iPad Apps for School

The Best iOS Apps for Students and Teachers

spelling

ABC Minsters – Quick Lessons on the Alphabet

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Screen Shot 2014-01-29 at 6.24.45 PM ABC Minsters is an iPad app offering short lessons on recognizing letters of the alphabet, handwriting, and spelling. The app has four basic steps that students repeat to learn each letter of the alphabet.

When students open ABC Minsters they can choose any letter of the alphabet to get started. The chosen letter will appear on the screen in uppercase and lowercase with simple directions for how to write the letter. Students simply trace the letters with their fingers. After correctly tracing the letters students will see a screen filled with objects whose names begin with the letter they just traced. Students tap the objects to hear their names read aloud. One object will be selected for a spelling exercise in which students drag letters into place to try to spell the name of featured object. The final before moving onto a new letter is to put the letter of choice back into its proper place in the sequence of the alphabet.

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ABC Minsters could be a good little app for students in pre-K through grade 1. Readers outside of the U.S. should note that the app pronounces Z in the American style of “zee” rather than “zed.”

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ABC Minsters is currently priced at $0.99

Word Wizard Helps Students Sound-out and Spell New Words

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word_wizard Word Wizard is an iPad app that elementary school students can use to learn the sounds of the letters of the alphabet, sound-out words, and spell new words. The app has two primary modes to it. In the “Movable Alphabet” mode students can drag and drop letters on a board to try to create words. In Movable Alphabet mode each time a student touches a letter the narrator makes the sound of that letter. If a student combines letters, the narrator will make the sound of that letter combination. That pattern continues until a word has been created.

In Word Wizard’s Spelling Quiz mode students select a word list from the gallery of lists. After selecting a list students have to spell the words that the narrator reads to them. To help students spell each word each letter is pronounced while the student drags it onto the letter board.

Word Wizard offers four narrator voices to choose from. I found the “Tracy” voice with the US accent easiest to understand. There is also a “Rachel” voice with a UK accent, a “Tyler” voice with an Australian accent, and another US voice called “Heather.”

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Word Wizard is currently priced at $2.99.

Spelling Monster – A Fun iPad App for Practicing Spelling Words

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Screen Shot 2014-01-02 at 12.00.43 PM Spelling Monster is an iPad app (free and paid versions available) that students will enjoy using to practice spelling words. On Spelling Monster students can create their own lists of words or use lists shared with them (sharing only available in paid version). The app contains a half dozen games through which students can practice spelling the words in their lists. Spelling Monster keeps track of the number of times a game is played and the percentage of words spelled correctly.

Students do not have to create an account to use Spelling Monster. The app can be used without a connection to the Internet.

Endless Reader – A Continuation of Endless Alphabet to Help Students Learn to Read

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endless_readerEndless Reader is a fun iPad app from the same developers that brought us the popular Endless Alphabet iPad app. Endless Alphabet helps students learn the letters of the alphabet. Endless Reader picks up where Endless Alphabet leaves off and helps students learn to read and spell.

Endless Reader shows students words for each letter of the alphabet. The app reads the words to students. After hearing a word students have to drag and drop letters into place to spell the word they just heard. Before moving onto the next word in the series students see and hear the word in context where they then try to drag the word into the correct place in the sentence they’ve just seen.

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Endless Reader is free to install. The free installation comes with the first six letters of the alphabet unlocked. An in-app purchase ($2.99) is required in order to unlock the full alphabet.

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H/T to David Kapuler. 

Spellyfish – Fun Phonics iPad Apps

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spellyfish Spellyfish is a pair of iPad apps designed to help students learn phonics. Spellyfish Short A Words focuses on teaching students how to recognize and spell consonant-vowel-consonant words that contain the letter “A” and the short “A” sound. Spellyfish Short I Words teaches students to recognize and spell short consonant-vowel-consonant words containing the letter “I.”

Both of the Spellyfish apps work in the same way. After the initial set-up of the app (some students may need help from an adult for the set-up) students are presented with an interactive tutorial on the sounds they are going to practice recognizing throughout the app. After each tutorial students try out their new skills by spelling a series of short words. As they type each word the Spellyfish cartoon character pronounces the sounds that each letter makes. If a student spells a word correctly the Spellyfish sounds-out the word then pronounces it as a whole.

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The Spellyfish apps currently cost $0.99 USD. The apps support multiple user profiles.