Fun with Verbs & Sentences HD by Hamaguchi Apps

Fun with Verbs & Sentences HD
 by Hamaguchi Apps for Speech, Language & Auditory Development. $15.99 for iPad or iPhone version at time of review; Lite versions, 99 cents each. )

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Fun with verbs & Sentences by Hamaguchi Apps is a sentence building/ syntax/ verb tense app developed for young learners with special needs. It is also great for working on expanding basic vocabulary and concepts like he/she. It's getting a lot of use with my young students with developmental delays- it is a natural transition for graduates of the developer's app, First Phrases, another big hit with my young students. If you are familiar with other apps by this developer, you will know they are engaging and well suited as a therapy tool- the settings are very flexible and include data tracking.

Watch a video tutorial of Fun with Verb and Sentences here:
http://theappyladies.com/fun-with-verbs-sentences-hd
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How to play

As you will soon find out, you are not limited to one sentence structure - the settings allow you to practice several different sentence structures: Verb only, Subject +Verb, Subject + Verb + Object, and even Subject +Verb+ Prepositional phrase. You can also choose random play where the latter three sentence structures are presented randomly. You can use either present continuous (is + ing) or select from both regular and irregular past tense verbs. To play, the child is prompted to pick each element of his/ her sentence from a field of three. First three choices for the subject are presented, while the narrator asks "Who do you want?"

These choices are always the same- The girl, the boy, the bear, or you can change the settings to use he/she instead of the boy/ the girl/ the bear. The child will continue to be presented with three choices for the verb/action, for the object or prepositional phrase. The narrator will confirm the child's choice by repeating each part back. After the child has picked out each element of the sentence structure, a narrator will speak the sentence (this narration can be shut off in Settings) and an animation will be shown illustrating it. (Much appreciated feature: Touch the screen to pause the animation if needed!)

After the animation the child will have a chance to tap the color coded buttons to hear each part of the sentence. The child can still view the animation above the sentence structure buttons. A recording button allows the child to record himself. There is a listen button where the child can play back what he/she said, and a "Check" button to touch with the correct language model spoken. Then a "prize" will be awarded (control how often this plays in Settings). The child will pick from 10 items (dinosaur, car, train, butterfly etc.), and that item will be hidden in a bubble for the child to discover.


Practice sentence structures at the child's pace

The app provides scaffolding to help children build language skills at their own pace. When the "verb only" setting is chosen for example, the narrator will still state the Subject, then the Verb "The girl". "Pop". and model expanded utterances, "The girl is popping. She's popping". After being presented with the model, only the green Verb button will show, and the child will be asked "What is the girl doing?" The child can record an answer and check their recording against the recorded verb model "popping".

Flexible Settings

I have already mentioned many of the flexible settings while describing how to play above, and there are quite a few more. You can choose to display text along with the narrations, and even turn the recording off if desired (all my kids adore this feature though!). You can choose to NOT select parts of a sentence, and instead only practice recording sentences via the "Watch & Say" option in Settings. You can control whether the next screen is automatically shown, or whether the screen change is manual. You can choose to shut off the progress tracker, and hide scores.You can hide visual support (color coded circles with icons) under the Cueing button in Settings.

You can also easily add new student profiles to the app, set up new groups to add those students to, or access their data via the Users tab on the main screen.

My favorite feature however is the Verbs button, where you can select EXACTLY which verbs you want the child to practice, and control which verb tenses are used. You can also select 'random' verb play under this feature.

Data Collection/Scoring

There is a scoring system on the left hand side of the screen. The therapist will need to tap the ovals representing each sentence element to record a correct response. After a session ends the scores can be saved and a thorough report for the session can be viewed then or at a later time. The report will display the settings used along with scores for each type of sentences structure and items missed etc. You can also create a PDF of the report, send it via email or even print if you have a wifi enabled printer.

Parental Lock Feature

I don't need this feature for this particular app since I work side by side with a child when using it, but it always makes me happy to see developers think about limiting social media and App Store access for their young users. This particular lock requires a two digit addition problem to unlock external links to the App Store, where additional apps from the developer can be viewed.



