Montessori Crosswords

 

 

Bottom Line: It's not an app that most children are going to run back to on their own, but the depth of settings and tremendous attention to detail make it a very strong choice for work on phonics development.

 

 

The focus of Montessori Crosswords, by L’Escapadou, is on the phonics of letters and is comparable to the moveable alphabet in Montessori learning. For those unfamiliar with Montessori, the Parent Tips file in the app, accessible from the home screen, provides a good tutorial.

There are three levels of play in this app, with a total of 300+ words. Level one is simple words with three sounds. Level two contains words with consonant blends and level three includes words of any complexity. In levels two and three, the user chooses between a single-word game and the crossword activity; level one contains just single words.

Each word is presented with a color card next to letter boxes, with the alphabet below. The top left on the screen has small buttons to go back to the home screen, change the settings, get help, or get a new word. The settings are comprehensive, allowing the user to flip the color of the vowels and consonants and  change many of the audio settings.

The help button puts visuals right on top of the play screen to show what to do, and disappears when the screen is tapped again. These buttons are also small and unobtrusive, making them less likely to be a distraction to the child using the app. 

After every word is constructed, the screen changes to the interactive animation. Colorful stars, hearts, bubbles, and more flow across the screen, moving where a finger touches. This is a nice animation, and more fun for kids than you might expect. The duration the child is rewarded with play can be altered in the settings with the default at unlimited and the user has to tap the back arrow in the upper left to do more work. Setting it to 30 seconds seemed about ideal for our needs. It was enough time to play, but it automatically moved back to the work before the child lost interest.

In addition to the three levels, there are three more options on the home screen: focus on one sound allows the user to limit word presentation to a particular vowel or consonant sound or blend; Christmas words provides Christmas pictures like “Santa” and “elf”; and Moveable Alphabet provides a screen with just the letters. Tapping a letter moves it to the center for more exploration. Letters can be rotated, expanded, and then swept away.

As my daughter is in her second year of Montessori education, I was excited for her to try this app. At 4 ½, her literacy skills are well developed and she had no difficulty with the level one simple words with three sounds. Level two, with consonant blends, was perfect for her level, and she enjoyed playing. Some words led to a vocabulary lesson—pram, iris, mole, and cot are presented with the more familiar pot, bat, belt, and sheep. Playing with my daughter helped her learn some of these new words, but a child can play independently even without full understanding of the vocabulary.

The letters can be presented as uppercase, lowercase, or script and the alphabet set at the bottom of the page can be displayed alphabetically (with the vowels set in blue) or with the vowels grouped together at the beginning (following the Montessori Method). A sound clue for each empty tile can be turned on or off, as can the hint in the upper right that reveals the written word.

The ability to focus on one particular sound makes it ideal for educators and use in any classroom—first and second graders often learn spelling by word patterns, focusing one week on ‘long a’ and the next on ‘short e’, while kindergarteners often have a letter of the week.    

I also used the app with my kindergarten students at school, focusing on the words that started with /p/. We worked on other phonological awareness skills (blending together, isolating the final sound), along with vocabulary and answering questions about that picture. The students were eager to take turns and to earn their turn to play with the interactive animation.

One other great feature of this app is how vowel digraphs are presented. In the word “thread,” for example, when the /e/ is tapped on the alphabet board, both the /a/ and /e/ wiggle. When the fourth or fifth empty square is tapped for a sound clue, they both are highlighted to make the sound. In addition, silent letters do not make a sound when they are placed into the word, such as silent /e/ or the /gh/ combination in “night."

I do think the pictures are too small, especially in proportion to the empty space on the screen. I played on my iPad, and have to be very small on an iPhone screen. In addition, in the crossword puzzle, shared squares may have the same letter, but not the same sound. For example, in one puzzle, “train” and “tire” intersected on the /i/. However, tapping that square always resulted in the /ai/ sound, instead of the long /i/ in tire. This is probably unavoidable in the app, but if the child starts with the “wrong” word, the vowel sound produced when tapping the square will be inaccurate. 

The developers recommend this app is for children of all ages but ideal it for ages 3-8. My 10-year old son’s literacy skills and spelling were way beyond even the third level, but my 8-year old definitely was challenged by the third level, including some hard words for him to spell, like “pillow,” “turnip,” and “coffee.” It will never be the first app he reaches for, but for some “mom-enforced” spelling practice time, we will use this app. My 4 ½-year old loved it, and I also will continue to use it frequently at school for therapy. It’s not flashy, or designed especially to entertain, and will almost certainly work best as an app for an adult to work together, but it still managed to be fun for nearly every child I worked with who tried it.

Unfortunately there is no free trial/lite version of this app, but if you have a child who is learning to read and spell (approximately 3-8, with individual variations), I highly recommended Montessori Crosswords to provide practice for a solid phonics foundation. 

*****

If you would like to download Montessori Crosswords please support smartappsforkids.com by using the links provided. Thanks for your support!

iPad/iPhone ($2.99):     U.S.     Canada     U.K.     Australia

 

This review was written by Heather Hetler, a former Spell Bowl team member who now has a much more solid phonological base after spelling over 100 words on this app. Heather works as an elementary school SLP and is a full-time graduate student in Speech-Language Pathology. L’Escapadou is an advertiser at smartappsforkids.com. 

Comments

[Robert A. cyme]

Medtronic pumps now link to Bayer Contour

Nathanael's pretty exited about the newer contour link. Our rep said it's built on the contour USB design, Nathanael's used one of those for a short time last year after we got a few free that came with 25strips each, plus I had about 200 strips from a bunch of contoug didgets that we got last year also. He really likes the look and design of the contour usb. It looks a lot more like an mp3 player than a glucose meter.Â

It's also longer and narrower, similar in size to the onetouch mini meters are. The only plus or minus depending on how you feel about it, is that the battery is rechargeable. The meter comes with a usb plug and usb extention cable (all standard type of usb products, nothing proprietary) to plug the meter into. You can plug it directly into the wall adaptor or attach the extention cable into the plug and meter onto the extention.

I asked Nathanael if he wants [url=http://authenticviviennewestwood.webs.com]images of vivienne westwood shoes[/url] to switch and I think he does. also, he keeps his meter/strips/lancet in his spibelt all the time. When he was using the contour usb last year, I felt like they fit together in his belt a little better since it's long and narrow.

Also, as a bonus, if you do decide to switch, then let me know. If your kids have DS or DS lites, then I can send up some contour USB meters and game to go with them if you want. But, we have 2 insurnace co's (DH's insurnace through work which basically covers nothing, and state medicaid) medicaid for some reason stopped covering contoiur a few months ago (no clue why, as they have been coving all brands of D testing supplies) but the MM rep told me that they are set to add contour strips back in in Jan. So we will have to wait till that happens to switch meters, but we probably will once that happens.

The Countour Didget meter, is it's own meter (use the regualar contour strips - same as the contour USB) and the meter comes with a 'carnival' game. when you use that meter to test bg, and then plug the meter into a DS or DS [url=http://authenticviviennewestwood.webs.com]vivienne westwood melissa shoes sale uk[/url] lite (the meter uses the gameboy advance slot so the dsi and 3ds's don't work with it) then the meter uploads extra coins based on how often you checn bg. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Please review the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use before using this site. Your use of the site indicates your agreement to be bound by the Terms of Use.

[insanity]

http://yayaxinqin.mittdjur.se