Thursday, December 6, 2012

Articulation Games (App Review)

Articulation Games by Virtual Speech Center Inc. App Review

For the past couple of weeks I have been playing around with the Articulation Games App from Virtual Speech Center Inc. You can read my review below! Don’t worry, they offered the app, but the opinions are all mine!
 

This app has 4 main components. It offers flashcards, a memory game, an artic wheel game, and the sweet spinner. And it keeps track of data. I really like that it offers more for my students than just the regular flashcards and memory game. I know my students get tired of those as the year goes on and yours probably do too! This app also uses real pictures and not drawings which was a nice change.  I have described each feature for you below.


Flashcards
This feature is very similar to other apps. You can choose multiple students at a time and the specific phonemes for each student. Then you can select word, phrase or sentence level and if the phoneme is in the initial, medial or final position. A therapist can easily go between the students in their group by tapping the name at the top and choosing the next student. Once you have finished the exercise the app has kept all the data for you!


Memory Game
The memory has a bit of a twist compared to other apps I have used. Once you select the student, phoneme and position you can begin to play. However, when a student taps a square, a window pops up and displays the picture and gives the therapist a chance to record the data. Once the student has said the target word you can close the window and return to the game. My kids were a little frustrated by this at first because they just wanted to play the game, but it was a good way to ensure that they said the target word and didn’t skip it!
 

Aritc Wheel
Again, you are able to select your students, phoneme and position to start. Then the student taps on the wheel to spin it. The picture and target word, phrase, or sentence pops up on the screen. My kids thought it was fun to ‘spin the wheel’ but sometimes the wheel was a little slow for me. Even though I would like to see it stop sooner, I was still able to get in a good number of trials.
 

Sweet Spinner
This may have been my favorite feature! I don’t know why but the spinner did not seem to take as long as the wheel to produce the target phoneme. Once you have adjusted your settings, you tap the red handle on the spinner and it generates a picture for you!
 Overall I loved that this app gave me different options for drilling my students on their sounds! And the kids liked playing new games to practice saying their words.

If you have used this app let us know what you think!

To learn more about it, check out this video!





1 comment:

Sublime Speech - Danielle Reed said...

Thanks so much for the review... I'm trying to decide which Artic game app I'll be purchasing over the break and honest reviews like this are helpful :)
~Danielle at Sublime Speech!