Articulate It! An APP Review and Giveaway times TWO!

If you’re looking for an app that knows how to help you COMMUNICATE IT, FACILITATE IT and INCORPORATE IT in your speech therapy sessions, then you must get ARTICULATE IT!  I love using this app with my “artic” kids!  And to help me CELEBRATE IT, I’m giving away a copy thanks to the generosity of Smarty Ears!  (along with a copy of my TpT item–Phonological Awareness Football!) —A giveaway times TWO!!   But first, let’s walk through the functions of this very comprehensive tool that you’re going to want to add to your therapy regimen.

The first thing worth mentioning is that Smarty Ears recently updated this app’s visual appearance and layout (version 3.2).  While I  thought it was great before, it’s even better now!  The graphics are kid-friendly and visually appealing to your younger students yet just as appropriate for your middle schoolers. (Personally, I love the cute little dinosaur featured on various screens.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get things rolling, enter your student’s names and select a picture or avatar to represent them.  The kids always have fun picking out their characters from the multitude of choices that are available.   Up to  6 players can participate in a session…..

……but first chose the areas you will be addressing.  I love how well organized this app is.  It has broken down the sounds by  phonemes, phonological processes, manner of articulation, and number of syllables.   This way, you can fully customize the specific goals of each student all in one place at one time.  While Johnny may be working on /s/ in the initial position, you can also work with Sally on final consonant deletion—in the same session, at the same time and keep track of their progress while you’re at it!

If focusing on phonemes, (including 23 phonemes plus r-clusters, l-clusters and s-clusters) tap to select which ones you will be addressing.

Next chose the position you will be targeting—initial, medial and/or final positions of words.  In addition, you can opt to select/remove words from the list of possibilities for that sound/position.

This app contains over 1000 images. Most of the pictures are realistic, true to life representations of the actual words, which is always a great feature.   After tapping on the picture, a verbal prompt is given of the targeted picture.   You can then mark it as correct/incorrect by tapping on the check mark or “X” symbol at the bottom of the screen.    Addressing the phrase or sentence level instead?  Tap on the color-coded tabs below the picture and you will be provided with a phrase and sentence for each picture as well.

The following phonological processes can be addressed as well: fronting, stopping, deaffrication, initial consonant deletion, backing, gliding, final consonant deletion and consonant cluster reduction.

 

Zeroing in on Manner of Articulation?  Chose from affricates, plosives, liquids, fricatives, glides, nasals and clusters.

And finally, for those kiddos working on syllabification/multi-syllables,  you can focus on 1, 2, 3 or 4-syllable words (also at the word, phrase and sentence levels.)   So far, none of the other articulation apps that I own provide this feature.  A nice extra for the students on your caseload that are addressing this goal!

So if all those wonderful features  haven’t already sold you on this app, I have a few more points of interest to highlight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1–The app’s settings can be customized to keep/remove the sounds after a response is marked.

2–You can turn on/off the automatic picture changing.

3– You can remove the visual counter at the bottom of the screen that shows how many correct response the student has made. (I know many kids get hung up on wanting to keep track of their scores.  Some even tend to get upset when they see they are not doing well. ) This feature is a good way to remove this distraction and keep the session focused and positive.

4-There is a note-taking option—a nice feature if you want to keep specific information about a student’s performance contained in the app and refer back to it at a later time.

5-There is a “rotate” button which allows you to change the orientation of the picture (moves 90 degrees for every tap) so that your student can be looking at the image while sitting across from you (think flip-book).

6-Want to record your students responses and play them back?  This app allows for voice recording too—great for increasing awareness and self-monitoring!!

Had enough fun for one day?  Complete your session by tapping on the home button and proceeding to the bottom of the screen where you can click on the “reports” button. Here you can review student data.  It will break down data for the phonemes targeted, the positions they were targeted in , and an overall accuracy percentage. You can also share your data via email, or print out a copy for your records.

 

What would I change or add??  Not too much! However, I’d love to see some sort of reward system in place (similar to the trophies given in Smarty Ears language app, Language Empires).  I think it would help keep the kids interested, motivated and entertained.

 

So there you have it–an extremely comprehensive, well-organized, visually appealing app for addressing articulation on so many levels.   I used it frequently before the update, but find myself reaching for it even more now that a few changes and additions have occurred.   Smarty Ears has put this app on sale for a short time, so you can grab it for $24.99 until April 27th.  After that, it’s back to full price for $38.99.  Regardless of the price point, you will get your money’s worth and find yourself using it over and over with your caseload.

 

Smarty Ears generously provided me with a code to give away on my site. No other form of compensation was provided.

 

And now for the giveaway!!!

 

To go along with this wonderful app, I am giving away a copy of Phonological Awareness Football, available in my TpT store!  This download includes 21 pages.  2 pages of each color-coded helmet category for: identifying how many syllables in a word, what sound begins/ends a word, rhyming, syllable segmentation. Blank cards for each category are also included to add your own words to cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How great is that?!  A code and a download!!  You can enter the rafflecopter giveaway below! Contest ends April 30th at midnight!

a Rafflecopter giveaway