Wish List

A request from one of the SLPs I work with: Ability to change to third person singular for sentence structure , i.e. "The girl knocks on the door." (Another app from this developer- First phrases-comes close to this. It uses an imperative Verb+Object or Verb+ the + Object structure, "Eat the banana" "Pop the bubble" "Open the door" etc.)

A setting where all 3 items must be presented before a child can select. I have a student who impulsively taps the first or second choice before all the choices have been presented.

I would love for the prize to make a sound and do a short animation when found hidden in the bubbles. They kind of just unceremoniously appear after the bubble pops and then grow bigger in the center of the screen. It would be so fun if the train let out a whistle or a puff of steam and so on.

Ability to set the color for each sentence element- to better fit in with existing sentence structure color coding systems we are currently using.

For scoring-Ability to have a "partial" correct response noted somehow, for when my students say "eat" instead of "eating" etc. perhaps a note feature accessible during game play?

Enter below to win a free code for Fun with Verbs & Sentences HD:

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iSequences Review

iSequences by Fundación Planeta Imaginario (iPad and Google Play, $2.99 at time of review)
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iSequences is an app for practicing sequencing skills/ ordering of events, available in the Apple App Store and Google Play. I am very pleased to have these sequencing card sets as we have actually used them to work on a variety of goals: ordering of events, using past tense, story re-tell, using descriptors, using pronouns, and so on.  The kids find the sets engaging.  Another huge plus is that the app is multilingual.  You can access sequencing activities in English, Spanish, Catalan, English or German.  Update March 2015- the iOS app version now allows you to add your own photo sequences!

There are two levels of sequence cards to choose from. The settings are very flexible- you can select or deselect an entire level to work with, or only select certain sets of cards that you want to focus on.  There is a in-app manual but the interface is very easy to navigate anyway. There are both 3-picture and 4-picture sequencing sets in each level for activities with titles including: Washing your hands, Getting dressed, The banana peel, Traveling by plane etc. there are 100 sets to use covering a variety of activities- there is even one called "Turning on the iPad".

These are not step by step visuals for teaching a child what to do, these are pictures you can use to assess how well a child can recognize the correct order of events in a sequence. The child is presented with 3 or 4 cards mixed up randomly- the child must drag them into the empty spaces under the cards into the correct order. If the child is correct he/she will be rewarded with a quick animation.  If the child is incorrect, the images will be rescrambled and the child can try to put them in the right order again.  During play if the screen has not been touched after a number of seconds, an alert will sound to remind the user of the task at hand (A recent update has made the length of time for this alert adjustable- This is really helpful for students who need more processing time).  The app will also prevent a child from automatically tapping another response after a mistake- the picture dims a bit and doesn't accept touches for a moment in order to allow the child time to choose more carefully.  

After each sequence is completed  the child is asked to predict what will happen next/ how a character will feel in the sequence by choosing one of three additional cards.  In the feelings activity  if you tap the wrong choice it will simply disappear as an option; another can be chosen until the correct one is picked . For the what happens next feature, the correct answer flash after a mistake; once the child drags the correct image into place an animation will play again.  The kids really enjoy the prediction activity and it gets them talking- I have them explain both why an answer was correct and why the incorrect choices were wrong.  The latest update has made this a lot easier- you can now control the length of pause time between the animation and the next sequence.  Some of the incorrect choices are really silly, which they get a kick out of- like the mailman tearing up the little boy's letter after his friend receives it. (The prediction activity can be turned off via settings).

This does have links to social media but because I have only used this app in a therapy setting where the iPad is in my full control, it has not been an issue for me. If you plan to have a child practice on their own and this concerns you, put the app in airplane mode first.

 I have a couple of wish list items that would be icing on the cake- I'd like if the empty slots the child puts cards into could be labeled 1,2,3, (4). as a simple visual guide for where the child should drag the cards. I also wish there 5-picture sets of cards, as some of my kids are ready for this.   iSequences is a very useful, affordable therapy tool to have in my app collection and I look forward to seeing what comes next from  Fundación Planeta Imaginario.    

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The screenshots below are of the updated iOS app allowing the addition of your own photo sequences: