Last updated June 22, 2014
A price in parentheses is the volume purchase price for 20 or more copies. All prices were accurate when I added the app to this list, but prices often change.
There is a link to the Apple store or to the developer’s website for each app. In some cases there is also a link to a more detailed review of an app.
Some apps are designed to be used by the student alone, some allow for turn-taking by students, and others are best used when the student is working directly with an adult.
App name | Price | |
ABA flashcards from Kindergarten.com | Free to $1.99 | 19 different apps mostly for teaching vocabulary. Each app has up to 350 images. |
$1.99 ($0.99) | Basic vocabulary – colors, shapes, letters, numbers. Matching activity and a listening activity. Promo video from the developer | |
Apps from myfirstapp.com | Free | 18 apps intended for very young kids, 18 months old and up. Some are usable with older (elementary school age) kids to teach basic vocabulary and concepts. |
$2.99 | Create collections of flashcards with pictures, text and audio and then play a variety of games with each set. (Free version available with only 3 options for activities.) Allows for multiple users, and tracks users’ progress. | |
Free | Rhyming, prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, homophones, adjectives and more. 800 words included Two students can play together collaboratively (team mode) or competitively (head to head.) | |
Free | Explains the history behind English idioms. 23 idioms included. 140 more available through in-app purchases. | |
Free | Emotional vocabulary and self-expression. Hosted by Electric Company cast members Jessica Ruiz and Danny Rebus, “Feel Electric!” features three fast-paced games, a digital diary to record daily moods, a zany story maker, and more! | |
Free to $0.99 | 80 different apps and digital books from this company for teaching/reviewing basic vocabulary items. Some free, some not. Usually customizable – add your own pictures and sounds, switch off any of the provided items that you don’t want. | |
Free | Mom gives you a shopping list and a budget. Buy all the items from the list and you get to ‘buy’ a toy with any money left over. Includes a wide range of grocery items to buy – including things like pawpaw, papaya, quail eggs! Some of the pictures don’t illustrate the product as well as others. Definitely one to use WITH students if you want them to get language work out of it! | |
$0.99 ($0.49) | Design a Martian – choose body parts/colors. Use as a talking or writing prompt. I’ve used this as part of a unit on body part vocabulary. (“My monster has 5 eyes and three legs”) Definitely one to use WITH students if you want them to get language work out of it! | |
$0.99 to $1.99 each | Food vocabulary. Pick out the food you want to eat, cook it and then ‘eat’ it. I save the picture of the plate of food before the kids ‘eat’ it so that the next day I can ask them “What did you have yesterday?” and they get to review the vocabulary. Could also be used as part of a ‘how to’ writing exercise - ‘make’ the meal, then write up the instructions afterwards.. I read (sorry, forget where) about a teacher who used More Cookies to teach about making cookies before baking real cookies with her class. Definitely one to use WITH students if you want them to get language work out of it! | |
Free (has in-app purchases) | An interactive vocabulary notebook for English language learners. Comes with 75 words in the English language taken from Cambridge University Press’ dictionaries for English learners. 5 different exercise types. Built-in translation available for Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Italian, and traditional Chinese. Users must create an account to download more words as in-app purchases so works best for personal rather than shared iPods/iPads. ($0.99 to $1.99) Accents are British. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | 18 animated words, with two little bugs that also animate to illustrate the word. Very cute – but only 18 words :-( Demo video from the developer. | |
Free | Antonym identification. Multiple choice game for grades 2-5 From GAMeS Lab at RU - Virginia standards referenced in app info. | |
Free | Mix and merge different time views of a scene – see the same forest in each season, paint different areas of the same scene so you can see it at a different point in time. Limited collection of scenes – but it’s free! | |
$9.99 | Designed to help elementary aged children learn the correct use of prepositions and learn how prepositions can change the meaning of a sentence. During play, the student is presented with an image and must drag a preposition to complete a sentence about the image. If the student chooses the wrong answer, the image and sentence change to show the student the proper use of the preposition they chose and how it changes the image. There is no option to have the initial sentence read to the student. Tracks up to 5 different students’ progress. Includes 28 prepositions and 300 images. Video tutorial and description from the developer Video review from Teachers With Apps | |
Free | Tidy up and clean up a room! For example, in a kitchen, bowls and plates need to be placed in the sink, the milk has to go in the refrigerator, and garbage belongs in the waste basket. Can be customized by adding your own photos. Definitely one to use WITH students if you want them to get language work out of it! | |
Free | Synonym identification. Multiple choice game with timed or untimed options and different levels of play for grades 2 through 6. No pictures to provide context for the vocabulary, but at least the word is provided in a sentence. GAMeS Lab at RU - Virginia standards referenced in app info | |
$9.99 | Prepositions Remix provides practice with 20 of the most commons propositions in English: Above, Behind, Below, Beside, Between, Closest to, Furthest, In, In front of, In the middle, Inside, Near, Next to, On, On top of, Out, Outside, To the left, To the right, Under. You can adjust the number of prepositions played with in a session; adjust the type of feedback provided to the student, and whether or not to provide additional cues such as a second audio production or written cues on the screen. A $5.99 in-app upgrade allows you to track individual student’s progress. Video introduction to the app from GeekSLP. | |
Free | Homophones Multiple choice game with timed or untimed options. GAMeS Lab at RU – Virginia standards referenced in app info on iTunes | |
Free (has in-app purchases) | Flashcard library. Create custom exercises and lessons, automatically track performance, and carry your entire library collection with you at all times. Comes with a basic set of pictures - in-app purchases are available to increase the size of the library. Overview video for version 1.0 of the app. Review from Smart Apps for Kids - points out that this is an app that you will need to put some time/effort into customizing to really get the most of it, but use it well and it could replace some of your other apps. | |
$24.99 ($12.49) | Includes all the libraries that are in-app purchases in See.Touch.Learn - 1700 pictures and 1300 exercises. Also includes the ability to record some of the prompts in your own voice rather than the computer voice in the free app. | |
$0.99 ($0.49) | Paint with food items instead of crayons. Choose from 150 different foods to finger paint with. Lesson idea: for a listening exercise and vocabulary review - paint a picture and then give the students directions to recreate it. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Animated flashcards. Milo the mouse illustrates 55 different adjectives. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Animated flashcards. Milo the mouse demonstrates 23 location words such as “inside,” “above,” and “behind.” (Also available in a Spanish version.) Video demo from the developer | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Animated flashcards. Milo the mouse performs over 100 actions, such as “bounce,” “count,” and “play”. (Also available in a Spanish version.) Video demo from the developer | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | “Helps children learn vocabulary and the corresponding antonyms by challenging them to match up pairs of opposing words in increasingly difficult levels. The game also helps children understand the importance of word context, and is an opportunity for them to think about how the words they use oppose other words.” The Opposites consists of 10 different levels, each stage with a corresponding level of vocabulary. The app also offers a dictionary option that provides definitions and antonyms in a kid-friendly format. Words float on to the screen and you have to tap to match up the opposites. You could complete the game by tapping at random :-( | |
Typedrawing for FREE (has ads) | Free $1.99 $2.99 | Use words as the brushes for your art. Lesson idea: use for vocabulary review. For example: draw a tree using the words ‘roots’, trunk, ‘branches’, ‘leaves’. Use to review any nouns you can illustrate. See my review. Paid versions are ad-free |
Free | iPad-only app for students in 3rd grade through 8th grade to practice Tier 2 vocabulary items. See my review. | |
| $0.99 ($0.49) | 40 colorful, voice-over illustrations (such as big-small, hot-cold, happy-sad) Bilingual - English and Russian. Simple flashcards. No animation or bells or whistles . . . |
Title | Price |
|
Cambridge Grammar - English Grammar in Use series | $4.99 to $9.99 | Grammar activities and tests with imagery and sound. A lot of multiple choice, often with only 2 options. Tracks scores for one user only. Scores can be reset at any time. British English. Designed to accompany the Cambridge Grammar’s English Grammar in Use. Very much a digital worksheet. |
Free | An app from GrasshopperApps.com with 350 pictures included to illustrate comparative adjectives. You can turn individual concepts on or off and introduce one new adjective at a time or mix them all up together. You cannot add new pictures to this app, as you can with some other Grasshopper Apps. | |
$2.99 | Multiple choice questions. Students have to identify which words in the sentences are singular or plural nouns. | |
Free | Identifying parts of speech – pronoun, interjection, preposition, adverb, adjective, noun Multiple choice game with timed or untimed options and different levels of play for grades 2 through 6. From GAMeS Lab at RU – Virginia standards referenced in app info on iTunes | |
Free $2.99 | Identify parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) in a sentence. Can choose which part of speech to focus on. Pro version is $2.99 | |
Free to $2.99 | Animated songs followed by quiz questions on adjectives, contractions, nouns, pronouns, punctuation, sentences, verbs. Accompanies Pearson’s Reading Street ELA text. Primary edition is free, Elementary and Middle versions are $2.99 with no volume discount available. | |
Hamaguchi apps for speech language and auditory development | Free to $9.99 | Intended for students who are working with SLPs. Their goal is to “teach and strengthen speech, language and listening skills through interactive, colorful and engaging apps for the iPad and iPhone-- for less than $10.” Equally suitable for ELL students. Settings can be saved for multiple students using the same iPod/iPad so each student’s progress can be tracked. Some free ‘Lite’ apps available with limited vocabulary/functionality. Very detailed descriptions of each app are provided on the developer’s website. |
$5.99 ($2.99) | A digital version of a pack of cards from Super Duper® Publications. There are 52 illustrated picture cards plus audio of each card’s text. Select the cards you want students to see, and have your students fill in the blank to practice irregular past, present infinitive, and future tense verbs. The app tracks the total score for up to 5 students at a time, but not the specific items that the students do not get right. The app resets all data to zero at the start of each new game, but at the end of a game you can email yourself any data you want to keep. In the automatic scoring mode, the app only presents two verb forms - students choose between ‘run’ or ‘ran’ for e.g., and are never shown examples of misapplied rules like ‘runned’. In manual mode, students choose (say) their own answer and then the teacher taps the correct or incorrect button. Video from the developer, Super Duper® Publications. | |
$5.99 ($2.99) Free (in-app purchases) $8.99 ($4.49) | 3 thematic units: Grammar, Verbs and Vocabulary & Spelling, divided into 44 chapters. More than 2,000 questions. Three different types of questions: multiple choice; open answer (numeric or alphanumeric); select some of the text on the screen. The app only tracks progress for one student at a time. | |
$3.99 ($1.99) | Students record a sentence to go with a picture. Designed to help children accomplish the following educational goals: 1) Improve sentence ideation; 2) Improve sentence formation; and 3) Improve receptive and expressive language. Tutorial video from the developer, Mobile Education Store. | |
Free | Classic MadLibs. A free version of Mad Libs available for download but, of course, what they want you to do is to purchase more so it only includes 4 stories. A $3.99 in-app purchase gets you another 20 stories. There are 2 different in-app purchases available, for a total of 40 stories. The game does not always specifically ask for a part of speech - sometimes it asks for something like "a kind of liquid." It asks for adjectives and adverbs, and specifies plural or singular when it is asking for a noun. | |
$7.99 ($3.99) | Designed to help elementary aged children learn to answer abstract questions and create responses based on inference. Students read and listen to a sentence about a picture and have to choose an appropriate answer from the options offered. Choose from why, where how, what or random questions. 3 levels of play. In-app purchases for additional game packs. Can be played without sound if you turn on the option to show the text of questions. Not for non-readers. Video interview with the developer, Mobile Education Store, talking about this app, Sentence Builder and Story Builder. | |
$7.99 ($3.99) | Learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, 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. -168 images to create sentences from -Intuitive drag and drop to create sentences -Words are spoken as they are being dragged for non readers -Words can be color coded for added visual support -Word groups can be selected to simplify sentence construction -6 levels of sentence complexity Description from the developer Mobile Education Store. Review from iheartthisapp.com | |
$3.99 ($1.99) | Designed to help elementary aged children learn how to build grammatically correct sentences. Choose the correct words to create a complete sentence. The words presented are in the correct order. Video interview with the developer, Mobile Education Store, talking about this app, Question Builder and Story Builder. | |
Sentence Maker (from Grasshoppper Apps) | Free | Students drag the words on screen to make a sentence. Several levels of support available - hearing the sentence to be created, seeing a picture that goes with it, feedback when the sentence is created correctly. Comes with a selection of short sentences and pictures, but is customizable. Add your own sentences and pictures. Record the audio to go with them. Choose which sentences you want your student to be using. |
Mad Libs type game with no typing required. | ||
Free | Select the cards you want students to see, and have your students fill in the blank to practice the personal pronouns “I” and “me.” The prompts include statements like, “___ wrote a story about lions” and “The story about lions was written by ___.” Track correct and incorrect responses for up to five players at a time. Score responses manually or automatically. Manually or automatically advance to the next card/player. There are some odd sentences, but the pictures provide the opportunity for language work too. (“Why is the icecream green? What flavor do you think it might be?”) | |
$1.99 ($0.99) | A game based on the same ideas as the Grammaropolis website, where full access costs $29.99/year. Each part of speech is a Grammaropolis character - grammatical definitions and ‘character personality description’ are provided for each. Grab each word as it flies across the sky and drag it into the container held by the appropriate part of speech. Three levels of game play: Level One: Nouns, Adjectives, & Linking Verbs; Level Two: Pronouns, Prepositions, & Interjections; Level Three: Adverbs, Conjunctions, & Action Verbs. Has a high score chart. A new Grammaropolis app is due out on May 1, 2012. | |
Free | Mad Libs-type game. Three stories included, others available as in-app purchases. Has advertising. |
Apps for brainstorming, planning and telling stories or presenting information.
Title | Price |
|
Free | Choose your photos, music, and video style, add text if you want, and create a video slideshow you can save and easily share via email, text, Facebook and Twitter, or save to your camera roll. | |
Art Maker by ABC’s Play School | Free for a limited time | Create pictures, animated movies and story slideshows. Choose characters, props & background and create a picture – tap the camera to save. Tap the video camera icon, move the characters around as you’re talking and create a video (maximum 30 seconds long.) Separate pictures and video clips can be combined together to create a video. Many background options – can even use your own photo. No way to draw or add new characters other than the provided ones. The characters come from an Australian TV show for under 5’s. Australian accents in instructions. Completed pictures are saved to your photo album |
$4.99 ($2.49) | Create your own iBooks for reading on the iPad. Add pictures & text, record speech and import music, then save to iBooks. Books are shareable as ebooks, PDFs or printable. Creates fixed layout books. (Fixed layout iBooks are not ideal for long texts.) | |
Free | A recordable whiteboard. Record and replay your voice, handwriting and drawings. Add photos from the iPad camera, Photo Albums or Dropbox. Animate images by dragging them around while recording. Pause and resume recording anytime. Create multiple whiteboard pages. You can undo and redo your actions, but there is no eraser. Choose from 10 different ink colors. Pictures cannot be saved without an audio recording. Saved recordings can be viewed in the app on the iPad. Create a free account on educreations.com to save your recording there and choose who can view your lessons. Share your lessons via email, Facebook and Twitter. Embed your lessons on your blog or website. | |
Free | Create and edit text notes, to-dos and task lists; save, sync and share files; record voice and audio notes. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. Save to your photo album as a video. | |
Free | Take or select a photo. Record your voice and/or enhance your photo with visual effects. Share via Facebook, Twitter or email. | |
$4.99 (2.49) | For audio recording. Similar to the Mac version, you can record and edit audio and use musical tools. | |
Free | Draw a diagram - mind map, concept map, or flow chart - and convert it to a text outline, and vice versa. You can use Idea Sketch for brainstorming new ideas, illustrating concepts, making lists and outlines, planning presentations, creating organizational charts, and more. Diagrams and outlines can be easily shared via email. I’ve used it to make a list of words to be alphabetized. A separate bubble for each word can easily be dragged around the screen to be put in order. | |
iMovie | $4.99 ($2.49) | Similar to the Mac version, it lets you combine and edit videos and photos that you have taken with your iPad camera and quickly produce a video. Includes the ability to create multiple audio tracks, transitions between images/clips, and the use of themes. |
Free | Choose a picture from your photo album, tell a short story about it, add music from your library and sound effects from the small library in the app. Save the story to be played on your iPad, or email it as an .m4a audio file that can be opened with apps like iTunes or Windows Media Player. | |
Free | Add pictures, text and audio to create a story. Three playback modes - read to me, read by myself, and auto-play which automatically turns from page to page. Version 1.0 is a little buggy, but the developer, grasshopperapps.com has a good track record of being responsive to their customers. | |
$1.99 ($0.99) | Draw pictures or use photos. Reasonable variety of color choices for drawing, v3 different ‘brushed’ of variable thickness. Add text and audio recording. Read your finished book right inside the app! Share your story book as an ePub via email to anyone with an iPhone or iPad. Publish your story book to iBooks. | |
$0.99 ($0.49) | Take handwritten or word-processed notes. Use bullets, bold, italic, underline. Audio recording feature that automatically links recordings to your notes. Insert web clips, figures, PDFs and drawings to your notes. Crop, resize, and draw on images to make them perfect. Your text will automatically flow around them. Notes can be exported from the app as PDFs to Dropbox and via email. | |
Free | Use pictures from the photo album on your iDevice, add text and audio to create a digital book. The app is backed by solid research and the website is worth checking out as it offers suggestions for ways to use the app that are equally appropriate to other storytelling apps. | |
Pages | $9.99 ($4.99) | Available for iOS as well as for the Mac. With the new iPad you can use the voice recognition to dictate your text. The Mac version will let you create ePub books for your iDevice. The books you create can include text, images, audio, and video. |
PhotoPuppet Go (iPod) PhotoPuppet HD (iPad) | $0.99 $2.99 ($1.49) | Create an animated story with audio. This potentially is the most versatile of the animation apps in that you can build your own puppets from your own content rather than depending on characters provided by the publisher. Steeper learning curve, but way more control over the animation and soundtrack. |
$18.99 ($9.49) | Create talking photo albums and talking books. Expensive – there are many free or cheaper options but the text-to-speech feature is unusual! Each page in a Pictello Story can contain a picture, up to five lines of text, and a recorded sound or text-to-speech using high-quality voices. Stories can be shared using iTunes File Sharing or via WiFi with other Pictello users through a free account on the Pictello Sharing Server. Stories can be shared with non-Pictello users as PDF files through email or iTunes File Sharing. | |
Free $6.99 ($3.49) | Create a book-like story with text and pictures. In-app purchases or the School Edition are needed for features like using your own photos. Pictures and text only. Stories can be shared as PDF files. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Create an animated story with audio. Built-in production elements like sound effects and music. The app does some very cool things, with windows and doors opening to reveal characters, and characters being able to move around from one place to another in the castle in a way I haven't seen in other apps. It allows kids to create something that looks quite complex really quite easily. Limited possibilities for school use though with only stage set - a castle. | |
