized using basic touch into your documents or you can create a video using this app. The tremendous versatility of this app allows engagement and access across so many audiences; audiences with a variety of ranges socially, cognitively, and physically in both remedial and compensatory ways. One of the best parts is the capability to share your work either privately or publicly via a number of accessibilities.
18.
Yes/No I can do apps.
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At first we thought this particular free application did not have much to offer. However, as simple as this app’s use is, it provides a vital communication tool for students with severely limited cognitive, physical, communicative capabilities. The app simply has a green “yes” button with a happy face on it, and a red “no” button with a sad face on the bottom. It allows a individual with communication disabilities the ability to respond to very simple yes/no questions by tapping the appropriate response. Similar to traffic light colours, the student can experience basic communication skills with others. The types of questions a user may answer are obviously limited by the two possible responses. However, in many situations, these simple responses serve as a communication tool that might otherwise not be possible for the user. This application can be used by almost any age from 2+ within a variety of communicative challenges.
19.
Duck, Duck Moose Super Hero Comic Book Maker.
From the Duck! Duck! Moose! Series, this is an awesome app at only $1.99. This app could be used for all elementary grades with different levels of support. Students can create a comic using a good number of backgrounds or they have the capability to make their own background from a blank screen. Students can use a variety of features to draw or select characters, create backgrounds, and include text within their comic. This app has the capability of allowing a student to record their voice into the story or they can use the on-screen feature to write speech bubble or sentences right onto the screen. Students can have as many pages as preferred or able which allows for varying levels of student ability. The comic strips can then be played back to share with others. This app allows access to communication and creativity across a huge variety of age levels depending on the features chosen to share the comic ideas. Thus, this is a great app for teachers and parents who interact with a variety of ages or abilities. The ease with which individuals can access features in the app makes it ideal for those with fine motor challenges. It is incredibly engaging for students who face challenges with traditional reading and writing tasks in school…truly an app for everyone!
20.
Bubble Rhyme ![]()
Bubble Rhyme another free app that supports student of differing ages and abilities in developing the ability to discriminate and create rhyme. Rhyming is a fundamental component for students as they learn to read. For a free app its presentation is clear and easy to use. It is more effective than some of the other free apps. Students select, by tapping or touching, a word on moving bubbles to match a rhyming word and picture (auditory and visual cues). These bubbles, which contain a variety of different words, float across the screen. The task is to tap the word on the bubble that is a rhyming match to the initial word presented to the child. For a child who has difficulty with rhyming this app ensures the child is successful through the process of elimination as the child can continue to tap all the bubbles/word until the correct word is found. We really liked that the app provided a review or confirmation of the rhyme by having the initially presented word being said along with the answer chosen by the child. This errorless style of learning creates positive reinforcement that is critical for students who become easily disengaged or discouraged when an answer is wrong. This is a great app to initially teach rhyming to early literacy learners as well as a remedial tool for older students who struggle with the concept of rhyming. This remediation can have much impact on an older child’s ability to be successful with literacy tasks. The aesthetically appealing visuals draw younger students’ attention but might be somewhat ‘young’ or discouraging to significantly older children. The easy tap response makes this application ideal for students with fine motor skills. The moving answer bubbles help students to develop their target response as well as their ability to rhyme.
