iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

reading

Teach Your Monster to Read On Your iPad

by

Screen Shot 2014-10-10 at 8.35.36 AM Teach Your Monster to Read is a fun game designed to help students improve the speed and accuracy with which they recognize letters, sounds, and words. Teach Your Monster to Read originally launched as a free web service (it is still available online). Recently, I learned from David Kapuler that Teach Your Monster to Read is now available as an iPad app too.

In Teach Your Monster to Read students play the roles of friendly monsters in a make-believe world. As they move through the game they have to complete short activities based on various letters, sounds, and words. As they move through the game, students can earn prizes for their monsters and customize their monsters’ appearances.

Teach Your Monster to Read is an expensive app at $4.99. If you’re not sure if it is what your students need, try the online demos first.

Quickly Organize Leveled Reading Lists With Book Wizard Mobile

by

Screen Shot 2014-09-15 at 12.26.54 PM Book Wizard is a Scholastic service that allows you to create and organize book lists according to reading levels and students’ interests. Book Wizard Mobile is a free iPad and iPhone app that you can use to scan a book’s barcode to quickly discover its lexile measurement, grade level equivalent, and guided reading level. Within the app you can create book lists and edit the existing book lists that you have created in your Scholastic.com teacher profile.

Screen Shot 2014-09-15 at 12.24.53 PM

Lists that you create on Book Wizard Mobile can be shared with others through a variety of channels including email, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Book Wizard Mobile is also available as an Android app.

21 Great Apps for Pre-K through 2nd Grade Teachers to Try This Summer

by

21The summer is a great time to explore new-to-you iPad apps that you might want to add to the iPads that you have in your classroom. Each day this week I’m going to share a selection of apps appropriate for four ranges of pre-K-12 grades. Today, I have 21 apps for Pre-K through 2nd grade. I will share apps for 3rd through 5th grade tomorrow. Apps for grades six through eight will be shared on Wednesday. Apps for 9th through 12th grade will be shared on Thursday.

If you would like a copy of this slidedeck, open the slide editor (gear icon) then select “make a copy” from the file menu.

Learn Vowel Sounds With These Clever Goats

by

phonics_fun Clever Goats is an iPad app development company that has produced a handful of nice iPad apps designed to help students learn to read and write. Phonics Fun: Long and Short Vowel Sounds is one of the Clever Goats apps that I recently tried.

Phonics Fun: Long and Short Vowel Sounds asks students to trace letters, identify vowels within words, and then identify objects whose names contain short and long vowel sounds. A half-dozen activities is available for each vowel. Clear, narrated directions are provided to students as they work through the app. Feedback is provided to students at the completion of each activity screen.

IMG_0161

Phonics Fun: Long and Short Vowel Sounds is currently (April 28, 2014) available for free. The app usually costs $1.99.

Scholastic Reading Timer – More Than Just a Reading Log

by

Screen Shot 2014-03-27 at 12.24.35 PMScholastic Reading Timer is a free iPad app for parents and children for tracking time spent reading. The app offers the option for children to log the time they spend reading every day. Alternatively, parents can log the time for their children. The app supports logging the times of multiple students. Beyond the reading time logs, Scholastic Reading Timer contains lists of suggested readings for children according to their ages.

Screen Shot 2014-03-27 at 1.00.38 PM

The Scholastic Reading Timer iPad app isn’t the most robust app that you’ll try this week, but it is good for what it is designed to do. If you’re in need of a simple way for your students and their parents to record the amount of time spent reading, this app could be for you.