Popplet | Free $4.99 ($2.49) | Idea organizer - similar to Inspiration, with only the web view not list view. The Lite version is ad-free but limited. Lesson idea - In addition to using it as a way to organize ideas, use it as a way for students to organize words - alphabetizing them for example. |
PuppetPals (iPod) PuppetPals Director’s Pass | Free to $2.99 ($1.49) | Create an animated story with audio. $1.99 to buy all the extra available content or $0.99 for one set of characters (in-app purchases.) Alternatively, go straight for the Director’s Pass which includes all the extra content in the initial purchase. “Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time! Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later.” Video export option on the iPod/iPhone requires 3GS (or better) or comparable iPod touch. The app will run on older devices just without the video render option. |
Free | Recordable white board. Records your voice and drawings - create tutorials, or have students explain how they solved a math problem. 9 colors, but just one pen size. Share the finished recording via screenchomp.com - no need for an account. | |
Free | 50 built-in story templates, lots of colored markers for illustrating the story. Cannot add audio to the stories. Can save as ePub stories to be shared to other handheld devices. | |
Free | Whiteboard with recording features. Records your voice and drawings - create tutorials, or have students explain how they solved a math problem. Editing features are limited, but the price is right! Easily switch between drawing and erasing (as well as pausing and playing) to make your ShowMe flow from concept to concept. You can make your ShowMe as long or as short as it needs to be. Once you’re finished recording, upload your ShowMe to share with the ShowMe community (or keep it private if you prefer.) Here are some ShowMes that have have been tagged ‘ESL’. | |
SimpleMind for iPhone Simple Mind for iPad | Free, $6.99 ($3.49) | Brainstorming, idea collection and thought structuring device. SimpleMind's limited options make it a good tool for students that are new to mind mapping. If you want a universal app optimized for both iPhone and iPad use the special In-App purchase offer from the free SimpleMind+ 1.5.5 |
Free | Create short animated stories with audio.You get to choose one or more of several 'sock puppets' and a background for your show. The basic app is free but, just as you can with Puppet Pals, you can buy more puppets and backgrounds as an in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 for individual items or $4.99 for the complete package. Finished videos can be shared on Facebook or YouTube. | |
Free $2.99 ($1.49) | Turn any photo on your iPhone or iPad into an electronic postcard you can share - one picture, small amount of text, no audio. Free version has $2.99 in-app purchase option to upgrade to SodaSnap premium version. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Add images from your iPhone or iPad’s photo library or camera, arrange your photos, and then narrate the project to create an enhanced m4v video (complete with chapters). View videos on the iPad, upload to YouTube or share via email. (Universal app) Here is an example created by second graders who had been working on comparing/contrasting and vocabulary related to vehicles. | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Not a story creation app, but it works on the important concept of ‘beginning, middle and end’. Developed by by a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist to help children develop sequencing and storytelling skills. Build basic sequencing skills by ordering three cards showing Milo and Melvin performing a task. For example, cards showing Milo “Washing Hands” and “Going to the Movies” are presented in random order. The child is tasked with putting the cards in order by dragging the images into the appropriate box (numbered 1-3). Once the child has put the cards in order, they are provided with the option to play the animation demonstrating the sequence of events. Video introduction from the developer. | |
Free | Start by assembling a character (or characters) from the pieces provided in the app. There are many choices - 21 different heads to start with and 37 different faces! There are four additional sets of fairytale characters that you can buy as an in-app purchase for $0.99 per set of characters. Having created a character, you can choose different elements for the background and then add text. Each story (basically a single page with text) can be saved to camera roll, sent to Twitter or Facebook, or emailed. | |
Free | A storytelling activity for 1 to 4 players. Spin a wheel, then record a story (up to 30 seconds) about the picture. When you are happy with what you recorded, touch the ‘Next Player’ button, and pass the iPhone or iPad to the next player. The picture will be removed from the wheel, and added to the storyline on the right of the wheel. The next player will spin the wheel and record the next page of the story. There are 12 pages to a story. The last player should try to conclude the story. When they are done, they will be prompted to add a title to the story. Finished stories can be replayed in the app or shared online. Optional in-app purchases of three extra theme packs, $0.99 each. | |
$5.99 ($2.99) | An app for Speech-Language Pathologists for developing oral narrative skills. It can be adjusted for three levels of play. Includes 50 pictures as story prompts. It walks students through creating an oral narrative by asking WH questions. There are sentence starters for the easier levels. Designed to help children accomplish the following educational goals: 1) Improve paragraph formation; 2) Improve integration of ideas; and 3) Improve higher level abstractions by inference. Students record their answers to questions about a picture. The answers create a short story about the picture. Video interview with the developer talking about this app, Sentence Builder and Question Builder. | |
Free | Students can create stories with multiple pages, adding pictures, text and narration. Finished books can be shared on the internet.Very simple interface, easy to use. My review and tips on using StoryKit | |
$2.99 ($1.49) | Create an illustrated story. Comes with over 800 illustrations that can be used to bring stories to life. Also comes with customizable characters! Includes a set of story themes that younger children can use to create stories with help. After selecting a theme, answer a series of questions and then StoryPatch builds a story based on the responses. Story Patch inserts all of the text, so the child simply has to illustrate each page of the story. | |
$0.99 ($0.49) | Much like SonicPics. Finished videos can be viewed on the iPod/iPad, uploaded to YouTube or shared via email as .mp4 files. (iPod/iPhone app only) Here’s an article about using an app like Storyrobe for vocabulary work with ELLs. The basic idea will work with many of the storytelling apps listed here. | |
Free | Designed to assist struggling writers early on in elementary school by making it simple and fun to write sentences. When children start up StoryTime, they are presented with a menu screen displaying the different topics they can choose from. This screen provides a brief description and picture of each topic and lets them know if they wrote on it yet. Every topic is associated with a short video clip that the children can watch. Each topic in StoryTime is broken down into pictures from various key points in the video clip. The child can then write a sentence for each picture describing what happened in the video and creating a short story. | |
Free (has ads) | Talking Tom & Ben have become famous TV news anchors! Talk to them and they will repeat what you say in turns. Create & record funny conversations between them. Press the TV button in the app to record a video with the camera or choose one of your existing videos from your Photo gallery. Once your personal video is in the app, make Tom & Ben comment on the video. The completed video of Tom & Ben’s conversation is emailable. $0.99 to remove ads | |
Free to $9.99 | Create an animated story with audio made up of different types of scenes: a Setup, a Conflict, a Challenge, a Climax & a Resolution. Together, these scenes form the Story Arc. Toontastic guides kids through the Story Arc, introducing key concepts and helping them to define the turning points in their stories. Includes music to fit the mood of each scene. In-app purchases to buy ready-made characters and settings. $9.99 gets you all of them and future character sets too. Share through the Toontastic website. | |
$1.99 ($0.99) | Create a book with text, images and audio. Painting tools available in the app. Import photos or art from your gallery or clipboard. Voice recording, music and text to speech available right in the app. Share your book via YouTube or mail as a .mov file or PDF. Save to your Photo Gallery, or play to Apple TV via AirPlay. |
READING
Title | Price |
|
Free | A learning game where the player must remember elements of a story to complete a level. | |
eSkills mini Mod apps | $2.99 to $8.99 each ($1.99 to $4.49) | Several reading comprehension bingo-like games. Multiple choice questions. Correct answers allow the student to place a marker on a bingo style card. Reading Levels 2.0 to 6.5 (Three levels of difficulty) Lite versions contain fewer reading passages. A teacher's guide is available for download on the publisher’s website. Fact or Opinion: students read a short passage then answer if the passage is fact or opinion. Other questions have students select the passage that is a fact. Levels can be played in single player mode against the computer or multi-player against a friend. Review on Fun Educational Apps website Lite version $3.99 Reading for details: Helps students practice identifying the 5W's of reading — who, what, where, when, and why. A review on Teachers With Apps website Lite version, $3.99 Full version, $8.99 Reading for inferences: Students read a passage about the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs, then answer a question about the passage that requires inferential thinking. Lite version - $3.99 Full version - $8.99 Basic cloze practice: Students will read a short passage then select the best word to complete the sentence. Lite version, $2.99 Full version, $8.99 Word structure: students practice recognizing and understanding multi-syllabic words that are made up of base words, prefixes, and/or suffixes. Four levels of play - Affix Meaning, Find the Base Word, Find the Affix, Make a New Word. Lite version, $3.99 |
Free | Part story, part game, and part online safety lesson. When Garfield's friend receives an "F" on his report about goats for using opinions instead of facts, Professor Garfield steps in to explain the differences between a fact and an opinion (particularly with regard to the Internet), how to read with a questioning mind, and how a fact can be verified. | |
$9.99 | Read and annotate PDF files with pen, highlighter, typewriter, stamps, notes, underline, strikethrough, photo, voice recording, and date stamp functions. | |
iBooks (No download link because this app comes with the iPad.) | Free | Apple’s native book reader has the ability to become an audio book through a feature called Speak Selection. Once turned on, students can select words, sentences, or full pages to be read aloud. Tip: To turn on Speak Selection, open up Settings, tap on General, then look under Accessibility. In accessibility, click on Speak Selection, then turn on Speak Selection and adjust the speed of the voice. |
Free | Access to eBooks and audiobooks from your public, school, or college library. More than 18,000 libraries worldwide offer best-selling and classic titles via OverDrive, so use the ‘Get Books’ feature in the app to find a library near you. Digital titles from your library are borrowed just like print material. Once you find your library using ‘Get Books,’ you can browse your library’s digital collection on the web, check out a title with a valid library card, and download the title directly to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. While borrowing the digital title, you can enjoy it using the app’s eBook reader or audiobook player. Each EPUB eBook and MP3 audiobook that you check out has a lending period. The title automatically expires in the app at the end of the lending period, so there’s never a late fee. There’s even a handy countdown clock built into the app so you know how long you have to read or listen before the title expires. |
Title | Price |
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Free | 1000 words divided into small manageable sets (50 sets) of 20 words each. You can put a checkmark against the words that you have learnt, allowing you to focus on the words that need practice. Against each set will be shown the number of words that have been learnt so far. Once all the 20 words in a set have been checked a checkmark is shown against that set. You can create up to three student profiles and the app will maintain three separate profiles of checkmarks. | |
Free | Creating a list of spelling words to study is easy. Choose the list name. Add words - words are immediately checked for spelling to avoid mistakes. (NB: The dictionary will flag contractions as errors.) For each word you add, record your own audio. Three different activities: Ace it - Instead of taking a regular test, when you click to "Ace it" you have to keep repeating words until you spell them correctly. Practice - The practice mode does not track your score and offers a quick preview of each word when needed with just one click. Unscramble - Instead of instantly hearing the word and having to spell it, you see a scramble of letters and have to figure out what word they are for. Review mistakes - With each test you took, you can choose to quickly just retest any / all mistakes. In addition, on the main page, you can click to review all the words that were misspelled on their last attempt. Lesson idea: use this app for vocabulary review by recording a definition to go with the word instead of just reading the word aloud. | |
Free (in-app purchases) | Includes 39 sight words for preschool children. Each word can be spoken by either a male or female voice, and then the student can select the word from a list of words shown on the screen. Additional word packs (kindergarten, first, second and third grade) are also available for purchase ($0.99 each). | |
Free $3.99 ($1.99) | Created by an ESL teacher in Japan. Sight words/vocabulary app. 2 to 4 players sit around the iPad and play 3 rounds of "word snap" matching images with the correct answer. The player who guesses the word correctly first, earns a point. The player with the most points at the end of 3 rounds is declared the winner. The game is customizable. (Free version is only customizable with a $2.99 in-app purchase.) Futaba focuses on sight words. Futaba Classroom includes math, time and other options. | |
Little Speller apps from grasshopperapps | Free to $0.99 | 4 different apps. Spelling practice with pictures to go with every word. Customizable - add your own words with pictures and audio. http://www.grasshopperapps.com/apps/first-words/ http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sight-words-by-little-speller/id420828421?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kids-learning-little-speller/id420102673?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/preschool-games-little-speller/id422499871?mt=8 |
$0.99 | ‘Magnetic’ letters. No sorting them back into their container, or running out of particular letters! | |
$0.99 ($0.49) $1.99 ($0.99) | Two language arts apps, for 1st and 2nd grade. Skills addressed in this app are: reading (sight words); vocabulary; spelling (word families); sentence structure - capitalization, punctuation; logical deduction using words. Murky Reef also has an app that includes the the reading and language arts materials from both of these apps with math, science and critical thinking. $4.99 ($2.49) Video from the developer about the reading, science. math app. | |
Free | Create 10 different customized spelling lists and practice spelling them with 2 different modes of play. Presents the words in the same order that they were entered in the list, with no option to randomize them. :-( | |
Free | Spelling Cat is a feline and jazz-themed app to help students improve their spelling. There are three games within this app. In the first one, students will listen to a word pronounced within the app, and then they'll spell it. They can also unscramble words or fill in a missing letter. Teachers can create their own word lists for students to study. | |
$0.99 | 300 Dolch sight words. Four different games. The ‘rewards’ can be distracting from the main goal of working on spelling. No visuals to help with meaning. ★Word BINGO. Listen to the word the BINGO Bug speaks and tap on the corresponding word on the screen. Get four words correct vertically, horizontally or diagonally to get BINGO and win! The quicker you get BINGO the better your score. ★Spelling Practice. Tap and drag the letters to spell the word the BINGO bug speaks. Spell ten words to play a bonus game! You can choose to show or hide the spelling of each word in game settings. ★Word Fling . You have one hundred seconds to find as many BINGO Bugs as possible and fling them into the warp zone! To find the bug, tap the word the BINGO bug speaks. If you tap the correct word, a BINGO Bug and a bungee cord will appear. Pull downward and left or right to aim the BINGO Bug toward the warp zone hole. Let go to fling the BINGO Bug! Bounce the bug off of the wall before going into the warp zone for more points. The game will end once you incorrectly recognize three words. ★Word It Up. Stop the word blocks from stacking up to the top of the screen! Tap on the word the BINGO bug speaks to get rid of the block. Tilt the device to change where the block lands. Try not to click on the wrong word or you’ll lose points and the block will stay forever. | |
$2.99 | Lets kids hear the sounds of letters and words using a talking movable alphabet. Featuring text to speech capabilities, the app can pronounce and spell-check an unlimited number of original words built using the movable alphabet. Word Wizard also provides spelling practice with a list of more than 1,400 items. |
These apps can be useful for creating pictures to use in the storytelling apps and can also be used as digital whiteboards. There are LOTS of them. Many of the free ones have ads.
Title | Price |
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$0.99 | 5 colors of chalk, an eraser, clear button. Can save pictures to the camera roll. | |
Free (has ads) | Paint with multiple fingers. Funny sounds paired with stamps. Doodle and stamp all over your own pictures. Lots of drawing tools: paintbrush, glitter, chalk, text, stencils, smudge and more! 44,000-colors! Share your doodles via email. Has ads that would be very tempting for students to click on - icons for other apps that look as though they might be stamps. In-app purchase ($0.99) removes them. There isn’t a version where you can pay upfront for no ads. | |
Free | Symmetry drawings drawing app. 4 different pen tools, a choice of different backgrounds, and built-in stamps. You can send the finished image via email or save to Photo album. You can ‘earn’ points to download more stamps by using the in-app purchase links to download other apps. Very slow to start. | |
Free | Simple interface. an unlimited variety of colors in the color picker, choose from a defined subset of colors or colors you previously used. Undo and redo buttons to help you fix your missteps. Changeable thickness eraser. Draw lines, curves, and points with a realistic rounded brush | |
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Free | Annotate: Add arrows, shapes and text to existing images - Create: Draw something new - Edit: Reposition, recolor and remove your annotations at will - Share: Send your sketches and annotations over Twitter and email - Present: Show your work in real time via AirPlay on Apple TV | |
Free | Whiteboard with recording features. Records your voice and drawings - create tutorials, or have students explain how they solved a math problem. Editing features are limited, but the price is right! | |
Whiteboard Lite: Collaborative Drawing (has ads) | Free | Not only a whiteboard, but will connect via wifi or Bluetooth with Whiteboard running on other iPads so that two people can work collaboratively. Images can be saved to the Photo album, posted to Facebook or uploaded to an online gallery. Free version has advertising. |
Some of the storytelling apps have no way to add text to the images - you can use these apps to add text to the images before using them in another app.
Title | Price |
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Free | Add Dymo printer-type labels to your pictures. 11 different label types. In-app purchases for two additional label styles. (four labels per style.) | |
Free $2.99 | Add captions and speech bubbles to images. The Lite version is free but adds a logo to the edited image. Use the PhotoBooth-style warping effects to add some fun. Turn people into caricatures of themselves or give them bizarre expressions. Images can be saved to the Photo album or emailed. | |
$1.99 | Create your own comic strip and share with your friends. Has a variety of bubbles, layouts and action words. |
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Free | CommonCore standards. Quickly find standards by subject, grade, and subject category. Does not include state-specific standards. | |
Make Dice Lite (has ads) | Free $0.99 ($0.49) | Lesson ideas: lots of ways to use these customizable dice. For e.g.: Prepositions – kids act out the preposition and say a sentence to explain it – “My pencil is under my chair.” Synonyms/Antonyms: students say the synonym/antonym of the word they roll. Add curriculum vocab & have students define it and use it in sentences. Give students the singular and students name the irregular plural. Lite (free) version has advertising. |
iTranslate (has ads) | Free $1.99 ($0.99) | Translates words, phrases and even whole sentences into over 50 languages. Requires an Internet connection. $2.99 in-app purchase to remove ads, but iTranslate+ – the ad-free version - is $1.99 ($0.99) |
Free | View shows like NOVA on demand. Requires an Internet connection. | |
TeachMe Toddler, Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade | $0.99 | 4 separate apps - one for each grade level. Each app lets the kids work on a variety of skills – reading, spelling, addition, subtraction. Manipulatives are available for help with the math if needed. In Teach Me First and Second grade students write their answers for math and spelling questions and the app reads them using smart technology! TeachMe can show them how to write the correct answer including the proper stroke order. Can track up to 4 different kids’ progress per iDevice. |
$0.99 | Create your own audio flashcards, with question and answer. |
A list of apps for English Language Learners from iosteacher@yahoo.com http://ipodteacher.blogspot.com Page of